Good evening.

Welcome to another expanded edition of Inside the Cover.

I am your host, Ted Ayres.

And we want to thank you for watching and supporting PBS Kansas, the home of seriously good book talk.

We don't have a guest with us in the studio tonight.

But in our continuing effort to inform, educate and entertain, we are going to try something a little different.

We will be talking about a number of different books tonight.

Our first book is Kingdom Quarterback by Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd.

Do you enjoy football?

Do you love the Kansas City Chiefs?

Do you appreciate Kansas history?

Have you ever spent time in Kansas City, Missouri, dining, attending sporting events, visiting museums?

Shopping?

If so, I believe Kingdom Quarterback is a book that will be a must read for you.

The book is subtitled Patrick Mahomes, The Kansas City Chiefs and How a Once Swinging Cowtown Chased the Ultimate Comeback.

It was copyrighted in 2023, and I finished my copy in two days on October 8, 2023.

The authors grew up in Kansas City, more specifically in the manicured suburbs, first dreamed of by J.C. Nichols.

And we will come back to him.

Rustin Dodd is a senior writer at the Athletic, and he previously worked at the Kansas City Star as a sportswriter from 2010 to 2017.

He is a graduate of the University of Kansas.

Mark Dent is a senior writer at The Hustle and he has been named Texas Sportswriter of the Year.

As the subtitle suggests, this book is really two stories.

It is the story of Kansas City and the story of Patrick Mahomes, its quarterback.

As far as Kansas City is concerned, it is the author's belief that Kansas City is the perfect embodiment of the midsize Midwestern city and therefore the quintessential American town.

It is, for better or worse, an everywhere USA.

They go on to write Kansas City problems may not be unique, but if you want to understand what happened to the American city, you can start with the story of Kansas City.

In regard to Patrick Mahomes.

The authors write “There was nobody like Patrick Mahomes, the son of a black father and a white mother.

He is a transcendent star in a league that had once pushed young black quarterbacks to other positions.

” Personally, I grew up about 75 miles northwest of Kansas City, and I had several uncles and aunts who worked and lived in the city.

My mother left the little town of Mirabile, Missouri, to get a job at Panhandle Eastern Pipelines right out of high school.

Even as a young boy, I was well aware of the racial divisions of Kansas City.

Perhaps best illustrated by the dividing street of Troost.

I attended my first Chiefs game around 1963, watching Lynn Dawson lead the Chiefs to a victory at the old municipal stadium over the San Diego Chargers.

Of course, I was in the throng celebrating the Super Bowl champions of 1969.

However, after a few years living in Boulder, Colorado, as John Elway was beginning to make his mark on the NFL, our family became Broncos fans-- until Patrick Mahomes made the Chiefs exciting and relevant again.

With this background, I was particularly interested in this book and I really enjoyed it.

I predict it will be one of my top ten reads for 2023, and I learned so much from Dent and Dodds work.

I learned why the Liberty Memorial was built and how it was funded.

I also learned why it closed to the public in 1994.

I learned that by his senior year in high school, Patrick was enrolled in college level English psychology and sociology and was a member of the National Honor Society.

I also learned that Kansas State University was interested in recruiting him.

I learned about J.C. Nichols, one of the most influential real estate men in American history, partially responsible for every suburban cul de sac and shopping center.

A popularizer of restrictive covenants that changed the landscape of American cities.

In his first few years of life, Patrick swung baseball bats with Alex Rodriguez and learned infield techniques from Derek Jeter.

According to his father, Patrick almost peed his pants the first time he met Mark McGuire.

I learned that J.C. Nichols played third base for the University of Kansas and that he served in a leadership position for the KU athletic department during a period when the football team had an undefeated season and the men's basketball team was coached by James Naismith.

I learned how Brett Veach went from playing on a two time state champion football team in Pennsylvania to becoming the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs.

I learned how the talents of William James Basie and how he became to be known as Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and Bennie Moten made Kansas City a national influence on the jazz scene.

As one musician said, Kansas City did more for jazz black music than any other influence at all.

I learned the background, negotiations and municipal manipulations that brought Lamar Hunt and the Dallas Texans to Kansas City.

I learned about the Chesterfield Club in downtown Kansas City in the twenties and thirties, and you will have to read the book as to why this club was so unique.

I also learned that Tom Pendergasts take from gambling, drugs and prostitution was estimated at $32 million a year.

I learned about Patrick's agent, Lee Steinberg, who served as the role model for the character played by Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire.

I learned about the continuing efforts of the community to provide affordable housing in Kansas City.

I learned how Lloyd Wells, a former Marine sergeant who mentored black athletes in his spare time and his work for Kansas City made the chiefs the prime landing spot for HBCU football players signing and developing more black talent than any other team in the AFL or the NFL.

There is so much more.

I have only scratched the surface.

Kingdom Quarterback by Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd is a very readable and enjoyable book and I recommend it to you highly.

As a bit of introduction to our next books, I want to go to the Last Bookshop in London which was written by Madeline Martin, and my book was copyrighted in 2021.

I must admit that I was captured and captivated right from the start.

Reading Martin's dedication.

Isn't that beautiful and so meaningful?

Books truly can and do shape us in so many ways.

This story begins in August of 1939 as a young woman, Grace Bennet and her friend Vivienne arrive in London from their small hometown of Drayton.

While Grace had always dreamed of big city life, the circumstances of her move were less than desirable.

And it was not a particularly good time to be moving to London.

With the threat of Hitler's war so very real, Grace ultimately finds a position at Primrose Hill Books, albeit the proprietor, Mr. Evans, is less than excited about having an assistant in his musty, overcrowded and less than organized bookstore.

I gathered he was more of a reader/lover of books than a businessman.

Martin writes about the evacuation of children out of London barrage balloons, rationing, gas masks, Dunkirk and the Blitz.

This book is very much a wartime novel.

It is also a story of heroism, courage, sacrifice, love and loss.

As Primrose Hill Books literally becomes the last bookstore in London.

Martin's book is also an homage to reading.

It is written: “Reading is going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship.

An unveiling of new, incredible worlds.

It's living a life you weren't born into and a chance to see everything colored by someone else's perspectives.

It's learning without having to face consequences of failure and how best to succeed.

I think within us all there is a void, a gap waiting to be filled by something.

For me, that something is books and all their proffered experiences.

” Martin also talks about bookstores.

She writes, “It was a glorious thing to walk down the street devoted to books where lovers of literature could congregate and indulge in their passion with like minded souls.

” Over the years, we have done a number of shows about people overcoming incredible challenges to do miraculous things.

Nancy Koehns Forged in Crisis spoke to the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Rachel Carson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Ernest Shackleton.

Do you remember how Shackleton saved his team of men from disaster and death in the Antarctic?

In his memoir, My Marathon, Frank Shorter spoke of overcoming an abusive father to become an Olympic gold medalist in the marathon.

In Sitting Pretty, Dr. Rebekah Taussig shared her courage and determination in overcoming being wheelchair bound from the age of three.

In River of Gods, Candice Millard wrote about the tremendous difficulties and suffering of two men seeking to find the mouth of the Nile.

In his book, The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough told us in great detail about the 44 years of construction of the Panama Canal.

Finally, Elizabeth Williamson's Sandy Hook tells the heart wrenching stories of the parents and families whose loved ones were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and how they attempted to put their lives back together again.

As I often note, you can find our reviews of each of these books and the books we have spoken to over the last five seasons by going to KPTS.org and finding the ITC icon.

With this background, I next want to take you to The Wager by David Grann.

David Grann is an American journalist and author, born in 1967.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Connecticut College in 1989, a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts in 1993 and a master's degree in creative writing from Boston University in 1994.

He is an award winning staff writer at the New York Magazine, and he is the author of five books.

Grann's 2009 book, The Lost City of Z, recounts the odyssey of the notable explorer Captain Percy Fawcett, who in 1925 disappeared with his son in the Amazon while looking for the lost city of Z.

His book, Killers of the Flower Moon, was published in 2017, subtitled An American Crime and the Birth of the FBI.

It was a book about the Osage Indian murders, and it was a tale of murder, betrayal, heroism, and a nations struggle to leave its frontier culture behind and enter the modern world.

It was a finalist for the National Book Award and rose to number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

And the movie has just come out.

I read and enjoyed both of those books and was extremely excited when my friend Randy placed The Wager into my hands.

One of Granns great talents is telling a story from real life, making it unfold like an exciting and breathtaking fiction story straight out of a writer's creative mind.

Or perhaps his talent is finding remarkable events to write about.

The Wager is subtitled A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, and it was published in April of 2023.

I finished the book on May 22, 2023.

I want to be very careful and not be a spoiler for those of you who choose to give it a read.

However, let me tempt you with the following.

The story begins in January of 1740, and the British Empire was racing to mobilize for war against its imperial rival, Spain.

The Wager was a merchant vessel, a so called East India man, because it traded in that region.

Intended for heavy cargo, it was tubby and unwieldy, a 123 foot eyesore, which was retrofitted for service in the war.

The Wager was part of a flotilla of five warships and a scouting sloop that was to launch an attack on a hub of Spain's colonial wealth, Cartagena.

According to Grann, “Each man in the squadron carried along with a sea chest, his own burdensome story.

Perhaps it was of a scorned love or a secret prison conviction, or a pregnant wife left on shore weeping.

” The Wager wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.

This is a story of intrigue.

Life on the open seas.

British naval history.

Bravery.

Treachery.

Mutiny.

The best and worst of mankind.

It really is an amazing story.

Let me leave you with these remarks from Grann as the book begins.

“I must confess that I did not witness the ship strike the rocks or the crew tie up the captain.

Nor did I see firsthand the acts of deceit and murder.

I have, however, spent years combing through the archival debris, the washed out logbooks, the moldering correspondence, the half truthful journals, the surviving records from the troubling court martial.

Most critically, I have studied the accounts published by those who were involved who not only witnessed the events but also shaped them.

Still, it's impossible to escape the participants conflicting, and at times, warring perspectives.

So instead of smoothing out every difference or further shading the already shaded evidence, I've tried to present all sides, leaving it to you to render the ultimate verdict: history's judgment.

” Our final book this evening is The Pacific Alone by Dave Shively, subtitled The Untold Story of Kayakings Boldest Voyage.

This book was originally recommended to me by one of my former colleagues from the KPTS Board of Trustees.

Thank you, Tom.

I was not aware of this book or the story of Ed Gillet.

This book was copyrighted in 2018, and I finished it on October 10, 2023, and I very much enjoyed the read, and I often found myself shaking my head in amazement, awe, and disbelief.

While I wouldn't call this a great book, it is a great story.

In the summer of 1987, Ed Gillet made a solo crossing of the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii in a kayak at age 36.

I simply can't imagine how someone could do this and really, it is hard for me to fathom why someone would try it.

Of course, Isn't that one of the themes of tonight's show?

Making the Impossible possible.

Dave Shively is a Colorado bred, California based journalist who serves as the content director for TEN: The The Enthusiast Network's Paddle Sports Group.

Using exclusive access to Gillets logs as well as personal interviews with Gillet, Shively shares this gripping story.

Gillet navigated by sextant, and he always knew his position within a few miles, although he planned for this adventure thoughtfully and very carefully.

After all, he was an accomplished sailor and paddler.

He underestimated the abuse his body would take from 64 days of the relentless pounding swells of the ocean.

Aside from the isolation and desolation, Gillet was early on covered with salt water sores and could find no comfortable position for sitting or sleeping.

Along the way, he endured a broken rudder, many other calamities, including running out of food four days before he reached his ultimate destination.

Perhaps we can best appreciate Shivelys efforts by the following comments from the foreword written by Gillet.

“The Pacific Alone is a well-chosen title, recalling the solitary and precarious nature of a Trans-Pacific kayak voyage.

But while I paddled my kayak alone, my wife, family and dozens of active supporters, a shadow crew of sorts, came along in spirit.

The emotional trauma of family and friends waiting for news of my arrival was real.

And Dave Shivelys book skillful these disparate strands, the angst of paddling and wading into a coherent story.

To enable him to tell his story well, I confided in Dave, trusting him with my journals and sharing my thoughts in a series of meetings beside the ocean, surf and sea breezes, keeping the conversations real.

When I read The Pacific Alone, every word of Dave's vivid retelling rang true, and I re-experienced the exhilaration and terror I felt when I was on that crossing.

I was exquisitely aware that some accidental ship encounter, unexpected weather and physical injury, Any small mistake at all might end in disaster or death.

It was precisely that sense of edginess, though, that made my crossing worth doing.

Now, when I consider that state of being and read Dave's account of other human powered Pacific crossings, some successful and others tragic, I can only reflect on how fine a line exists between success and failure.

Even though I lived this story, reading The Pacific Alone provided me with deeper insights into my 64 days of living on the edge.

” Also, I highly recommend you going to YouTube and finding Gillet's appearance on The Tonight Show, which was only five days after he had completed the journey.

You can even see his kayak as Johnny Carson and Ed look at it and Ed talks about it.

That's our show.

I hope you have enjoyed this expanded edition of Inside the Cover.

I also hope you will be motivated to follow up on some of these book recommendations or perhaps achieve something remarkable, although I would not expect anyone to try an ocean voyage in a merchant vessel or a kayak.

Goodnight.

We have been happy to bring you this expanded version of Inside the Cover and look forward to seeing you next time right here on PBS Kansas, the home of seriously good TV.