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

by David von Drehle

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.

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. 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.

David 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. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Memoir, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Book Club

194 pages, Hardcover

First published May 23, 2023

About the author

David von Drehle is the author of three previous books, including the award-winning Triangle, a history of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire that The New York Times called "social history at its best." An editor-at-large at Time magazine, he and his family live in Kansas City, Missouri.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidv...

Reviews

[Dez the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful and meaningful look into the life of a centurion.

I appreciate wisdom and try to gleam any kernel of knowledge I can obtain from anything who’s lived a CENTURY can share.

I found the book a little dry at times but ultimately enjoyed learning and listening to stories and experiences from someone who’s lived through so much history.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more. It’s about a doctor who lived to he 109. He began practicing medicine before penicillin was used, before there were highways stretching across the US, prior to computers and TVs.
He lived an amazing and amazingly long life.
Yet we hear Charlie’s life through the lens of the author, who is rather heavy handed in creating “lessons learned” and “ways to live” based on his perceptions of what Charlie experienced.
I wish we had heard Charlie’s life in Charlie’s words.

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man on audiobook and it is narrated by the author, David von Drehle. I love it when an author narrates their own work.

The book starts with David, the author, noticing a 102-year-old man, Charlie White, across the street washing his girlfriend's purple car after a "sleepover." I was immediately hooked and wanted to know more about Charlie and his life.

Charlie was born in 1905 and passed away in 2014. He had a challenging childhood. His father passed away at age 42 from a freak elevator accident. Charlie was eight years old, and his mom had five children to raise.

Charlie was resilient, determined, and innovative throughout his life. When life threw him challenges and obstacles, he found creative ways to work through them.

Charlie's life was fascinating because he lived through so many world events and changes.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

[M]y neighbor was, in the sunshine of an August Sunday morning, washing his girlfriend’s car. I couldn’t help but note that the vehicle in question was parked in the same spot where she had left it the night before ….

[He] was bare-chested, dressed only in a pair of old swim trunks. With a garden hose in one hand and a soapy sponge in the other, he flexed his muscular chest with each splash and swirl, while his wavy hair flopped rakishly over one eye.

This was Charlie White.

Age 102.

The year was 2007. David von Drehle and his family had just moved from Washington, D.C. to the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri, where his wife had grown up. The move was made possible because his paper, The Washington Post, had offered him a job that allowed him to telecommute and thus move away from the East Coast.

It wasn’t long after the move that von Drehle walked outside to get the paper and spied Charlie across the street. He had briefly been introduced to Charlie, but the scene that he observed told him that here was a person that he wanted to know better.

It was the beginning of a seven year friendship that ended when Charlie died the day after his 109th birthday. They spent many hours in Charlie’s den with Charlie telling stories and von Drehle, like a good journalist, listening.

Von Drehle said that he didn’t expect to enjoy a long-lasting relationship with a man who was 102, because "actuarial tables … in a random count of 100,000 men, only about 350 – fewer than half of 1 percent – make it to 102. Among those hardy survivors, the average chap has less than two years remaining. After 104, the lives slip quickly away, like the last grains of sand in an hourglass."

He didn’t mention what the odds were for someone who was 102 to be spending an August morning washing his girlfriend’s car, a girlfriend who had obviously spent the night. Well, how could he? That actuarial table doesn’t exist.

It is difficult to even fathom what changes a person born in 1905 and who lived until 2014 would see and experience. For example, as von Drehle writes:

An American born in the early 1900s who managed to live into the 2000s would have one foot planted in the age of draft animals and diphtheria – a time when only 6 percent of Americans graduated from high school – and the other planted in the age of space stations and robotic surgery…. From women forbidden to vote to women running nations and corporations…. No human foot had ever touched the North or South Pole or the summit of Mount Everest when they were born, yet they lived to see footprints on the moon.

Charlie, as von Drehle discovered, was Dr. Charles White, M.D. In the 1920s, as a medical student in Chicago, he once treated mobsters that were ambushed on the street. During WWII he served in the Army as a physician and was among the first to learn the art of intravenous anesthesiology, which he taught other doctors.

The Book of Charlie (2023) is a biography of a remarkable person, someone who lived more than a century and whose mind and memory never faltered. The subtitle is a foreshadowing of what is contained within its pages: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man. It is, however, more than that. Along the way von Drehle inserts interesting anecdotes that help elucidate the changing times that Charlie witnessed and experienced during his hundred plus years.

[Darla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody's going to do it for you. you've got to do your own paddling. So always keep your daubers up--no matter what. ~ Charlie White

Imagine being born in 1905. That is the year Charlie was born. The Civil War was closer in his rear view mirror than the Gulf War is for us in 2024. Speaking of rear view mirrors, he wasn't driving around with one of those for decades. The author penned this inspirational book after spending years hearing Charlie's stories. It was easy to visit Charlie. He lived right across the street!

This heartwarming tale will take you on a roller coaster ride through the 20th century and on into the current millennium. Along the way you will get a firsthand look at the resilience and resolution it takes to live 109 years. One of the most fascinating concepts discussed is that of iterative and incremental development. Charlie had this in spades!

While there were times when I would have liked a little more of a deep dive into Charlie's story, I can't deny that all the local settings and events were a delight to read about. So happy that Charlie was a Kansas City man for much of his life.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the author moved to a Kansas City suburb in 2007 he met his new neighbor who lived across the street from his house named Charlie White who was 102 years old. Beginning is 2007 until 2014 when White died on his 109th birthday, the author had numerous informal conversations with him. Later the author decided the stories he heard from Charlie White deserved to be compiled into this book which was published in 2023.

About halfway through the book at a point where Charlie is beginning his career as a medical doctor, the author summarizes Charlie's life adventures up to that point with the following words:

He had been on his own a long time. When he darted from a train and walked the last miles home from a pedophile's summer camp as an eight-year-old. When he drove halfway across the country on rutted roads and surfed freight trains home at sixteen. When he made himself a musician by listening to the radio and turned that little career into a college education and a trip halfway around the world. When he delivered babies and watched patients die and pumped his own blood into a Chicago gangster.

The second half of the book beyond this point tells stories from his work as a physician and later, after service in World War II, as an anesthesiologist.

Charlie had two failed marriages before finally having a third marriage that lasted. After the death of his third wife he had an extended relationship with a fourth woman with whom he never married. It was the first and second marriages that required some supplemental research beyond Charlie's account. Charlie had told of the mental health problems of his first wife, but it took locating some obscure police records to reveal the details of her tragic and untimely death. The author was able to also track down his second wife, who fortunately was also living to an advanced age, enabling an interview with her to learn her side of their marriage and breakup story.

Charlie's long life was the source of many stories, and he apparently enjoyed sharing them with this book's author. But it is the skilled writing by the author that makes this book worth reading. It's the story of an adventurous youth, varied experiences in midlife as a family doctor, and finally becoming a leading anesthesiologist. Charlie had lived through the twentieth century, an era of great change, and he had the good fortune of living through 109 of those years in good health.

[Jeanette]

No rating for a book that gets many stars for the majority of readers.

It's just not for me. I'm not at all embedded in the writing style after 20% read- and am truly tired of the lectures. Charlie is interesting and worth a read. But much more so for those who were never there. Because many of us who have lived through "interesting" times, KNOW it doesn't tell like a history book filled with aftermath platitudes.

Being old, it has its drawbacks and also has some joys. Even for those of us in more than average good health. But most of the advice and preaching going on here is valid at any age. That's true. But I don't believe it is perpetually possible to live in the moment. If you ALWAYS do, you do NOT get to over 100- that's for sure.

Sort of ironic that all of the emotive and effusive seem to adore the philosophy of stoics within this book. While the few of us that ARE stoic are continually disdained and abused for not emoting continually and visibly. Just happened this week at a granddaughter's wedding. No Kleenex for me.

So far this year, I think I have tried "old" people book characters a few times too many. Some are actually realistic and interesting. This would be a worthwhile read for most people, especially those who don't know any real history. What they are teaching in many schools, is not much of it at all. History is a piece of its own times and mores and opinions in their proper context and not filled with omissions. And for the last century, also held huge positive advancements in nearly everything physical or mental. Not only for humans. Some of us do remember the days when the ice man came for our ice boxes. Or having no flush anything.

DNF

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3-3.5 stars. Dr Charlie White lived a remarkably long life (109 years) and accomplished many things, especially in the medical field. The author, David von Drehle, was his neighbor in later years and heard many of Charlie's stories, which he has compiled in this short biography. Von Drehle likes to think Charlie was a Stoic, a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining, because Charlie was able to keep an optimistic outlook on life no matter what befell him. 'The lesson, so simple yet so difficult, is that life can be savored even though it contains hardship, disappointment, loss and even brutality. The choice to see its beauty is available to us at every moment.' Definitely words of wisdom.

I received an arc of this book from the author and publisher via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

[Sharon Huether · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a book of inspiration, written about a man that reached the age of 109 and enjoyed a very full life.
In his lifetime he worked hard, he spread joy, he took chances and enjoyed wonders.

A must read.

[Jeanine Mcauliffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Book of Charlie was intermittently a story about an interesting and engaging character who lived a very long life and the author’s desire to write a history book - it could have been more Charlie and less history! Charlie lived his life governed by the basic principles that most of us try to follow - his greatest strength was his ultimate resiliency and ‘can do’ attitude in all things. He lived some remarkable stories! A life of over a hundred years spans so much change, innovation, conflict, and advancements - but the author’s segues into history lessons detracted from Charlie’s story and left major gaps in his life - perhaps there weren’t stories of interest over all those missed years? This was a book group choice and left us all feeling that the story could have been much more.

[Barbara K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book in a row that I’ve read for an IRL book club, but which I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. The previous one, The Bog Wife, turned out to be a winner. This one, not so much.

David von Drehl wanted to write a book for his children, and found in his neighbor Charlie White an inspirational topic. Charlie was born in 1905 (the same year as my father) and lived to age 109.

The inspiring message von Drehl is determined to communicate is that Charlie’s positive, Stoic attitude toward life saw him through countless hard times and was responsible for his colorful, successful life. That Charlie was determined goes without question. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. For instance, when he didn’t get the educational opportunity or job he wanted, he persisted until he wore down the opposition.

But I would suggest that luck played an equally large role in Charlie’s success. Following his father’s death in a freak elevator accident when he was 8, Charlie’s mother took a hands-off approach to parenting. She was OK with whatever harebrained activities he engaged in as long as he would “do the right thing”. She was self-reliant herself and found ways to make ends meet, so that Charlie didn’t have to drop out of school to keep the family solvent. He was able to attend an upscale high school and she helped him with college expenses. I strongly suspect that his life would have been vastly different with a different mother.

During WWII Charlie was living the high life as a doctor on an air base in Utah. His duties were light and he had an unlimited gasoline allowance, which he used for ski trips and other forms of entertainment. He had arbitrarily been assigned the responsibilities of anesthesiologist at the base hospital, and when the opportunity arose, he applied for training in advanced anesthesiology techniques being developed for military use. This started him on a career after the war ended as an anesthesiology specialist.

Von Drehle frames this as an example of Charlie’s willingness to embrace the future rather than remain mired his past as a family practitioner. And yet - Charlie had grave reservations about enlisting because he was afraid of losing his patient base while he was away from home. So you might say that this was another instance of luck - luck that he was made the anesthesiologist at the air base, and luck that his position afforded him the opportunity to join the new world of specialized medicine.

I won’t deny that some people would have stayed with what they knew. But a lot of people would have jumped at the chance to become involved in something new. He was only in this 30’s when this happened, and plenty of people make career changes that are much more dramatic after that age.

What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that van Drehle tries too hard to make Charlie’s life fit a paradigm of his own devising. Charlie did live an eventful life, but I didn’t find in his story anything new or especially inspiring. He himself chalked up to luck the fact that he had such a long life despite smoking for decades and engaging in some dangerous activities.

But then again, I do tend to be resistant to motivational stories about white men from comfortable backgrounds. I will give credence to the idea of just moving forward when times get tough - but I learned that from my own experiences, and it hasn’t made me a cheerful person. That, I’m afraid, is in the genes.

[Mary Leciejewski · Rating 2 out of 5]

The guy’s life is incredible, but this book isn’t. Ends up being a slog through basic history of the 20th century.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of "the Book of Charlie" from NetGalley. David Von Drehle. writes of his neighbor, Charlie White. When he moved into his neighborhood Charlie White was one of his neighbors. He found out that Charlie was 102 years old. The author wanted to know more about this man who was 102 when they met and 109 when he died. For the seven years up to Mr. White's death he wanted to know more about Charlie White's life. He soon found out that Charlie White had quite a life in his 109 years. He lost his father to a freak accident when Charlie was only eight years old. Charlie was very smart and skipped two grades. When he graduated from high school he travelled through the USA with a friend. At first in a model T and on his way home hopping trains. In his life he became a physician practicing way into to his older years. He was in the armed forces during WWII. to name a few things in his life. I do not want to give too many spoilers of his life. But was amazed at the many accomplishments he did over his long life. I found this to be a very interesting read.

[Phillip Welshans · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a rule that I'll give any book at least 50 pages before putting it down. I have a second rule to avoid any book with the slightest whiff of the saccharine. Unfortunately, I only kept to the former and not the latter with this book.

I take full responsibility: The Book of Charlie and its author were featured on CBS Sunday Morning, a show that routinely has stories aimed at old people looking for a boom to read at their doctor's office. But the story was done in a clever way so as to make it seem like the book would be bit more substantial than the usual entry in the "treachly sub-200 page reflections on a life" book.

And The Book of Charlie starts out with a fairly strong chapter on the subject's resiliency and how some of that could be due to his unwitting adherence to the tenets of Stoicism. Stoicism has become a fad among a host of younger authors in recent years. Writers like Matt Holiday (creator of The Daily Stoic) have for years written about this school of philosophical thought. So it was interesting to see the possible link there with Charlie's life. Unfortunately, we get only a surface treatment.

Thereafter the chapters loll along with far less impact. One posits that Charlie's trip out west and riding the rails back home shows his self reliance. OK, possibly but is that all that interesting? Another links his willingness to use an iPhone well into his 90s and 100s as evidence that adaptability is necessary for living a contented life. Again, not necessarily wrong, but certainly unoriginal and the use of the "cell phones today are so complicated!" trope is worn thin.

So, in the end The Book of Charlie is a diet soda of a book: tastes fine but there's zero caloric content behind it so you can consume this book without any fear of it leaving a mark on your mind's waistline. Like Tuesdays with Morrie and Marley and Me, you can read this book, maybe shed a tear, nod your head in agreement, say "that's so true!" a couple times, and move on.

[Linda Camacho · Rating 1 out of 5]

chapter 10

The best part of this book was chapter 10 because the words were Charlie’s. I would have liked more of his philosophy.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

David’s study of Charlie White’s life focuses on how a man makes it to such an age with all his faculties and physical capacities still in place. In Charlie’s case, many of the anecdotes over his life span focus on his lens of seeing life’s challenges through a lens of comedy, joy and/or daring.

Not only does the reader receive a beautifully told life story, Von Drehle, being a true reporter, gives one interesting facts about each time period of Charlie’s life, from the miraculous introduction of Ford’s Model T to radio to modern medicine.

[Laura Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book of Charlie is a loving and lovely tribute to the life of Charles White who lived to be 109 years old by embracing everything that life had to offer and understanding the wisdom of living in the present while firmly facing forward. I highly recommend it to all readers.

I received an early drc from the publisher via Netgalley.

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed hearing Charlie White's life story but didn't care for the overly glowing narration and the author's heavy-handed attempts at teaching us (his selective version of) 100 years of American history and stoicism. Many readers (myself included) had parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents (or older people in our lives who we talked to and learned from before they passed away) who were born around Charlie's birth year of 1905, so we already have a historical context for life back then. It annoyed me how the author kept shoehorning famous people into Charlie's narrative that Charlie never met (i.e., Walt Disney, Ernest Hemingway). I would've preferred that Charlie had written his own life story, if that was even something he wanted to do -- it's unclear from the book whether the author had asked Charlie if he wanted his story told like this posthumously.

Further reading:
The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II by Katherine Sharp Landdeck (2020) - because Jean Landis (1918-2022), who was one of these pioneering pilots, is briefly mentioned as Charlie's second wife. This book gives much more context about these women and their wartime service.

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eva Eger (2017) - Dr. Eger isn't a centenarian yet (she was born in 1927, and was 90 when this book was published), but this is an excellent memoir about how she overcame significant trauma and how she reflects on her life.

[Mary: Me, My Shelf & I · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start out by saying I started this audio book on June 5th 2 days be for I had major surgery (right knee replacement) I developed some severe after effects and suspended all listening and/ or reading. I was finally able to pick this back up, with skimming over what was already read and then to completion of this book within the past 3 days.
This is a really remarkable story number one because our MC started telling his life story to his neighbor at age 106 (he died at 109!! It’s remarkable to hear about life, family raising, jobs, and antidotes through the year. I enjoyed listening to the author who lived next door to Charlie reading his own book.

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As compact and efficient as a biography of a normal person you only knew in the last few years of life can get, the writer does a great job of looking at an exceptional human who lived through the 20th century and did some things and learned from them. A fabulous example of the genre.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

5-
What an interesting, thoughtful biography! David von Drehle has written a concise, meaningful profile of his neighbor, Dr. Charles White (Charlie), who was born at the beginning of the 20th century and died in the 21st at the remarkable age of 109 years. During his life as the world completely transformed, Charlie rose above childhood trauma, maintained his equilibrium, remained resilient, and sustained intellectual acuity until the very end of his life. He began practicing medicine when few tools or knowledge for healing existed but learned and grew with rapid scientific advances as his profession was profoundly revolutionized during his exceptionally long career.

The history Charlie experienced was fascinating in and of itself, but the true significance of this book is the model he gave for us in our own time. He accepted the inevitable defeats and tragedies of life and then relished the triumphs and joys as they also presented themselves. He did not waste time or energy on negatives he could not change, but instead optimistically sought solutions and new paths forward. He was not a perfect man, but he always remembered and lived by his mother's admonition to "Do the right thing" when difficult choices emerged. That sounds simplistic but for Charlie, and everyone else, "doing the right thing" can often be inconvenient and profoundly difficult.

Charlie White was an ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life for an astondingly long time. He mourned his losses appropriately and then moved forward to enthusiastically meet his future. When asked, he attributed his health and longevity to good fortune, but accepted, as we all must, that his time would run out. He did not obsess on the inevitability of death, one of the most important lessons Charlie has bequeathed us. Rejoice each hour with no guarantee of the next.

This book was both enjoyable and worthwhile. The author wrote it specifically as a legacy for his children; fortunately he shared it more broadly.

[Emmet Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel kind of duped by this one. I tend to like books by people who have done something extraordinary and written about what they learned/skills they developed/etc., but this one was a miss. For one, the subtitle is rather bombastic. There’s nothing that struck me as uniquely “American” about Charlie’s life, and although I’m hesitant to dunk on some dead guy, his life doesn’t strike me as being all that “remarkable” other than his having lived so long. The whole book reads as if the author operates on the assumption that anyone who lives to that age necessarily has some wisdom to impart, which I think is questionable. This leaves the book feeling like a biography of someone who isn’t all that interesting, with lots of emphasis on the historical context of the person’s life rather than the person themself… But the writing style was good enough to make me finish it at least.

[Nikki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book lies somewhere between non-fiction and fiction. The author bases his stories mostly off of his memory of conversations with Charlie, which leaves room for extreme bias. The author places his own inferred conclusions on the stories and on Charlie's life. The inference that Charlie was a victim of sexual abuse at the camp he attended as a young boy is not one that the author has the right to make, and if Charlie was abused at the camp he obviously did not want or wasn't ready to tell the story. It betrayed the trust that Charlie put in him by telling the stories. Charlie's story spans decades, was one for the ages, but in the end it is a story of white male privilege. Charlie wouldn't have been able to do many of the things in his life if he had been a woman, a person of color, LGBTQ, or an immigrant. The author took serious liberties with the stories that Charlie told him.

[Noreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a solid 3.5 stars.

It’s a quick read at just under 200 pages. I enjoyed most of it but the author dwelled too much on Charlie’s father at the beginning & on historical happenings throughout Charlie’s life that I felt had no bearing on his longevity.

But what a character Charlie was! And the life he led is almost hard to believe. He definitely found the zest for life! He’s to be admired.

Not overly fond of this writer’s style. Example: he felt the need to explain what an obstetric doctor was. Really?!? He injects way too much inconsequential detail. If you can ignore that and just concentrate on all the things Charlie did …well that’s where the gold is.

[Beth Menendez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely adored this meandering tale of Dr Charlie White who was from my home town. It’s absolutely charming and I loved hearing of my town throughout the decades. It was fun to read about the places o knew about before and after their current development

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook wonderfully narrated by the author over the Labor Day weekend. I wish I had had the chance to meet Charlie. The old boy sounds like a charmer.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I loved the stories of Charlie’s life and his amazing longevity, I felt the author to be a tad repetitive and preachy about stoicism. There is much to reflect on in this book, especially the need to move forward and not dwell on the past and always be standing on tiptoe peeking into the future. One kernel important for me —you are responsible for yourself and you cannot control others behavior, so don’t spend time on that negativity. Move on.

[Paul Lemcke · Rating 1 out of 5]

So disappointing. There no wisdom from Charlie except a few tips on the final two pages. Mostly it was a history of what was going on in the world during Charlie's life since 1906, and lots of it never had anything to do with Charlie. I never got to know him at all except through little stories one might tell at a eulogy. I feel cheated that there was no dialog and no pearls of wisdom other than to keep a positive attitude.

[Deacon Tom F. (Recovering from a big heart attack) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book about a life well lived. Charlie’s main quality was his ability to let life come to him.

It was also very different to see the history in the 108 years of his life interlocking with the overall history of the large events of the world.

I recommend highly.

[Sara Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

這本書滿有趣的，有以下幾個面向很推薦：

1.這本書描寫的是一個關於年過百歲的人生經歷，看到所有「歷史」都成為查理生活的一部分，可以很具體的看到所謂歷史是如何具體對於一個人帶來影響。
就像是查理從沒有抗生素的時代開始從醫，一直到後來技術進步而成為專科醫師，都能感受到那個時代洪流的變化；或是查理經歷了經濟大蕭條、二戰、汽車的普及等等，時局會推動查理要面對的問題，而從書裡面看到有人第一線的反應，而不是站在歷史的觀點，抽象討論那些事件的意義，很有趣。

2.因為這本書只是查理的鄰居去記載查理的生平，所以他可以用第三者的觀點去分析查理生活經驗中的真相，或是精神狀態的變化。
像是當查理提到他參加的夏令營多麼有趣時，作者反而用創傷的觀點分析夏令營的邪惡面。最明顯的莫過於作者以斯多葛學派的哲學觀點，詮釋查理面對生活困境的態度。我還蠻喜歡這種(適當的)回頭檢討原因的敘述方式。

3.查理本身被描寫成一個又熱情、具有冒險人格特質、充滿勇氣、願意接受挑戰、樂觀的人，他的生活經驗就算不做任何分析，也非常精彩。他曾經在汽車、道路根本不普遍的時代，開車橫跨大陸；他曾經在手邊沒有任何工具、不知道可以用什麼治療方法的時候，憑著信念為一個黑幫老大做急救。這些故事都讓人感受得到他的生命力，以及生氣勃勃背後的吸引力。

看這本書的時候，會覺得真的只要願意勇於面對生活裡的種種難題，就可以化危機為轉機。最怕的就是消極、什麼都不做。
而且查理面對的生活難題，有太多都是歷史上的大難題，更加突顯自己生活中所遇到的困難，多麼無關痛癢，也讓整本書變得更加有說服力。