Robert A. M. Stern’s newly published autobiography Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture surveys his life and seismic role in the field of architecture from the 1960s to the present. By turns thoughtful and irreverent, Stern’s candid account highlights the often-overlooked role that an architect’s life plays in shaping the buildings they produce. Replete with personal insights and humor, Between Memory and Invention details Stern’s youthful efforts to redraw house plans in real estate ads, stories about the many mentors—including Philip Johnson—who have shaped his thinking, his struggle to launch an architecture practice in the 1970s amid a recession, and his more than half-century of practice as an architect, educator, and historian.