It seemed like a good idea at the time

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My attention span is always worn down by this time of year. I try to read things of a serious nature, and I can't concentrate on them. Analysis? Not in August, please. It's just too hot.

So I'm reading a book of little import right now. Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, and so far I'm not impressed. I'm three chapters into a memoir and I've gleaned that he's an overly educated Brit.

I bought the book on Amazon's recommendation, but mostly I liked the title. I'm hoping it picks up and fulfills some of the promise of the jacket copy, otherwise I will feel utterly used. On the other hand, I can probably ditch it on half.com, since it looks like there's a waiting list for it.

The other memoir currently being hyped is Running With Scissors, which I understand was written by a former ad copywriter who had a rather strange childhood. I haven't read it, as a matter of fact the hype I've been exposed to makes me want to stay far, far away from it. I fully believe that the author's childhood was strange, possibly even surreal. He probably deserves congratulations for living through it with his sense of humor intact, but it's not exactly news to me that the growing up in the 1970s involved things that would shock and amaze people if they were talked about today.

I mean, more power to the guy for selling the public what they don't really want... I guess. I think I'm just burned out on the idea that somebody who's 30-ish feels interesting enough to have stopped and written a book about it. Not that people of my age group aren't interesting, I don't know what it is, exactly, but the memoir thing bothers me.

OK, wait; I do know.

A memoir, to me, says that a life--that a story--is over, or at least ready to be told. This latest crop of memoirs smacks of "things were so much better in the world two weeks ago."

Or maybe I'm just mad because all these losers have great agents who got book deals for their pansy-ass stories.

You never know.

before - after