Sometimes, Paula Poundstone can’t stop talking. That habit worked to her advantage when she began writing a memoir titled “There is Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say.”

“I have obsessive-compulsive disorder,” the comedian said to the Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Penn.) “Every single thing that gets said reminds me of something else. I shanghai conversations, not intentionally.

“So when I started to write the book, I felt so silly writing about myself. But it occurred to me, if I were to write about Abraham Lincoln, I would not be able to shut up about myself. I would get no further than writing that his mother died of ‘milk disease’ when I would have to mention that my mother had a headache for a long time,” said Poundstone, who will perform Jan. 26 at the MontBleu Resort Casino and Spa.

Published in November 2006, “There’s Nothing in This Book” is a series of biographical sketches of historical figures, including Joan of Arc, Charles Dickens, the Wright Brothers, Helen Keller and Sitting Bull. In telling their stories, Poundstone tells her own personal ones, including her much-publicized drunken driving arrest in 2001.

Of her alcoholism problem, she writes in her book: “I was actually court-ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous on television. That pretty much blows the (heck) out of the second ‘A,’ wouldn’t you say?”

She told the Reno Gazette-Journal it took her a bit longer to write the book than she thought it would.

“One mom at my son’s school came up to me today to say nice things about my book,” Poundstone said. “She said she started reading it by 9 one morning and finished it by 3 p.m. I said, ‘Look, it took me nine years to write it.’ I’m sure she meant it as a compliment, but come on, take a little bit more time to savor it.”

Poundstone keeps her prose lighthearted, much like her comedy. The quick-witted comedian is not into mean-spirited jokes, preferring instead to make fun of herself, her three adopted children and her affection for her 11 cats.

“They make us laugh,” she said about her cats to the Chicago Daily Herald. “The cheap laugh. Like, they make funny faces after they smell each other’s butt. It makes me laugh every single time. It’s like, ‘Well, what did you think? You caught a waft of a nice scent and you thought that’s where it was coming from?’”

The 48-year-old comic came from Huntsville, Ala., and she caught her first big break after appearing on several HBO comedy specials in the ’80s, according to All Music Guide. She won Cable Ace Awards for her comedy specials and for her short-lived “Paula Poundstone Show.” Her most-recent special was “Look What the Cat Dragged In” in 2006.

Poundstone is a panelist on the NPR quiz show, “Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” True to her self-deprecating nature, she mocks her knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of weekly news.

“It’s really great fun to do, though (political satirist) Adam Felber told me that his wife roots for me, even when I’m on with him,” Poundstone said to the Oregonian. “When your opponent’s wife is rooting for you because you never win, that’s a new level of pathetic.”