Russell Baker: Growing Up (Mass Market Paperback); 1991 Edition

Growing up is journalist Russell Baker's 1982, Pulitzer-prize winning memoir of his boyhood in Virginia, his college years, his military experience, and his marriage, all overshadowed by the loving but overbearing presence of his mother, who insisted that he "make something of himself." Baker was born in 1925 and lived through harrowing times, including the Depression and WWII, but little seems to have ever happened to him, at least according to his tragi-comic account. In this way, Baker's character becomes an Everyman: validating that a life well-lived can be rather mundane when viewed from the outside; it is what you make of your life that matters.