In his twenties, Charlie White was a pickup saxophone player and medical student from "the Paris of the Plains." He was just as vivacious at 102, when journalist David von Drehle moved in across the street. Inspired by his neighbor's boundless joy and stories about burgeoning Kansas City—from the invention of the radio and the spread of jazz, through Prohibition and the Depression and mob politics, through the construction of the state's largest hospital and Charlie's training as the city's first anesthesiology specialist—Von Drehle has penned a biography greater than the sum of its parts, an unputdownable book uncovering a sunny stoic's secret to a long and prosperous life. (RR)