Buying their memories

As a frequent air traveler, I have a lot of time to read. And, of course, I buy most of my books at airport bookstores. Looking through the selections wadded up in my backpack, it appears my taste has gone toward contemporary memoir.

I just finished "Bright Lights, Big Ass," by Jen Lancaster. Over the last year, I've also read all of the offerings from Laurie Notaro, Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris, who apparently doesn't have a web site.

Quick reviews:

Lancaster is mostly very funny, but the footnote thing got old after a while.

Notaro is constantly flat-out hilarious. Her life would be a good stand-up act.

Augusten Burroughs: David Sedaris for the rest of us.

Sedaris needs to stop whining, and we need to stop enabling him.

What do these four essayists have in common? They all write about their basically mundane, everyday lives, and a large audience seems to enjoy reading about them. Also: None of them are heterosexual men.

Which leads me to believe: There must be no way to make the life of a heterosexual man interesting to a mass audience. (I suppose, if there was, I'd be writing more about it.)

I'm not sure why I enjoy reading other people's navel-gazing. I know I'm partial to funny women, which explains Lancaster and Notaro. Sedaris is wildly popular among people who are much smarter than me, and I picked up "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" based on the recommendations of said smart people. I guess my disdain for him must indicate that I'm not all that smart. Burroughs? Meh. He's a slightly less insufferable version of Sedaris.

That said, I keep buying the books. I'm headed out now to get Lancaster's first book, "Bitter is the New Black," and the new Notaro tome (which is actually a memoir disguised as a novel), "There's a (Slight)Chance I Might Be Going to Hell." There's a (slight) chance I might be a sucker.