The Pursuit of Happyness?

In Waterstones at lunchtime today, this category caught my eye. It's always been a puzzle to me why the books that would qualify for inclusion in this section (Angela's Ashes, A Boy Called Dave, to name but a few) are so damn popular that they merit their own space on the bookshelves.

Call me old fashioned but I prefer my reading matter to lift me out of my current place in the world, to entertain, inspire, enthrall or just generally make me feel better for having picked it up in the first place. Quite what people get out of tales of grinding poverty, child abuse, domestic violence, etc. beats me. What's even more puzzling is that they shell out around fifteen quid a time to share in someone else's misery.

They could just turn on News At Ten and get it for free...