Ben Yagoda is the author of the just-published Memoir: A History and About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made. He is a professor of English at the University of Delaware and he blogs at campuscomments.wordpress.com.

After weeks of wall-to-wall press for Palin, Agassi, and Carrie Prejean, it’s clear our narcissistic culture is obsessed with memoirs. Critic Ben Yagoda hopes the fad might be over.