What’s up with the memoir?

The Inquirer had an article this morning about poet/”memoirist” Mary Karr whose new book of poetry reflects on her recent conversion to Catholicism at age 40. What puzzles me here though is the idea of a “memoirist.” I get the idea that you might want to read the memoirs of a famous person or someone who’s accomplished some amazing feat. But what’s up with more or less random people writing their memoirs? Karr, according to the article, is working on her third set of memoirs! Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?

Of course, the same thing might be said about the blog…