Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life

Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life

Weiner, Eric

Paperback

Historical FiguresTravel GeneralRevolutionary Period (1775-1800)

Publisher Price: $20.00

ISBN10: 1501129058
ISBN13: 9781501129056
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: Jun 17 2025
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.62
Height: 0.84 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.38
Language: English
Part biography, part travelogue, part self-help, New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiration and practical lessons for living a purposeful and virtuous life.

Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist, and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin's greatest experiment was...Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived.

A warm combination of homage and introspective memoir (Kirkus Reviews), Ben & Me is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, respect for virtue, and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben's life lessons, large and small. We learn how to improve a relationship with someone by inducing them to do a favor for you--a psychological phenomenon now known as The Ben Franklin Effect. We learn about the printing press (the internet of its day), early medicine, diplomatic intrigue, and, of course, electricity. And we learn about ethics, persuasion, humor, regret, appetite, and so much more.

At a time when history is either neglected or contested, Weiner argues we have much to learn from the past and that we'd all be better off if we acted and thought a bit more like Ben did, even if he didn't always live up to his own high ideals. Engaging, smart, moving, and quirky, Ben & Me distills the essence of Franklin's ideas into grounded, practical wisdom for all of us.

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