Father and Son

A memoir looking back on the author's escape from a fundamentalist childhood was as familiar in Gosse's time (1907) as it is in ours (e.g. Tara Westover's Educated), but the two things that continue to make Father and Son both a moving and a cracking read over a century later are a) the character of his father, Philip, who attempted to reconcile his scientific learning (he was a famous naturalist: a friend of Darwin and the popularizer of the aquarium) with what he saw as the literal truth of Genesis and for whom his son continued to feel great affection despite their break, and b) Gosse's dry wit, which makes this story a delightful as well as a tragic one.