The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen

I particularly like memoirs more than autobiographies because they usually only include the most compelling parts of one’s life rather than try to include every detail. Yet there is still usually a constant theme throughout, something cohesive that binds all the stories and achieves something more than just random events strung together. I don’t really remember that happening in this book. I remember him talking about his hot German teacher on one page and then his fixation with birds on the next. The writing is infinitely more readable, though, than it was in The Corrections because it came out smoother and more natural, which is a benefit of writing a memoir—you don’t have to try too hard. On the other hand, though, Franzen took too many liberties with this and, to me at least, the book came out as a half effort.