I think there is a real genre - I dunno if it has a name - in which I would include (off the top of my head); Tropic of Cancer, Ask the Dust, pretty much all Bukowski, maybe On The Road, perhaps Junky and Queer by Burroughs, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson er Dirty Havana maybe and so on. Basically guy (pretty much always a bloke) kinda slobs around with a succession of useless mates getting drunk/high whatever, has some good times where his horse comes in at 66 to 1 and spends a week or two drinking champagne and boinking expensive prostitutes, has bad weeks when there is a drug drought or his girlfriend ODs etc and so on. I suppose they are interesting, especially when they're at least semi-autobiographical - they tell you about a time and a place and give you a vicarious insight into how people you don't tend to interact with live and so on.... most of them (Bukowski especially) are not that well written though. I have read quite a lot of these things I suppose now I come to think of it so I can't be too down on the genre - I don't think though I'd really stick up for most of those books if someone made some of the many totally valid criticisms that they could.