Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Isaacson follows Franklin from his childhood in Boston, where he worked in his brother's print shop and secretly wrote witty newspaper essays under a false name, to his arrival in Philadelphia with almost nothing. There he built a thriving printing business, published Poor Richard's Almanack with its famous sayings and founded a discussion club that led to a lending library, a fire company, a hospital and the academy that became a university.

Franklin's experiments with electricity, including the famous kite, made him internationally famous, and he invented the lightning rod, bifocals and an efficient stove. Isaacson then covers his years in London as a colonial agent, his work on the Declaration of Independence, and his crucial role in Paris, where he won French support for the Revolution and helped negotiate the peace treaty. The book does not avoid his flaws, including his distance from his wife, Deborah, and his painful break with his son William, who remained loyal to Britain. Isaacson writes clearly and with warmth.

Readable, balanced and full of life, a portrait of a truly modern man. About 608 pages in the Simon & Schuster paperback.