Seventeen-year-old, college-bound Lauralee Summer never thought the details of her life were so extraordinary that they would show up in newspapers and soar over the American airwaves. But after she won a wrestling scholarship and, as a result, got interviewed by the Boston Globe and Associated Press, her story went nationwide. The ubiquitous headlines proclaimed triumphantly: “Homeless to Harvard.” Summer’s curiously titled memoir, Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars, reveals a fatherless, nomadic life lived with her rarely employed, eccentric though loving mother. Constantly moving through the dreary, often dangerous confines of homeless shelters and flimsy welfare housing, they had no car, no bank account and little money for food or clothing. Summer’s schooling was erratic, but she loved books from an early age. Not until she reached high school did she find the mentors and activities (especially competitive wrestling with an all-male team) that moved her toward self-acceptance and into the privileged realms of Harvard. Requests for network television appearances came pouring in after the surge of front-page press. Summer was aghast when, during a nationally televised interview, the host asked her what it was like to be homeless and gave her only 20 seconds to reply. Being forced to provide an abbreviated response eventually led to the writing of her memoir. And in the telling, Summer admits she has claimed her place in the world and built herself an authentic home. Using the constructs of her life poverty, neglect and isolation and her Harvard education, she has created a clear window into the shadowy, disenfranchised world of impoverished women and children. If the walls of Summer’s house are a bit rough-hewn, hers is a sturdy and honest dwelling. For it houses a young writer who possesses courage, heart and social compassion, who has, in the words of an anonymous, homeless youth, “learned patience from statues in a thousand parks, and joy from dogs without collars.” Alison Hood writes from San Rafael, California.

There was a time when the art of memoir-writing was generally relegated to the rich, famous and powerful. Not so nowadays, when complete unknowns if their tales of dysfunction or triumph over challenges are resonant enough get published fairly readily. Augusten Burroughs fits the new mold, having gained recognition with 2002’s Running With Scissors, the true-life account of his strange upbringing and nightmarish youthful experiences that was a national bestseller. Burroughs’ follow-up memoir, Dry, charts his recent struggle with substance abuse. The topic here is not a new one, but the author’s flippant, knowing style makes this book a cut above other entries in the genre.

Dry finds the author in his mid-20s and carving out a high-paying career in New York advertising. After mounting episodes of personal irresponsibility force his colleagues to hold an in-office intervention, he is whisked away to the Proud Institute in Duluth, Minnesota, where he undergoes a recovery regimen tailored to the needs of homosexuals. Burroughs completes the program and returns to the Big Apple, sober but cautious. He reclaims his job and attends AA meetings with the appropriate enthusiasm. Alas, he also meets a fellow recovering addict named Foster, who entices him back into addictive behavior. When a dear old friend finally succumbs to AIDS, Burroughs falls completely off the wagon. But once again, he dedicates himself to getting straight, armed with hard-won knowledge. “The good news is you do learn to live without it,” he writes. “You miss it. You want it. You hang out with a bunch of other crazy people who feel the same way and you live with it. And eventually, you start to sound like a cloying self-help book, like me.” In truth, Dry is anything but cloying. It’s a smart, revealing book that should please those readers who enjoyed Burroughs’ previous memoir. Martin Brady is a freelance writer in Nashville.