Book Corner

LOU GEHRIG:  THE LUCKIEST MAN
by David A. Adler 
Booklist

Gr. 3-5.  Kids of today may not immediately recognize the name Lou Gehrig, but they will be immediately drawn into this picture book for older children about the “Iron Horse.”  Adler sets his narrative stage by telling readers that in 1903, Henry Ford sold his first auto, the Wright brothers took their first flight, and Lou Gehrig was born.  Yong Lou, who never missed a day of school, became a baseball player who never missed a game.  Crisply and concisely, Adler covers the many high points of Gehrig’s career, at the same time giving young readers a real sense of the man and his shining spirit.  Gehrig’s illness and eventual death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are handled with dignity and in a way young readers will understand.  The picture-book format gets a lift here from Widener’s impressive artwork.  Reminiscent of WPA art with its rounded shapes and potent energy, these pictures project a zest for life on and off the playing field.  The last spread, showing Yankee Stadium on the day of Gehrig’s funeral, awash in rain, provides a silent but powerful ending to Gehrig’s story. 

Publishers Weekly

Adler (author of the Cam Jansen novels) brings his subject into clear focus as he concisely tracks the legendary first baseman’s childhood and career, tragically shortened by the disease that now bears his name.  The story’s emotional highlight clarifies the book’s subtitle: addressing a cheering crowd of fans in Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, the ailing ballplayer announced, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”  A gracious tribute to a stalwart, modest and tirelessly optimistic man.  Ages 5-9. 

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE:  AN OLD MAN, A YOUNG MAN, AND THE LAST GREAT LESSON
by Mitch Albom 
Amazon.com

This true story about the love between a spiritual mentor and his pupil has soared to the bestseller list for many reasons.  For starters, it reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the significant mentors of our past.  It also plays out a fantasy many of us have entertained:  what would it be like to look those people up again, tell how much they meant to us, maybe even resume the mentorship?  Plus, we meet Morrie Schwartz – a one of a kind professor, whom the author describes as looking like a cross between a biblical prophet and Christmas elf.  And finally we are privy to intimate moments of Morrie’s final days as he lies dying from a terminal illness.  Even on his deathbed, this twinkling-eyed mensch manages to teach us all about living robustly and fully.  Kudos to author and acclaimed sports columnist, Mitch Albom, for telling this universally touching story with such grace and humility. 

Kirkus Reviews

Award-winning sports Albom was a student at Brandeis University, some two decades ago, of sociologist, Morrie Schwartz.  Here, Albom recounts how, recently, as the old man was dying, he renewed his warm relationship with his revered mentor.  This is the vivid record of the teacher’s battle with muscle-wasting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  The dying man, largely because of his life-affirming attitude toward his death-dealing illness, became a sort of thanatopic guru, and was the subject of three Ted Koppel interviews. This book, small and easily digested, stopping just short of the maudlin and the mawkish, is on the whole sincere, sentimental, and skillful.  (The substantial costs of Morrie’s last illness, Albom tells us, were partly defrayed by the publisher’s advance). 
 

ALS Book Available at Discount

The book, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis:  Diagnosis and Management for the Clinician, edited by our Center Director, Dr. Jerry Belsh and our pulmonologist, Dr. Philip Schiffman, has been selling at a brisk rate.  It has received excellent reviews in The Lancet (the premier medical journal of Europe), in Muscle and Nerve (the official journal of the American Association of Electrodiagnostic Medicine), and in Neurology (the most widely-read neurology journal of the U.S.). 

 Futura Publishing Company is continuing a program where ALS patients and families can purchase the book directly from the publisher at 25% off the $90 list price.  To place an order, call Gary or Kae at Futura’s toll-free number 1-800-877-8761. 
 

Notable People with ALS - David Niven

James David Graham Niven was born on March 1, 1910 in London and he would pass through an assortment of other occupations before he at last found himself in Hollywood. After graduation from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, Niven served as a lieutenant in the British Army in Malta and England, and acquired a taste for the United States through the invitation of Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton. The following year he seized an opportunity to leave the army. As Niven relates in his memoirs, the resignation was sparked by a lengthy lecture on machine guns which was interfering with his dinner plans. During the question period at the end of the speech, Niven felt compelled to ask the major general, "Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train." 

 Niven relocated to New York, where he began an unsuccessful career in whiskey sales. After subsequent detours to Bermuda and Cuba, he finally arrived in Hollywood in the summer of 1934. He spent several months acting as an extra, mostly in westerns, and working his way into local social life. Before long, Samuel Goldwyn signed him for a seven-year contract.

Niven clearly loved his new career. He later said, "It really is amazing. Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games? It's like being Peter Pan". Niven's first speaking role was the line "Goodbye, my dear" in Without Regrets (1934). Other early films, including Thank You, Jeeves (1936), and Dodsworth (1936) established his screen persona as a suave Englishman. He met Errol Flynn during the filming of the Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and they set up a bachelor pad together. Other movies of this period included The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), The Dawn Patrol (1938), and Wuthering Heights (1939).

 Niven was in Hollywood playing a high-society jewel thief in Raffles when England entered World War II. Niven returned to England and served another six years with the British Army. He advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was awarded the United States Legion of Merit. Also during the war, Niven appeared in two British war films and a number of radio shows for the BBC.

 Niven continued making movies--as many as he could, and without regard to their value. As biographer Sheridan Morley notes, "Niven was a working actor whose only real plan, intention, or ambition was to stay in work as regularly as possible". Among the better of his later films were the lavish Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and Separate Tables (1958), for which he won an Oscar.

 At this time in his career, Niven branched out from film to other media. He joined Dick Powell and Charles Boyer in a television production company known as "Four Star Playhouse," although they never convinced a fourth star to join. Niven took to the stage with The Moon is Blue in San Francisco, and did 45 performances of Nina on Broadway in 1951.

 Niven's friend John Mortimer said, "I don't think his acting ever quite achieved the brilliance or the polish of his dinner-party conversations". Niven's skill for storytelling shines through in his popular and acclaimed novels and memoirs. The autobiographical The Moon's a Balloon (1971) became a best seller. Niven went on to write Bring on the Empty Horses (1975) and Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly (1981).

 By 1980, Niven began to notice changes in his speech and physical ability. While filming The Sea Wolves his "arm and leg muscles would occasionally begin to ache unexpectedly, walking or swimming became suddenly exhausting, and his voice late at night sometimes began to develop a faint slur". Niven attributed this to age and the strain of making a movie. His public first began to worry during an interview for the BBC in October 1981. Many viewers assumed from Niven's garbled speech that he was drunk, and a nurse warned that he may have suffered a mild stroke. Doctors in Europe believed the symptoms were the results of a strained nerve from a war injury. In February, 1982, he submitted to friends' urgings and consulted with doctors at the Mayo Clinic. Here he learned that he had ALS.

 Niven's first reaction was that he "simply intended to defeat the ridiculous disease". He went to daily physical therapy and proceeded with his life. He continued to write his next novel, and filmed The Curse of the Pink Panther and The Trail of the Pink Panther. Niven appeared "cadaverous" in these films, and his voice had to be dubbed in by mimic Rich Little, a fact that Niven later learned through a gossip column.

 In December 1982, David Niven put out a short press release saying that he had a muscular disorder. The disease became hard for Niven to bear. Jacob Javits, who also suffered from ALS, recalled of Niven, "I had tried hard to buck him up, but he just could not stand what to him was the disgrace of his infirmities". Describing the illness, Niven's wife Hjordis said:

 "For a man like David who so loved to swim and walk and ski and sail and talk, gradually to find all those pleasures denied him was unbearable. The frustration of trying to say or write something and then finding that he just couldn't communicate, together with the wasting of the body, made it the most cruel illness."

In February 1983, Niven using a false name to avoid publicity, was hospitalized ten days for treatment. An article in Time magazine reported that the stay was "ostensibly for treatment of a digestive problem". Afterwards, Niven returned to his chalet at Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, where his condition continued to decline. He refused to return to the hospital, and his family supported his decision. Niven died on July 29, 1983 at the age of 73.