My Take On James Frey's Book: A Million Little Pieces

History books are not written to preserve the past, but to validate the present. A wise student reads history texts with a jaundiced eye, knowing that they were written not by truth seekers, but by myth makers.

Autobiographies should not be judged by their factual accuracy, but by the moods and feelings they convey.

If I were to write my memoirs, they would be rife with contradictions and inaccuracies, because man is basically an irrational creature relying on an imperfect and unreliable memory.

Only fundamentalists believe that truth is set in stone, most people realize that truth is a river that meanders all over the place.

James Frey's admission that he made up some details of his million-selling book "A Million Little Pieces, created an uproar about the decision by Doubleday, to market the volume as a memoir instead of as a work of fiction.

Even if Frey's critics are correct in their assertions that he "wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career", that doesn't render Frey a fraud.

A little (or a lot) of embellishment here and there to improve the narrative flow, is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Frey's book still qualifies as a memoir and not as a work of fiction. Let him that has never told a "little white lie" to save face, be the first one to cast a stone at Frey.

I would never intentionally lie in any of my editorials, but the truth as I see it, may be heresy or lies to someone else.

I haven't read Frey's memoirs, the reminisces of recovered alcoholics, nymphomaniacs or criminals are not my cup of tea, but I don't think his autobiography should be denigrated because it's not 100% factual.

I hope James Frey is not too concerned with a million little anal-retentives, by all accounts his autobiography is a good read.