Flavorwire

This week, we’re diving into Augusten Burroughs’ newest book, a stellar series of essays meant to be a cheeky version of a self-help book, blessed with the unwieldy but hilarious title This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. While we’re thankful for Burroughs’ ”instruction manual for living,” it got us thinking about the other authors we wish would give us some advice — whether in self-help book or advice column form — and what they might write about. Click through to see our dream literary advice-givers, and let us know whose column you’d flip to first in the comments.

Gertrude Stein

“If you can’t say anything nice about anyone else, come sit next to me,” Stein famously quipped, so we have to imagine that any advice column from her hand would be devilishly witty and deliciously judgmental. But she’s not all sour grapes and arched eyebrows — she also wrote, ”One must dare to be happy,” and any woman who knows that is one we want to hear more life advice from as well.