gee.

Some of these books have been written by authors who held very lucrative positions and had the resources to help them through their financial downfalls. Some booksellers wonder if the average reader will be able to empathize with them.

Indeed, early in Ms. Browning’s memoir, she contemplates a trip to Brooks Brothers to buy a pair of pajamas for better lounging. And in “The Bag Lady Papers,” Ms. Penney writes of having to sell two of her three homes and describes how a friend takes her to the Four Seasons Grill Room for lunch to commiserate.

“I don’t know that a lot of people are going to be relating to a Dominique Browning or an Alexandra Penney,” said Karen Corvello, adult buyer for R. J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn. “A segment would, but not that broad a segment.”

--New York Times Book article on rash of I-lost-my-sweet-job-&-third-house books that are coming out & will no doubt sell very well despite that slim segment, and ignoring for a sec how irritating this opulence sounds, I can't imagine these books would be all that interesting, as I don't usually go for this type of reading.

Later the article notes--

Loss is loss, said Ellen Archer, publisher of Hyperion, the unit of Disney that is releasing “The Bag Lady Papers.” Even a person who has a lot of money to begin with suffers when it is gone, and goes through a lifestyle re-evaluation.

“It makes you think, ‘What if that happened to me? What really is important to me?’ ” Ms. Archer said. “I think it’s a very relatable question.”

But keep in mind that there is a lot more fat available to trim before you hit nasty old bone when these described individuals are forced to ask these questions. . . which I guess makes for a longer book. In the end, I'm not sure what to think, at all, (huh? angry? dismissive? envious?-- because really, they didn't lose their jobs if they were able to secure a book deal and find themselves-- that's a job) and it will be interesting to read the reviews when they are made available.