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Memoir: A History
Ben Yagoda
#UD1352 Hardcover, 291 pages; 2009 $20.76

  As a culture, we seem somewhat obsessed by the tell-all memoir-- from the heroic, to the scandalous, to the mundane. Ben Yagoda's witty meta-history traces the evolution of the memoir genre, from the Commentaries of Caesar and the Confessions of St. Augustine to the autobiographical work of Augusten Burroughs and Frank McCourt. Yagoda highlights especially the memoirs that changed the way we view the genre. Ultimately, Yagoda shows us that what we are really searching for in these personal histories is a new mirror in which to see ourselves: where we've been, where we are going, and what we could become. (CHH)