“Flem­ing apes the design of Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack with her clever for­mat here, to “illu­mi­nate each of the many facets” of her sub­ject (as the author states in a fore­word). Orga­nized into chap­ters on larg­er themes, such as “Boy­hood Mem­o­ries” and “Tokens of a Well-Lived Life,” the hand­some oblong vol­ume offers con­cise, engag­ing “bits and pieces” that both offer a broad­er con­text for Franklin’s life events and spe­cif­ic insights into his char­ac­ter. For exam­ple, a piece called “The War Before” (in the “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Mem­o­ra­bil­ia” sec­tion) describes how the after­math of the French and Indi­an War helped fuel the colonists’ anger and pave the way for the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War; and an account in “Sou­venirs from France” tells how Franklin out­wit­ted spies to force a French alliance in that war. Through­out, pen-and-ink por­traits, black-and-white etch­ings, humor­ous car­toons and fac­sim­i­les of news­pa­per and book pages (includ­ing his own Penn­syl­va­nia Gazette and Almanack help bring the man and his time to life. A gen­er­ous pep­per­ing of pri­ma­ry source mate­r­i­al allows Franklin’s wit and per­son­al­i­ty-and con­tra­dic­tions-to emerge. Franklin sings the prais­es of his wife, Deb­o­rah, in a poem (“Of their Chloes and Philliss­es poets may prate/ I sing of my plain coun­try Joan/ Now twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life/ Blest day that I made her my own”) yet for the last 17 years of her life, the two were sep­a­rat­ed by the Atlantic Ocean. Flem­ing’s care­ful­ly cho­sen details shine light on Franklin’s roles, from post­mas­ter of Philadel­phia, “pres­i­dent of Penn­syl­va­nia” and nation­al abo­li­tion­ist, to inven­tor, edi­tor of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence and exper­i­menter with elec­tric­i­ty. An open­ing time­line helps keep the chronol­o­gy straight (an index is pro­vid­ed, too). While the vol­ume’s lay­out encour­ages read­ers to dip in and out, Flem­ing deliv­ers a cohe­sive and com­plex por­trait of a bril­liant, pro­duc­tive and shrewd man who helped shape this coun­try.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly)