Interesting.............................

Mencken, one of the most prolific of all American writers, may be an acquired taste.  My first exposure to him came from reading Inherit the Wind in high school, a time when one can have a rebellious frame of mind without having to really be a rebel.  Until the invention of the Intertunnel, most of my experience with him was second hand.  Most of his wordsmithing was for the benefit of newspapers as first a reporter, then a columnist/pundit, and so not readily available.  The onset of The Oracle Google has made his writing accessible. Mencken's words appear in more than thirty entries on this blog.

As the sub-title to the book implies, the author comes at Mencken from a different angle.  While not thoroughly grounded in all things Mencken, I think the approach works.  The man's humanity is on display.  Not sure what more a subject could want from a biographer.

If you are interested in Mencken, or America in the early parts of the 20th century, I recommend this book.