{"product_id":"wanting-badly-nicholas-ferguson-9798189191244","title":"Wanting Badly: A Mostly True Book About Desire and Its Mistakes","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2008, the author's aunt mailed him \u003ci\u003eThe Secret\u003c\/i\u003e and a rose quartz crystal the size of a toddler's fist. His father, an electrician, slid the book under the short leg of a workbench, where it kept a surface true for nine years. This book is the third answer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWanting Badly\u003c\/i\u003e is a mostly true story about desire and its mistakes: a band paid in quesadillas, an $8,100 boat that taught one question, a restaurant that died through no fault of its owner, a rowing machine wearing slacks, and the year none of the ideas worked when it mattered most. It is a funny book about wanting intensely and incompetently at the same time, written by someone who spent a decade building a framework for reading desire, and then had to test it on his own life, where the results were mixed, hilarious, and occasionally expensive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderneath the comedy is one serious repair. Every bestseller about wanting implies that outcomes follow alignment, which sounds empowering right up until the diagnosis, the layoff, the pandemic. This book keeps a door those books do not have: the world's door, the one that was never yours, the one where other people and plain chance get a vote. And it hands you the sentence for the day that door closes, the sentence the author has tested at bedsides and postmortems: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe no was not a message.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor readers of Oliver Burkeman, and for anyone who has ever alphabetized a garage instead of sending the email.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Nicholas Ferguson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798189191244\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/27\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 68\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.20lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.16d","brand":"Nicholas Ferguson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50666013294847,"sku":"9798189191244","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/wanting-badly-nicholas-ferguson-9798189191244","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}