Given the subject and size of this autobiography, there’s probably a tendency to assume it’s the sort of "significant" book you read more because you feel you should than because you think you will enjoy it. That would be a bad assumption. No question it’s significant, but it’s also thoroughly enjoyable.

That’s largely because Ted Kennedy was a great storyteller, and this is a book full of stories. Stories about experiencing historic events as an insider; about what it was like to be a Kennedy (family "wasn’t just a part of the world, it comprised it"); tales of self-deprecating humor from the campaign trail and life in politics and the Senate from someone who genuinely loved both; about meeting his soulmate and the love of his life—he calls her his true compass in the dedication—after all the personal losses had left him wary of new relationships; and, inevitably, stories about dealing with tragedy. A sharp, appreciative observer, Ted enjoyed life and was very much a people person. The book is so enjoyable in large part because it’s filled with his enjoyment.

Despite all the famous names and significant events, it’s still a very personal book. We aren’t just told about things, we experience them, and learn more about Ted Kennedy as we do. We learn how family training determined his response to tabloid reports, and about the personal experiences that molded his approach to health reform. We learn that he didn’t dwell morbidly on the very real possibility of his own assassination, but decades after his brothers’ deaths still couldn’t help twitching a bit at every 21-gun salute.

The real man was too often buried by the image, something the senator refers to himself when noting that one re-election campaign’s difficulties stemmed in large part from demographic changes and a family-engendered reluctance to toot his own horn. These factors helped create an electorate who knew the tabloid stuff but little about his hard work in the Senate. Reading here, we’re always brought back to the real person, someone I genuinely enjoyed getting to know. He says that he has always been an optimistic person... a person of joy who believes deeply in hope and redemption. Facing adversity with a defeatist attitude merely predetermines the outcome—defeat. Facing it with hope means that something might be achieved—for example, by fighting to live as long as possible with his own cancer, he might offer an example to others told there was no hope.

I tried to avoid spoiling the stories for readers, by not quoting extensively from them here, tempting as that is; but indulge me in an abbreviated version of one I liked mostly because of Kennedy’s clear appreciation in telling it. The Liberal Lion was one of Jerry Falwell’s favorite whipping boys. Through a computer glitch so gleefully perfect that, as a man of faith, Kennedy felt he really should consider it divine intervention, Ted Kennedy received a personal invitation from Falwell to come join the Moral Majority and "fight against the old liberals like Ted Kennedy." The always positive Lion’s response was to solicit the invitation for what became a famous and wildly successful speech at Falwell’s own Liberty Baptist College. It’s a speech still worth reading today.

John Bedford Lloyd does a great job reading this. He makes no effort to sound like Senator Kennedy himself, although there are some other amusing voice sketches. No booming voice, no broad emotions, no Massachusetts accent. Instead, he simply sounds like a person who believably could be the one who had these thoughts and experiences, talking to us in a baritone voice of more restrained (but still evident when appropriate, including a LOT of underlying amusement.) emotion and loosely Brahmin origins. Lloyd’s reading contributed greatly to the feeling that this was an extended reminisce with the senator, not someone reading to us about him.

I focused mostly on the stories, and Senator Kennedy’s thoughts and ideas. I’ll go back and read more carefully for the detailed political history sometime later. It’s a book you can and should do that with—read and re-read for different reasons. Highly recommended.