The Memory Chalet

The Memory Chalet is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt s prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the divergent sex politics of Europe before concluding that his generation was revolutionary but missed the revolution.

A series of road trips across America lead not just to an appreciation of American history but an eventual acquisition of citizenship. Foods, trains, and long-lost smells compete for Judt's attention, but for us, he has forged his reflections into an elegant analysis arc. All as beautifully arranged as a Swiss chalet—a reassuring refuge deep in the mountains of memory.