If you’re going to write a memoir, you better have lived an interesting life. Near-death experiences, horrible tragedies, stunning successes despite all odds, jail time—all are good fodder. When you hear there’s a new memoir by Jane Shore, you might be thinking that a lost manuscript was discovered from that saucy 15th-century Jane Shore, who will live in infamy as a professional mistress, most notably of King Edward IV. However, the Jane Shore we’re talking about has lived a bit more of an upstanding life and is currently teaching at George Washington University. A poet by trade, she has written a memoir in poems titled A Yes-or-No Answer. This form of memoir allows Shore to revisit her life, from her Jewish childhood to her own children, in such beautiful detail that you’ll find it’s not always the lives in the headlines that are the most intriguing. Shore reads from her work at 6 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 364-1919. —Kim Gooden