Other priorities always seemed to come first, until all his close friendships had lapsed into distant memories. In this comic adventure through the loneliness epidemic, a middle-aged everyman looks around one day and realizes that he seems to have misplaced his friends, inspiring him to set out on a hilarious and ultimately moving quest to revive old tribes and build new ones, in his own ridiculous way.Īt the age of forty, having settled into his busy career and active family life, Billy Baker discovers that he’s lost something crucial along the way: his friends. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation, an inventive nation-a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life. The Book of Charlie is a gospel of grit-the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.ĭavid Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship-and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and happy life in the centenarian next door.
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