Can you relate? There's a Sellevision Shop-aholic host whose shock at her AmEx bill drives her to Amazon.com to look for a book to help curb her addiction. She finds eight and clicks them all, "along with a book about investing in Chinese artifacts. She logged off feeling tremendous relief."

If laughter is the best medicine, this book *is* relief.


Sedaris meets Vonnegut   August 23, 2000
 14 out of 16 found this review helpful

I picked up this book because I liked the cover - read the first page in the store, and rushed home to buy it on Amazon. On the basis of that first page, I had prepared myself for the kind of involvement and hilarity that I have come to expect from David Sedaris, and I was not disappointed. Burroughs is a master storyteller - he gets the details right, creates characters that leap from the page, and makes you howl with laughter. This is a great romp through the world of home shopping networks, if we could but peek behind the scenes and infuse it with the wicked imagination it surely begs for. I hated tosee Sellevision end, because ther is nothing more therapeutic than a great laugh -- I eagarly await Mr. Burrough's next novel. In fact I am going to sit right here and wait. Hurry......


"My Name is Jean, And I am a Home Shopaholic..."   December 9, 2000
 14 out of 18 found this review helpful

Well, blow me down. What a perfectly hilarious depiction of a fictitious home shopping network. I laughed...I cried...and for a change, I was busy reading so I didn't buy anything from those tv vultures that masquerade as my best friends.

It was quite shocking and a bit more down and dirty that the recipe book you bought last month from channel 33 featuring some old bat's rice krispies cookie recipe, but it was all in fun. Can you be kind hearted and nasty at the same time? All's well that ends well, as Shakespeare said. The author is a teeny bit of a bitch though, and we just have to love him for it.

I know that he, like me, must be a late night shopaholic. I got hooked feeding one of my kids when he was an infant...what is THIS GUY'S EXCUSE?

Anyway, if you love to laugh, and you can handle a bit of bwahhhhaaaaahahaha nastiness...buy this book. It'll be the last thing you buy for the day, I bet. Unless you turn on the tv.

best, jean


HILARIOUS   August 30, 2000
 13 out of 14 found this review helpful

I haven't laughed out loud so much since I read FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Burroughs captures the lunacy of a cumsumer culture with the adroitness of a much more seasoned author. His vantage point is one of unhampered voyeurist....it's like Survivor for QVC, Even if you've never watched the ubiquitous home shopping networks and infomercials that prowl the cable system, you will be uncontrollably amused by his story. I read it in two sittings and alarmed people around me on the subway with raucous outbursts of laughter. do not eat or drink while reading this book -- you don't wait to spray coffee over your copy of what may be , to date, the purely and unapoligetically funniest book of the new millenium....


A sarcastic spoof   April 11, 2008
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I'm a big Augusten Burroughs fan, so it's no surprise that I really enjoyed this book. "Sellevision" is the first book that Burroughs ever wrote, and it's his only novel. The story revolves around the backstage antics at Sellevision, America's top retail shopping network. "Sellevision" is a satire, and it reminded me a lot of the Sally Field movie "Soapdish," in a good way. There are many colorful characters working at the station, and each one is involved in their own over-the-top crisis. The book opens with Sellevision's young homosexual host, Max, getting fired from the network because he accidentally displayed his penis on live television. Then there's Peggy Jane, one of the top female hosts at the station who's more than a little neurotic in her personal life. When Peggy Jane is harassed by a nasty e-mail stalker, she begins abusing drugs and alcohol until she plummets over the edge. Bebe, another top host at the network, always manages to sell out of her products on the air, but has a bit of a spending problem on the side. She's also been single for her entire life and finally meets the man of her dreams, but is he too good to be true?

Several other Sellevision hosts pepper this colorful novel, which is full of Burroughs' sarcasm and quick wit. This book is hilarious and completely exaggerated on so many levels, which is what makes it so much fun. I didn't feel a personal connection with this book the way I did with all of Burroughs' memoirs, but considering the frightening characters depicted in the story, that's probably a very good thing.