memoirs

She won three swimming medals when she was only 14, has posed for Playboy and struggled with drugs and eating disorders. Now Beard is telling her story, and the release of her new memoir will hopefully coincide with her bid to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Publishers have been eager to sign famous people to book deals. If you're a musician ready to reveal a great deal about yourself (such as Rolling Stone Keith Richards), the chances are very good those deals will pay off handsomely.

Despite -- or probably partly because of -- a considerable public outcry, Tony Blair's memoir is doing brisk business on both sides of the Atlantic. Will George W. Bush find similar success with his book later this fall?

President George W. Bush is headed toward ending up the most disliked president in American history, with an approval rating which has slowly declined to somewhere around 25%. The media scorns him, the liberals scoff at him, and he's still a favorite mud-slinging target of David Letterman. He...