This week, we feature a work of dual biographies set during the Golden Age of Baseball and an overview of the silent standards upholding society.
Nonfiction
‘Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds’
By Os GuinnessA civilization reaches a critical point when it loses or abandons its original dynamic of inspiration. Unless these bonds to the past can be reforged, that culture enters into a decline and eventually falls. This book leads us through a history of the West’s long development, reveals the erosion of the foundations, like Christianity and reason, that have long supported it, and asks whether a turning point has come. Guinness leaves readers with hope and solutions to prevent that from happening.
Kildare, 2024, 190 pages
Baseball
‘Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age’
By Allen BarraMickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, and Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants were two of the biggest figures that embodied baseball’s Golden Era. Their careers extended through the 1950s and 1960s, and each dominated the game with their extraordinary talent. Barra deftly guides the reader in this dual-biographic narrative, tying in the two players’ on-the-field and off-the-field lives, as well as their close friendship. A beautiful narrative about friendship, greatness, and baseball.
Arthur Vandenberg and four graduate students escape the present just as a nuclear warhead explodes, taking a one-way trip to 3rd-century Rome. They help Rome defeat the Marcomanni, gain the confidence of Rome’s Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and generally help Rome improve everyone’s life. Then Arthur and his team discover that Communist China also sent a team into the past. The continent will be controlled by one empire. It’s just a question of who. The result is a race to control the center of Eurasia in a fast-paced adventure.
What do you think of when someone mentions standards? The gold standard? The National Bureau of Standards? Standards of behavior or educational standards? All are examples of standards, yet all are different. Standards affect lives every day in virtually every way. They are so ubiquitous that we scarcely notice them. This book examines the impact of standards on life and on society, often to the point where they define reality. Readers learn how something normally unnoticed shapes everyday life.
Published in 1956, this novel has become a classic about a classic, namely, the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Orual is the narrator, a veiled princess ugly in appearance and spirit whose love for her half-sister Psyche is both obsessive and possessive. In addition to the beautiful Psyche, Lewis gives readers the wise Greek slave, the Fox, who tutors the girls. Here’s a finely wrought meditation on love and its abuse, as well as on guilt, truth, and punishment. Some consider this Lewis’s best work of fiction.
A young boy watches as a storm develops in the countryside. At the same time, a young man in the city experiences the storm’s onset from a different perspective, as do a shepherd and a fisherman. Zolotov’s descriptive prose and Graham’s vivid illustrations create a read-aloud experience worth sharing. It inspires a sense of awe for nature’s power.
HarperCollins, 1989, 32 pages
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