Hitting the Books with Gary Thorne: "Truman"

David McCullough is my favorite historical writer and one of my favorite writers, period. I could have picked any of his works to mention here and been positive on all, but "Truman" was a delayed read for me and I just finished it.

President Harry S. Truman was unique and appears even moreso today. Plain speaking and a common touch are not exactly words we use describing most current politicians.

This book covers Truman's life from first breath to end. As McCullough told the New York Times when the book was published in 2005, "It's been very fashionable lately to begin biographies anywhere but at the beginning, heaven forbid, but I didn't want to do anything tricky or fashionable because he was neither of those things. Harry Truman was a 19th-century man and I decided I would proceed as a great 19th-century biographer would, or as Dickens would."

From his failed farming days to haberdasher sales to World War I heroics to the atomic bomb, Truman's life is all here in the ever-wonderful storytelling voice of McCullough.

McCullough books all come from the inside out of the subject matter rather than from one looking in. There is magic in that for the reader.

More thoughts on this book are on the video.

When I asked Orioles manager Buck Showalter to tell me about a couple of books that immediately came to mind, there was an instant response: "Little Lefty."

This young reader book is still in publication. "Maybe I should think about this a little more and come up with an adult read," Showalter said. "No," I responded, "you just gave the perfect answer because that book affected your life forever." Buck took time to talk with me about "Little Lefty" and here is what he had to say.

"No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education." ― Plato

Gary Thorne is the play-by-play voice of the Orioles on MASN, and the 2015 season is his ninth with the club and 30th covering Major League Baseball. His blog will appear regularly throughout the season. The Orioles and Sarasota County have partnered on the Big League Reader Program, which rewarded kids who read three books in February with tickets to a Grapefruit League game at Ed Smith Stadium in March.

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