I currently have several memoirs in my stack of books. I am in the process of reading/listening to three and it occurred to me lately, why are memoirs so popular? When I am listening to Sally Field's "In Pieces", part of me thinks "Really, why is she talking about this? Am I interested in her descriptions of her grandmother's house in Pasadena or her relationship to her father?" And yet, even in questioning this in my mind, I am actually drawn into her story, I am having a (albeit one way) conversation, I am thinking, thinking, thinking. Last night I started reading Nina Totenberg's "Dinners With Ruth", a memoir not only about her long friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but also, she writes, about women's friendships and how sustaining they are. Ah yes, bittersweet words for me. My friendships with women have literally saved my life over the years. And I still have them but at such a distance that we can't just phone each other up