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Epoch Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for May 2–8
This week, we feature the gripping saga of a group of musicians in the Pacific theater and a new look at the forgotten tales of one of early baseball's greats. History ' By Michael Doyle 'Nightmare' was bandleader Artie Shaw's musical theme used to open his shows. It described the experiences of the band he led during World War II on its South Pacific tour. A biography of Shaw highlighting his war years, this book tells the story of Navy Band 501 during WWII. A swing era king, Shaw was at the top of his form when he joined the Navy in 1942 and thus formed Navy Band 501. The book follows the band in the Pacific and England, including experiences under fire at Guadalcanal. University of North Texas Press, 2025, 288 pages Sports ' Related Stories 4/24/2025 4/17/2025 By Alan D. Gaff In the same vein as his popular 'Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir,' Gaff has discovered a trove of material connected to one of baseball's greatest players. The author has unearthed the lost biography of Christy Mathewson, a member of the first class of Baseball Hall of Fame inductees. Gaff presents the world of baseball at the turn of the 20th century, as well as the golden age of journalism when sportswriters turned athletes into demigods. Baseball fans will surely read with glee and gratitude. University of Nebraska Press, 2025, 248 pages Nonfiction ' By Brad Meltzer If you happen to be looking for a gift for your high school graduate or for a friend's commencement from college, try this slim book. In a real way, you're actually doubling up on that graduation, as this is the address Brad Meltzer delivered at his son's 2024 commencement ceremonies at the University of Michigan. Using magic tricks as his motif, the author aims to inspire his audience to seek an authentic life while unleashing kindness and gratitude on a world that is sorely in need of both. William Morrow, 2025, 112 pages Mystery 'Too Darn Hot' By Sandra Scoppettone Set in wartime New York City of 1943, female PI Faye Quick runs her boss's 'A Detective Agency' while he is off at war. When Private Charlie Ladd disappeared on leave in New York City, his fiancée hires Faye to find him. Faye starts at a hotel room Ladd rented. There, she finds a body hidden in the wardrobe. It is not Ladd, but it entangles Faye in a web of kidnapping, murder, and blackmail. The book conjures up 1940s New York City, a world of tawdry restaurants, walk-up flats, and cheap bars. Ballantine Books, 2007, 291 pages Classics ' By Peter Kreeft Kreeft has taught philosophy for 60 years and has written many books on the subject. Here, he introduces philosophy to high schoolers, college students, and other interested readers. The early chapters cover the basics, then we shift to an encounter between Socrates and a contemporary student, Nat. A Socratic dialogue ensues, with questions, replies, and more questions as the two discuss various schools of philosophy. An entertaining and witty portable classroom for any budding philosopher. Ignatius Press, 2024, 352 pages For Kids ' By Cynthia Rylant and Diane Goode A grandmother recounts moments from her childhood growing up in the mountains, sharing dear memories like swimming in swimming holes, fetching water from a well for baths, and sitting on the porch swing with her grandparents. This sweet book highlights the magic of passing down family history and the delight of sharing stories across generations. Dutton Books for Young Readers, 1982, 32 pages What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Epoch Times
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Epoch Times
New Biography Unearths a Grand View of a Baseball Great
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Christy Mathewson's death. The legendary pitcher, who was part of the first class of inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame, has in a sense been resurrected. Historian and baseball savant, Alan D. Gaff, has again unearthed material from one of the game's greats. Just as he did with his 2020 book, 'Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir,' the author has gifted baseball fans with a piece of America's pastime that might well have been lost to history. In his new work, 'Baseball's First Superstar: The Lost Life Story of Christy Mathewson,' Gaff takes the reader through the early 20th century era of baseball when the sportswriters of newspapers and magazines gave the game its mythic status. The folklore of the game had become pronounced by the middle of the century, as Gaff quotes a 1945 article from sportswriter Whitney Martin, stating that sportswriters 'glamorized the game, surrounded it with an aura of romance, personalized and humanized the players, built reputations.' Gaff, by some kind fate, discovered lost material that indeed 'personalized and humanized' Mathewson. Mathewson warming up as a New York Giant in 1910. Library of Congress. Public Domain Most of the articles Gaff presents were written to be the baseball player's biography, and much of that was written by one of the golden boys of the golden era of newspapers, Bozeman Bulger. Although their job was to 'glamorize the game,' a number of sportswriters made such a significant impact on baseball that they themselves became icons in their own right. As the author notes, 'Being a sportswriter prior to the World War meant joining a unique fraternity that assembled at the various watering holes in New York City.' Finding the First Star That unique fraternity helped expand the game across the country and made familiar the names of Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Babe Ruth. These other four joined Mathewson to comprise the first class of inductees into the Hall of Fame. These names are probably far more familiar to readers than that of Mathewson. Nonetheless, Gaff utilizes this class to pose and ultimately answer a question: Who was baseball's first superstar. The author's essays about these players makes a great case for each. Gaff, however, qualifies Mathewson, writing that, 'Talent is common but marvelous talent is quite rare. When combined with the character of a true sportsman and gentlemanly behavior, this country takes notice, as it did with Christy Mathewson, who was upheld as a symbol of American sportsmanship.' Undoubtedly, it is Gaff's hope that the country again takes notice of Mathewson. The centerpiece of Gaff's book is Bulger's lost biography on Mathewson, which was serialized in newspapers a century ago. The author does, though, add other articles from that era in order 'to fill in gaps to keep the story flowing.' Among these pieces are articles written by Mathewson himself, as well as a heartrending piece by Mathewson's wife, Jane, shortly after the pitcher lost his battle with tuberculosis. The Best in Baseball and Humanity 'Baseball's First Superstar' presents the best of baseball and its players. It also presents the best in people, a person, in the form of Mathewson. Although it's certainly a baseball book, it's not strictly about that. Gaff's collection of articles written by those who knew the first class hall of famer best is about something more profound than a game. The book is a discussion on friendship, duty, sacrifice, love, and hope against a deadly disease, which he contracted during World War I (a war he did not have to volunteer for). These ideals, in a sense, can be summed up in the final pages of the book in Jane's article. She states, 'Though I had known Christy as only a wife can know her husband for twenty years, I never quite realized his strength of character and his fortitude and his sweet consideration for others until he was stricken ill.' Related Stories 5/21/2024 2/12/2024 Gaff quotes Mathewson's old friend and former manager, John J. McGraw, who wrote a letter to Bulger, stating, 'I do want to say that the annals of sport would not be complete without an official biography of Matty and I think every boy, young man, old man and a great many women will read it.' A century later that statement still rings true. Baseball fans can once more be thankful that Gaff has again sleuthed his way into the lore of America's pastime and presented a player whose name we know, but personage we do not. Just as with his Lou Gehrig work, Gaff has unearthed a trove of baseball treasure with descriptions and stories of Mathewson by those who knew him best. Such an undertaking is a testament to the author's love and appreciation for America's great game. ' By Alan D. Gaff University of Nebraska Press, May 1, 2025 Hardcover: 248 pages What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
