Telling Tales about People

One of the most common types of nonfiction, and one that many people enjoy reading, is stories about people's lives. These stories fall into three general categories: autobiography, memoir, and biography.

An autobiography is the story of a person's life written by himself or herself. Often it begins with the person's earliest recollections and ends in the present. Autobiography writers may not be entirely objective in the way they present themselves. However, they offer the reader a good look at the way they are and what makes them that way. People as diverse as Benjarmin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 1Other writers, such as James Joyce，have written thinly fictionalized accounts of their lives. These are not autobiographies，but they are very close to it.

Memoirs, strictly speaking, are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 2Memoir writers typically use these events as backdrops for their lives. They describe them in detail and discuss their importance. Recently，though，the term memoir seems to be becoming interchangeab1e with autobiography. A memoir nowadays may or may not deal with the outside world.

Biographies are factual accounts of someone else's life. In many senses，these may be the hardest of the three types to write. Autobiography writers know the events they write about because they lived them. But biography writers have to gather information from as many different sources as possible. Then they have to decide which facts to include. Their goal is to present a balanced picture of a person，not one that is overly positive or too critical. A fair well-presented biography may take years to research and write.

詞匯：

backdrop n. 背景

interchangeable adj. 可轉換的

注釋：

1. People as diverse as Benjamin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 就像本杰明o富蘭克林和海倫o凱勒一樣，各種各樣的人們已經寫了自傳。

2. Memoirs，strictly speaking，are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 嚴格意義上來講，回憶錄是既注重作者本身的生活經歷，也注重其所處的時代所發生的事件的自傳性的描述。

練習：

1. This passage is mostly about _______.

A. the characteristics of autobiographies，memoirs，and biographies

B. famous autobiographies

C. why biography can be difficult to write

D. differences between autobiographies and memoirs

2. Helen Keller wrote________.

A. a memoir

B. an autobiography

C. a work of fiction

D. a biography

3. Autobiography writers are not always objective because they________.

A. feel they have to make up details to make their books sell

B. constantly compete with biography writers

C. want to present themselves in a good light

D. have trouble remembering the good times

4. The writer introduces each category in the passage by________.

A. defining it

B. giving an example

C. explaining why it is hard to write

D. telling when people first began writing it

5. Diverse means________.

A. able to swim in deep water

B. similar or alike

C. varied or different

D. enjoying poetry

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（責任編輯：vstara）

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