Before I was born, my mother had decided to name me either Laurel or Lydia, names that appealed to her artistic temperament. But then somehow she was convinced by my father's sisters to make me a lackluster Ruth, in honor of their recently deceased mother, Rose. And so my birth certificate read Ruth Leila, a name I was never called, by my mother, either of my father's sisters or anyone else.

So begins the life list of Linda Rosenkrantz, 207 random recollections of her first twelve years that, together, comprise one of the year's most unexpected and delightfully offbeat memoirs. Rich with the sights, sounds, and smells of her sheltered childhood in a Jewish enclave of the Bronx, My Life as a List re-creates the urban experience of American Jews in the years surrounding World War II.

The author writes with wry affection of family and friends, of grievances harbored and accomplishments savored, all recalled with the laser particularity of a child's eye.

Rosenkrantz's unerring attention to detail imbues these childhood impressions with remarkable clarity. Telling specifics of her girlhood are interwoven with darker undertones of war to lucidly recall the tenuous balance between day-to-day life and wartime sacrifices.

Against this background, Rosenkrantz offers humorous anecdotes, touching reminiscences, and lively portraits of her family, friends, and neighbors and period photographs and ephemera from the author's own collection bring her colorful cast of characters even more vividly to life.