After Reading Mark Twain By Ron Chernow: 9 Lessons I Learned About Genius, Humor, and the American Experience The Life and Legacy of a Literary Icon (Personal

It's easy to forget that Samuel Langhorne Clemens—known to the world as Mark Twain—was not just a writer. He was a contradiction. A showman. A businessman. A father. A man of dazzling wit and profound sorrow.

And perhaps most curiously, he was one of the first individuals in American history to consciously build and manage a public persona, decades before social media made that sort of performance second nature.

When you read Ron Chernow's Mark Twain, you're not reading a simple biography. ...