I was lucky enough to meet Henry Winkler once at one of Toronto’s Fan Expo, and he was as friendly and charming as I would have wanted him to be. And I didn’t get to tell him, but when I was a kid, living in CFB North Bay, I would ride my little yellow banana seat bike and imagine I was The Fonz.

The Fonz was cool, but my impression of Henry Winkler, confirmed by his memoir, is that between the two of them, Henry would be the one I would want to hang out with. Over the course of twelve chapters, which include some delightful asides by his wife Stacey, Henry guides us through the journey of his life which includes a life-long struggle with dyslexia.

He documents his childhood, and the way his parents treated him because learning disabilities weren’t being diagnosed at the time, his time in New York before taking a chance, and his one thousand dollars in cash, to go to L.A.

From there he found himself getting lines in Mary Tyler Moore, and a days later being tapped for the role that would turn him into an icon, and potentially typecast him for the rest of his career, that of Arthur Fonzarelli on Happy Days, which ran for eleven seasons and brought him into households around the globe.

He details his struggles, his anxiety, his friendships, his faux pas, and his breakthroughs, his writing (the juvenile reader series based on a number of his own childhood experiences, Hank Zipzer which he penned alongside Lin Oliver), his directorial efforts, his stage work, and then his fantastic Emmy winning turn in Barry.

Winkler doles out his tale like a master storyteller, and the warmth and the kindness that one associates with the name, Henry Winkler seems to just emanate off the page. He’s open and honest about his anxiety, his dyslexia, his relationship, and his concerns about his career, but he’s also brilliantly funny.

Having recently listened to Ron Howard’s memoir via audiobook, some nice crossover moments between both let you see the same event from both sides, and you can appreciate their lifelong friendship and their affection for one another. You just know that both of them are warm, honest people and damn, would I love to hang out and chat with them both.

If you only know Henry Winkler as the Fonz, or as Gene Cousineau, or as the author of the Hank Zipzer stories, find out more about the genuine human being behind that by reading Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond, it’s a wonderful and enjoyable read.