For all the jokes about President Bush being borderline retarded that have been made in the last eight years, you would think that the man would leave well enough alone once he left the White House and stopped being the world's chief source of ridicule.

But no. Our 43rd commander-in-chief wants to publish his memoirs as soon as he gets out of office, despite the fact that no one is buying books in this bad economy, and no one wants to buy a book written by the guy who gave us this bad economy. So that's a double neg.

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Oooh, all this debate coverage and you forgot all about David Carr, that writer for the Times who wrote a memoir called Night of the Gun about his old crack habits. And everyone was like "that is so brave to go to all your old friends and ex-girlfriends whom you beat up and ask them to tell you what you did to them while in a blackout so you can profit off their misery!"

Welp, children learn from watching you dad, because the winner of Rolling Stone's 33rd annual College Journalism Competition is a young man writing a first-hand account about his addiction to, ugh, Adderall and Paxil.

This generation is just the worst:

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So, this is interesting. Yesterday, Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici said Times reporter David Carr's memoir The Night of the Gun hit No. 21 on the Times' own best-seller list for hardcover non-fiction list, "right after Freakonomics and just ahead of Southern Storm." Sound impressive? Maybe not. One source who looks these sort of things up on Nielsen BookScan reports Carr's book has moved only 3,342 copies since it went on sale Aug. 5. Yesterday, Carr's book was down to No. 71 on Amazon.com's best-seller list; today it's slipped again, to No. 82.

After being a rock uber-god for years, how much more money do you need? For Steven Tyler, that answer rings in at about $2 million, which is what he's getting for optioning his memoirs to HarperCollins. That should keep the big-lipped singer happy for awhile unless, wuh-oh, he takes a look at how much Keith Richards got for his story, just last year. Hint: It's a lot more.

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"The US media wants to hold me to standards it supposedly holds itself to. But I’m not a journalist, I don't claim to be one, I'm not going to follow anyone else's rules because they tell me I should. The only standards imposed on the creation of [my] books are the ones I want there to be. What means something is if my book is read in 50 years. That's the only goal. If I have to take some big shots in the process of trying to make that happen, then I'm prepared to take those big shots." — James Frey, victim

If Christopher Ciccone can get bookstores to find shelf space for his Madonna haterade, surely there's room for a real-life tale of vindictive backstabbing. Though that might not be the most accurate way to describe In His Sights, the new book from Kate Brennan (a pseudonym), who writes openly about what she continues to experience at the hands of her lunatic ex-boyfriend Paul.

To give you an idea of what the author faced, she's had to move 16 times in 16 months, because sometimes she'd come home from work — from jobs where she applied under a fake name — to "a teaspoon from a kitchen drawer lies on the middle of my bed," evidence that Paul, or one of his operatives, had been in her home.

Though a horrific way to go through life, Brennan's victimization could make for a great read. Even the Times thought so, which is why they gave it a write up today. But with Brennan releasing her memoir under a fake name and stuffed with outlandish and often questionable anecdotes in the middle of a publishing climate that tends to raise red flags about those sort of things, the Times couldn't just take her word that all this was true!

Indeed, made a victim once already, Brennan now has to defend her account.

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"This is what makes The Night of the Gun so important. After years of abuse, the memoir has found its white knight, galloping in to show how a personal story can be engrossing, shocking and true. Mr. Carr’s book—which has been the talk of the publishing world since its release date was bumped from September to August and a gripping excerpt was printed in The New York Times Magazine two weekends ago—practically issues a challenge to those current reigning kings—David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Ishmael Beah—of the memoir genre: You get a video camera and tape recorder, and retrace the steps of your life. Will your story sound the same?" [NYO]

Larry King will write another autobiography, to be published on Father's Day in 2009. It will be called What Am I Doing Here?, and not Sometimes I Fart On Air, I Worry That Jay Leno May Take My Job, nor Softball: How to Conduct the Least Engaging Interview with Society's Most Interesting People. [Variety]

With all those fake memoirs getting exposed and their authors losing their contracts, why wouldn't a publisher (or an author) simply put out the book as a novel instead of claiming it as a factual first-person account? "The glib answer is that publishers want memoirs because they sell and novels don’t." Ah. Gotcha. [Paper Cuts]

Concerned about the future of books after all those faux memoirs? Don’t be! NYU students, who are the future of every creative profession, are still scrambling over each other for literary fame.

Or at least they will be, judging by the crowd at last night's "Agents, Editors and Writers! Oh My!," a panel discussion on that magical Oz, the land of publishing. We made Intern Anastasia attend.

The talking heads included an agent, a couple of editors, and one “screenwriter” who has, like, two credits on IMDB. Most of what they said was super-obvious, like, "It takes us a long time to get to the slush pile" and "Chick lit is hard to sell right now."

Finally, someone mentioned the elephant in the room: How had JamesFreyJTLeroyMargaretJones affected what they choose to publish?

Claudia Cross, Sterling Lord Literistic agent and Amy Sedaris impersonator candidate, claimed those faux memoirists hadn’t affected her job much. “It’s hard to sell a memoir to begin with. As an agent, if I see a beautifully-written memoir I think I can sell, I’m not going to do any fact-checking. I would trust the editor’s legal department with that.”

A Random House editor, Stephanie Lane, explained they “usually go through three edits, and each one gets more expensive," adding, “We won’t publish anything incorrect—that we know of." The pasty, bearded crowd (note: only the males were bearded) laughed.

Clad in black-framed glasses that all literary types must wear to get their I'm a Literary Type Card, Marion Wrenn, editor of lit mag Painted Bride, pointed out “Tobias Wolff started This Boy’s Life with ‘Memory has its own story to tell,’ which sort of let him off the hook."

Well, what do you do after controlling the most powerful White House in recent history? Why, shop your tell-all, of course! Karl Rove has put his memoir on the auction block today.

Considering Ted Kennedy got $8 million for his proximity to power, Rove should score a seven-figure deal. The Bush White House little romantic appeal for housewives, but Rove’s alpha-man account should make a good beach read for plenty of men. Insiders are predicting a $3 million sale.

Does anyone else remember that study showed that no one reads anymore? And yet the publishing industry will pay $3 million for what will surely be a limp memoir. Maybe print deserves its death.