A wonderful book that has its roots in a chance meeting when Washington Post columnist David von Drehle moved to Kansas City and encountered, living across the street, Dr. Charlie White, then 102 years old. White was an engaging teller of tales, and von Drehle, a skilled listener, recognized a great book in the long arc of White’s life that spanned more than a century of incredible change, invention, and disruption. White himself was a paragon of resilience and equanimity, someone who held fast to simple truths, which made him a natural role model. As von Drehle explains at the start of the book, he wrote it with his own four kids in mind, hoping they’d take some lessons from White’s life and incredible attitude. There’s certainly much for the rest of us, too, in this inspirational, lovingly crafted tale about an exemplary individual.