What Really Happened To The Class Of ’65? – Michael Medved & David Wallechinsky, 1976 ★★★½

Boomers Go Boom

The social upheavals of the late 1960s caught a lot of people by surprise. Nobody was ready for the madness and revolution on the way, least of all the graduates of Palisades High School’s Class of 1965.

Those California kids were nestled in sunny comfort and luxury, alive with the promise of great things to come. They weren’t the only ones who saw that promise. Time magazine that year sent a team to profile this class on the cusp of graduation, dubbing them “smarter, subtler, and more sophisticated.”

It turned out rather differently. Or as a popular sage of that era, George Harrison, would later observe. “When you don’t know where you’re going/Any road will take you there.”

The Glory Of Their Times – Lawrence S. Ritter, 1966 ★★★★½

Scraping Off the Sepia

Sometimes they still call baseball Our National Pastime; in the early part of the 20^th century it really was the only game in town. Yet what went on in the Major Leagues then seems impossible today.

Cy Young threw 511 career victories, and 750 complete games. In 1909, Ty Cobb led the majors both in batting average (.377) and home runs (9). Cobb’s teammate Sam Crawford hit over 300 triples in his career.

When Rube Marquard and Babe Adams pitched against each other on July 17, 1914, both went the distance – 21 innings.

Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography Of Harry S. Truman – Merle Miller, 1974 ★★½

Cocktails with Harry

While written as an oral history of Harry S. Truman, Plain Speaking flows like a morality play in which a hero imparts life lessons and reveals his inner self to one gradually won over by his goodness. But can you trust what you read?

Merle Miller was hired in 1961 by television producer David Susskind to interview Truman for a documentary. Miller had been a published critic of Truman, in particular his decisions to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Yet over time, as the two had a series of meetings to discuss this Truman TV project, Miller found much to like about Give ‘em Hell Harry.

Those Guys Have All The Fun – James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales, 2011 ★★★

Those Guys Play Rough

ESPN started out a good idea, but quickly became subsumed by ego, hubris, and testosterone.

To figure that out, you don’t need Those Guys Have All The Fun – an hour of their live coverage of any sports event reveals this well enough – but it certainly helps connect the dots. To succeed at ESPN takes a certain kind of mentality, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales reveal in this 2011 book, where cutthroat tactics and crass individualism hold sway.