Memoir today is like one big game of misery poker: The more outlandish, outrageous, or just plain out-there the recounted life, the more likely the book is to attract the attention of reviewers, talk-show bookers, and, ultimately, the public.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha.

Mother took the big saw from me and walked over to the orange tree which stood at one end of the totally mutilated rose garden. It was a mature tree standing maybe eight feet tall, producing lots of oranges. It was covered with fruit.

The nurse, the cook, and I stood at a kind of breathless attention watching her as she began to saw the trunk of the orange tree! Finally we heard a cracking, splintering sound and the orange tree toppled over into the stubby remains of the rose garden.

I am afraid I have never exist.

All of this made me feel better about myself, and I was grateful to the books for teaching me-without my even having to read them- that there were people in the world more desperate, more self-absorbed, more boring than I was. - about memoirs