Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings

I have been reading this book little bit by little bit over a number of months (YES, okay, if you must know, I kept it in the bathroom. This is one of those books that I felt obliged to read because I knew it would make me a better person, but it is also one of those books I knew I would never actually read unless I was forced to.)

I'm sure this is a case of stating the obvious, but Benjamin Franklin was a pretty impressive man. Maybe I've always known these things but forgot? But it's amazing how many institutions Franklin had a hand in creating. Lending libraries? Check. Fire departments? Check. UPenn? Check! And all of this squeezed in between creating a successful printing business, being a US ambassador to France, running a postal service that I can only imagine must have been more efficient than the current USPS, and flying a key on a kite string into a thunderstorm. 

I don’t think I was left with a super clear overview of Franklin's life (but of course that was not the intent of this book). I feel like it zoomed in on a number of interesting aspects but left the remainder vague and amorphous, and I might have found a biography more balanced. But what I had really wanted to get from the book is a sense of the man himself in his own words, and I think I did. I found Franklin to be pithy, witty, humble and wise.