The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

The remarkable story of a centenarian who lived through decades of American history and forged a life that will greatly inspire others.

In 2007, long time, Washington Post columnist, David Von Drehle, and his wife, tired of the “hassles of urban parenting,” uprooted their children, and moved from Washington DC to the suburbs of Kansas City, Mo. One day, Von Drehle spied a neighbor across the street washing his car in the August heat. That man was 102-year-old Charlie White, self-made, “hail and sturdy and razor-sharp,” who would become a very good friend of Von Drehle—and an influence so profound that he inspired The Book of Charlie, a splendidly woven, inspirational memoir than explores the meaning of life and the resilience of the human spirit.

Over the course of seven years, Von Drehle became fascinated by Charlie and his history. He was born when William Howard Taft was president, and he experienced life before the existence of highways, radio, movies, even penicillin. Whip-smart, independent, and crafty, Charlie grew up with four siblings, and a family that accommodated his father, a Christian pastor—who died at the age of 42 in a freak accident when Charlie was eight. The tragedy forged an indomitable, stoic resourcefulness in Charlie. He had a deeply rewarding career as a doctor, as well as marriages, children, and familial challenges. He chose not to dwell on unhappiness. He understood and accepted that, “Every life is a mixture of comedy and tragedy, joy and sorrow, daring and fear,” and barreled on.

Charlie made an art out of living; in much the same way as Von Drehle (Rise to Greatness; Triangle: The Fire that Changed America)--with elegance, care, respect, and admiration--makes art out of Charlie’s life story.

The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man by David Von Drehle

Simon & Schuster, $26.00 hardcover, 9781476773926, 208 pages

Publishing Date: May 26, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (May 1, 2023), link HERE

NOTE: To read this review, the original long form review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (March 30, 2023), link HERE

The Perfect Other: A Memoir of My Sister

A hauntingly reflective memoir details the intricacies of mental illness and the bonds of sisterly love and loyalty in this life--and beyond.

Deep, everlasting love, grief and the mysteries of mental illness are undercurrents that propel The Perfect Other, a chilling, moving memoir by Kyleigh Leddy. A graduate of Boston College now in pursuit of her master's in social work, Leddy grapples with the life and loss of her older sister, Kait, a young woman affected by schizophrenia.

 

Leddy has spent a large part of her young life grappling with the sudden and unexplained disappearance of her 22-year-old sister, Kait, last seen on a frigid January night in 2014. Security cameras show that her older sister took a taxi to the foot of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, Pa., ascended to the highest point and then disappeared. It is believed she jumped; however, her body was never recovered. Thus, her whereabouts remains a mystery--one that haunts Leddy and sets her on a course to make sense of the shocking tragedy, both personally and through a more psychologically clinical lens.

 

Through a sensitively drawn, stream-of-conscious narrative--spurred by a "Modern Love" column Leddy published in the New York Times--she stitches together remembered fragments and pivotal scenes from the life she, her mother and father shared with Kait. After sustaining a head injury, Kait started to exhibit concerning erratic behaviors that took inexplicable, unruly--often violent--turns. Leddy's raw search for understanding, meaning and peace grants readers a rare personal glimpse into the universal mysteries of mental illness and the long-lasting traumatic effects it has on those afflicted, as well as those in its orbit.

 

The Perfect Other: A Memoir by Kyleigh Leddy

Mariner Books, $28.99 hardcover, 9780358469346, 304 pages

Publication Date: March 8, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (March 8, 2022), link HERE

To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (January 7, 2022), link HERE

Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife

A fascinating glimpse into the life of an eccentric, legendary photographer whose work came to prominence only after her death.

Pamela Bannos, a professor at Northwestern University, frames a fascinating portrait of Vivian Maier, the mysterious nanny who was also a gifted, self-taught photographer who chose to remain unknown. The biography also examines the astonishing circumstances and coincidences by which Maier's photographs emerged into the public eye and her meteoric posthumous rise in the art world. Bannos pieces together clues about the woman behind the camera, dispelling myths that have been perpetuated and shaped since her death in 2009.

Vivian Maier was--and continues to remain--an enigma. Eccentric, fiercely independent and intensely private, she was born illegitimately in Manhattan to a French mother, whose own birth was illegitimate. Both Maier's mother and grandmother were live-in servants. That paved the way for Vivian, throughout her adult life, to work as a nanny for several well-to-do U.S. families. This enabled her to support herself while also secretly pursuing her craft as a visual artist for decades. Those closest to her knew that Maier liked to take photographs, yet no one knew the extent of her passion and drive--and the scope of her talent. It was only near the end of Maier's life that her work was discovered: photographs, thousands of negatives and more than 1,000 rolls of undeveloped film.

Bannos's engrossing, meticulously researched biography sensitively reconstructs Vivian Maier's very private life in conjunction with her posthumous legacy as a visionary photographer. Many questions remain and always will. However, Bannos's comprehensive narrative ensures that Vivian Maier's story and the treasure trove of her work will live on. 

Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife  by Pamela Bannos

University of Chicago Press, $35.00 Hardcover,  9780226470757, 352  pages

Publication Date: October 10, 2017

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (November 3, 2017), link HERE

Good Dog: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Loyalty

Garden & Gun is a magazine devoted to the best of Southern food, music, arts, literature and sports. The "Good Dog" column, which highlights personal stories about purebreds and mutts--good or bad, living or dead--has become a reader favorite. In Good Dog: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Loyalty, David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun offer a diverse compilation of the most memorable essays (and some new additions) about dogs and why we love them—no matter what!

The 51 stories in the anthology are by notable writers--novelists, journalists and humorists--most of whom have a connection to the South and whose lives have been affected, for better or worse, by dogs. The anthology is broken down into five sections: The Troublemakers, Afield, Man's Best Friend, Family Ties and Life Lessons.

Some essays are profound; Mary Lou Bendrick's "Last Rites" details the experience of her dog's grand exit from the world. Straddling the line between pathos and humor are essays such as "Licked to Death by a Pit Bull," in which Bronwen Dickey fights the prejudice against a notorious "bully breed." Comic relief infuses others; in "My Mother, My Dog," Donna Levine believes her cockapoo is her mother reincarnated, noting their relationship "has never been better."

Regardless of whether the pets have been adopted from an animal rescue or purchased from a breeder, acquired to offer companionship or protection, each story conveys the endearing sense of love, loyalty and resilience that comes from sharing a life with dogs.

Good Dog: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Loyalty by David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun

HarperWave, $25.99 Hardcover, 9780062242358, 288 pp

Publication Date: October 21, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (10/31/14), click HERE

This review was also featured (in a much longer form) on Shelf Awareness: Book Trade (10/10/14). To read the longer review click HERE

The Removers

In 1990, when Andrew Meredith was 14 years-old, his family fell apart. The downfall was caused by his 50 year-old father, a teacher fired from La Salle College in Pennsylvania after he was accused of sexual misconduct with a female student. The scandal and its lasting impact on the lives of his mother, sister and himself bind this powerfully drawn, often wrenching debut memoir, The Removers. The story of Meredith's experiences working alongside his father, who later found work as a "remover," taking away the bodies of people who died in their own homes, becomes the central thread and metaphor for the dissolution of his family.

A remover is someone who is "paid to be invisible . . . We are men made to be forgotten." Fortunately for the reader, however, Meredith never forgets incidents from an 18-year period in his life, which vividly recall details from his often gruesome, sometimes exhilarating, experiences in handling corpses while grappling with his bitterness toward a father who broke his heart.

Meredith's fluid, unabashed prose is delivered in a stream-of-consciousness style interspersed with scenes of how he floundered for fifteen years after high school. He worked a job he didn't want, taking ten years to finish college, and endured a series of failed romantic relationships. After ultimately moving to California, Meredith missed his hometown—the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia. Might his work with the dead have been his true professional calling, his salvation? Meredith's circuitous journey of self-discovery, his trying to reconcile his life by working with the dead, will fascinate those interested in the mysteries of life and death.

The Removers: A Memoir  by Andrew Meredith

Scribner, 24.00 Hardcover, 9781476761213, 179 pp

Publication Date: July 15, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Readers (7/25/14), click HERE

How to Survive Life (and Death)

It's one thing to have a Near-Death Experience (or NDE, for short), but to have three?  Could it be that fate shepherded Emmy nominated art director and author Robert Kopecky away from three potential near-death catastrophes in order to finally convince him to commit his experiences to the page and share what he's learned with others?

Kopecky never planned on personally investigating the nature of death and how to live a more fulfilling life. But in his entertaining memoir and self-help book, How to Survive Life (and Death): A Guide for Happiness in This World and Beyond, he delivers his insightful and inspiring personal story, which puts mortality into perspective while offering strategies to improve and experience life to the fullest. Crafted in simple, accessible prose, and filled with lots of good humor, the author intersperses details of each of his NDEs, which occurred via various culprits in three distinct generations of his life. The author's disembodiment experiences—and each aftermath—taught him valuable life lessons that ultimately enlightened him about the nature of time, how to face fear and suffering, why "radical kindness" and compassion, along with forging a spirit of generosity and forgiveness, are essential to keeping faith and hope alive.

Kopecky ties cosmology, metaphysics and quantum reality together with his own spiritual experiences, while also weaving in theories from Buddhism, Hinduism, the teachings of Gandhi, excerpts from the apocryphal Gospels of Thomas and the more contemporary views of Joseph Campbell. In the end, Kopecky's miraculous passages back from the brink of death make for a compelling narrative—for believers, nonbelievers and garden-variety skeptics. He demonstrates how love and surrender are liberating, healing powers that can ultimately bring us "out of this world"—and sometimes back again, too!

 
How To Survive Life (and Death): A Guide for Happiness in This World and Beyond by Robert Kopecky

Conari Press,  $16.95 paper, 97801573246361, 224 pp

Publication Date: April 1, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

The First Phone Call From Heaven

Mitch Albom, the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, delivers a novel which questions the idea of life after life. 

In The First Phone Call from Heaven, select inhabitants of Coldwater, Michigan start receiving brief, often cryptic, calls from loved ones who have died. Some in the sleepy little town look forward to the calls, taking solace; others find them much too emotional and avoid them. Some choose to keep their conversations secret, but folks like Katherine Yellin—a 46 year-old divorced mother—believe the calls received from her beloved, deceased sister must be shared. When Yellin goes public, others, too, come forward until the mysterious communications from the afterlife grab worldwide media attention, turning Coldwater into a circus-like, pilgrimage destination.

Religious and anti-religious wrestle with the implications, along with skeptics like local resident Sully Harding, a former pilot whose wife died while he was serving prison time. The single father's heartbreaking back-story figures prominently into the suspense of the plot. When Sully's seven-year-old son expresses a longing to receive a call from his own deceased mother, Sully sets out on a quest to prove the phone calls asserting that heaven exists are all a hoax.

Albom's ensemble cast of characters reflects varying attitudes, fears and hopes of people coping with guilt, grief and loss. Interjected throughout the briskly paced narrative are details of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, what it meant for his own life and its context in the modern world. Albom's dialogue-driven story culminates near Christmas. The story ultimately becomes a social commentary about human connection, encouraging readers to question the meaning of their own lives, faith and beliefs.

The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom

Harper, $24.99, Hardcover, 9780062294371 , 326 pp

Publication Date: November 12, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Eat, Pray, Stop Traffic

Traffic snarled in NYC this past weekend where Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem (Love in the Time of Cholera, Vicky Christina Barcelona) are filming an adaptation of the bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. The story is about a divorcee seeking meaning in life and what better place for the protagonist of the story to begin that search than in a bookstore. BookCourt, an indie bookshop in Brooklyn, makes a cameo in the film. Hooray for hyping indie bookstores--in real life and on the big screen.

To learn more about Elizabeth Gilbert and read some of her thoughts about writing, link here: http://elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm

Bon Appetit !

From life/blog to the page . . .

From page/cyberspace to the screen . . .

Brilliant Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail) has written and directed, Julie & Julia, a story about two women--Julia Child, Master Chef and author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julie Powell, a woman who wrote a blog (and later a book) documenting her vow to cook her way through Child's book, 524 recipes in 365 days. Wow! The film cuts back and forth between the lives of these two women foodies, living and cooking in different eras. Like the books and blog upon which this film is based, Julie & Julia explores the ways in which passion, hunger and ambition fuel our lives. Oh, and it's about love, too. Food, love and the stories of lives well-lived . . . on the page, on the screen or in real life, it doesn't get much better than that. Delicioso!

To read more about Julie Powell and her journey from blog to page to screen, link here:

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/movies/julie_powell_leads_bloggers_to_the_silver_screen_123849.asp

Photo "Fig Heart" by Kathleen Gerard