One-night reads: Recommendations 2

Today’s list offers a few suggestions for memoir, biography and autobiography.

• Norman Malcolm: Wittgenstein: A Memoir, in my mind, the best.

• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, a very close second.

• Orwell: “Such, Such Were the Joys,” a longish essay, rather than a short book, on the horrors, rather than the benefits, of school.

• Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill’s War Leadership. This book of about 100 pages gets to what made Churchill significant.

• Stanley Walker, “Uncle Ernest,” a chapter in Home to Texas. To me, this is the best specimen of a short biographical essay. Though you might check on the competition by looking at the biographical essays of Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lytton Strachey.

• Gilbert Highet, “Henry Fowler.” One of the pleasures of a short biographical essay is spending an evening in the company of an eccentric. Knowing an eccentric for one evening is enchanting. But one evening might be enough.

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X would be a test. It’s a riveting book. But can you get through it in one night? I can’t. The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill is, in terms of length, about my limit. Evelyn Waugh’s essay “Max Beerbohm” would be a good model. I wish someone would try to catch the character and personality of Malcolm X in such a short form.