E.B. White, James Thurber, and Their World, Including Roger Angell
Elwyn Brooks White (1899-1985), forever known and loved as E.B. White, was first known and admired by me when in grade school I read Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. As a high schooler I was committed as a fan by his essays, especially The Second Tree from the Corner and One Man’s Meat. (Meanwhile, James Thurber, White’s friend and colleague at the New Yorker, had me laughing out loud while reading My Life and Hard Times.) At the beginning of my new-book-selling career, the book store I worked in received remaindered copies of White’s Letters, which forever elevated him as an ideal for me.
White is good company. If you know him only as a children’s book writer, read his poetry (often sidelined as “light verse”). Everyone should read some of his essays, especially a classic like “Death of a Pig.” Or dip into his letters, especially any mentioning Fred the Dachshund or any dealing with disapproving or uncomprehending adults and the serious themes of Charlotte’s Web. And you may have been intimidated by The Elements of Style, the book he took up from his old professor at Cornell University, but you would be pleasantly surprised if you read it for a refresher and for entertainment.
On this page I include James Thurber’s works, ever immortal, and White’s stepson, Roger Angell, with whom he was close and who often acted as a custodian of White’s posthumous fame and legacy.
Game Time: A Baseball Companion
Game Time: A Baseball Companion
Roger Angell has been writing about baseball for more than forty years . . . and for my money he's the best there is at it," says novelist Richard Ford in his introduction to Game Time. Angell's famous explorations of the summer game are built on acute observation and joyful participation, conveyed in a prose style as admired and envied as Ted Williams's swing. Angell on Fenway Park in September, on Bob Gibson brooding in retirement, on Tom Seaver in mid-windup, on the abysmal early and recent Mets, on a scout at work in backcountry Kentucky, on Pete Rose and Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez, on the astounding Barry Bonds at Pac Bell Park, and more, carry us through the arc of the season with refreshed understanding and pleasure. This collection represents Angell's best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002.