Some of the world's best writers wrote literature. Name one (or five or ten) best known for memoirs. Snob appeal—it's high art. It's a form better suited for dealing with ideals: love, beauty, fear, hatred, self-sacrifice, loyalty, loneliness, or anything. Because it can deal with the most fundamental aspects of human nature, it can—if we allow it—move us more deeply. Just because it's fiction doesn't make it less real. If it's plausible, if it could have happened, if it reflects real people, in a sense it is real—at least in our minds. Literature, perhaps better than other art forms, can create whole new worlds to explore, wonder at, and learn from. The deep involvement certain people experience while reading it sometimes creates hyper-aware states, heightened senses of reality, the knowledge that something is more real than real. (I thought I was the only one that felt this until I read otherwise.) It can be a perfect escape from real...