Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Then a runaway of seventeen arrives in Philadelphia with nothing, walks up Market Street with a puffy roll under each arm and a third in his mouth, and passes, ridiculous, the very door of the woman he will one day marry. From there the book follows a printer's rise — a failed voyage to London on a governor's empty promises, work at the presses, and, back home, the founding of a club, a shop, and the first subscription library in North America.

The voice throughout is wry and practical, confessing its faults while half-excusing them. It notes that "it is a very convenient thing to be a reasoning creature, since it allows you to find a justification for almost anything you want to do," then proves it by abandoning vegetarianism the moment fresh cod comes out of the pan. A plan for moral perfection, tracked in a little book as a grid of black dots beneath stern headings, collides with the comfortable temptation of a "spotted axe." Curiosity spills into everything — a purse of asbestos that won't burn, a smoke-drawing lamp, a key on a string.

Franklin lets himself be seen plainly: stranded, outwitted, softening coin by coin against his own resolve. And a childhood proverb about a man who stands before kings waits to be answered by the life itself — a self-made man showing, plainly, exactly how he was made.