B-A and I just returned from vacation in the lovely beachside town of Cambria, CA. We first went there for a friend’s wedding and fell in love with the town; it’s small, not too far from an airport, not too crowded, and right on the beach, which means the weather is usually fantastic.

I was also very glad to avail myself of the opportunity to dive into some books. I used to read voraciously. To my chagrin, these days I spend a lot of time skimming or reading articles instead of reading books. But, I read a few on the trip, and the one that’s fresh in my mind is Stephen Fry’s Moab is my Washpot, an autobiographical account of his years as a child in the British preparatory and public school system, up to his acceptance at Cambridge.

If you don’t know Stephen Fry, well, I probably can’t do better justice for a biographical sketch than the wikipedia page. Primarily an actor and writer, I’ve long been a fan of his work, first becoming hooked by his performance of Jeeves alongside Hugh Laurie’s Bertie Wooster in the 1990 BBC run of Jeeves and Wooster, itself adapted from the brilliant Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse.

Moab is a wonderfully witty piece of work, describing his early years and self-discovery as a writer, life in a British preparatory school, love - and complete lack of ability in - music, coming to terms with his sexuality, falling in love for the first time, and embarking on an early life of crime ending with a felony conviction for theft at the tender age of eighteen. The best autobiographies are both poignant in their description of formative experiences and piercing, connecting you to the author in shared experience. Each human life is a perfectly unique, ramshackle collection of experiences resulting in you, but we are all transformed in the same ways throughout life, emerging from the crucible of adolescence as proto-adults, with most of our basic foundations intact. Successful autobiographers reveal things in their books that people otherwise vigorously hide away; deep corners of their psyche, hopes and fears that they share with no-one else. The same hopes, fears and secrets that we all have. The trick of the gifted autobiographer is to share these things and connect them to the same hidden pockets inside you; to make you - a nameless, faceless reader Out There in the world - a close friend and confidante. If they’re really good, they’ll do so with an envious ease that all great writers seem to summon without a thought.

I quite recommend this book if you like autobiographies, Stephen Fry, clever writing, the nostalgia of British country life in the 1950’s and 60’s, or any combination thereof.