"In this charming memoir of his childhood between world wars, Lem investigates the nature of memory and the impossibility of a 'pure' remembrance. Witty, playful and self-deprecating, Lem recalls his 'monstrous' younger self, his early passion for pointless destruction, and his fascination with his father's medical books and instruments. Born into a comfortable upper-middle class Jewish household in provincial Lvov (at that time in Poland, now a part...