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RIDER OF DRAGONS
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NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING
By: Larry Smith, Rachel Fershleiser

Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure

Harper Perennial
February 2008
On Sale: February 5, 2008
240 pages
ISBN: 0061374059
EAN: 9780061374050
Paperback
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Non-Fiction Memoir

Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a thousand glimpses of humanityβ€”six words at a time.

One Life. Six Words. What's Yours?

When Hemingway famously wrote, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn," he proved that an entire story can be told using a half dozen words. When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving.

From small sagas of bittersweet romance ("Found true love, married someone else") to proud achievements and stinging regrets ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead"), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-sized pieces. From authors Jonathan Lethem and Richard Ford to comedians Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.

Media Buzz

Early Show - February 28, 2008
Talk of the Nation - February 7, 2008