The Memory Chalet

or, Tony Judt's Wordcraft is Trumped Only, Perhaps, by That of Stephen Fry.

I received this book for free some years ago from an erudite source whose taste I am slowly learning to trust (I did like his Geography of Thought, and expect to struggle with the Dirac book he indirectly lent me for eternity but no doubt I will enjoy it too).  My love of The Memory Chalet surprised me as it was a gentle slope of increased affection; I hardly noticed I couldn't put the book down until it was the middle of a new Supernatural episode and I realized I was muting the commercials to inhale another couple of paragraphs.  (This is unheard-of.)

I think I found it more precious for the complete lack of knowledge I had about it before I opened it to the first page and began to read.  I had assumed it to be a novella, something Woolf-ish or modern, contemplative; but it's nonfiction.  Judt took me on a tour of his life with an expertise I have experienced (in The Color of Water) but have not come to expect of memoirs, especially those of stuffy English scholars.

I hesitate to say any more.  I highly recommend the book, and also that you read nothing about it or its author before starting, and let him tell you his life without outside influence.  (I wonder if I've said too much as it is.)

Next on the list: Girl with a Pearl Earring