The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain

I found this ratty paperback for $1.50 at a bookstore on the way home from school--as if I needed a new distraction right then. I enjoy Mark Twain's witty character as it shows through in his short stories and essays, and I envy his creativity. This book is stories of the real characters and adventures that inspired Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. There are some politically incorrect moments, but they are in no way offensive unless you are too stiffminded to appreciate the world as it was back then. This book captures that world, at least from Twain's perspective. His way with words is almost as amazing as his adventures -- I laugh out loud. He paints pictures. Not just of his life and his family, but of his whole society. He alternates from serious topics like death, poverty, slavery, to his mischievous pranks, and the funniest things that happened to him, just for the sake of a laugh. (He once tricked a friend into climbing onto an icy, second-story roof, all the time hoping the poor guy would fall into an outdoor party in progress below and cause a commotion. He did and it did.) Mark Twain was the kind of kid that when he got smacked for something he didn't do, his mother said he deserved it for something she didn't know about. Less interesting men have written much about themselves, but Twain is one man who owed the world at least one autobiography.