China is sometimes described as the forgotten theater of war during World War II. But it’s unlikely that the Chinese people have forgotten their eight-year war with Japan, a ferocious engagement that began four years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It's estimated that as many as 20 million Chinese died in the war.

In Fallen Tigers, Daniel Jackson recounts U.S. involvement in China, where the country provided supplies and air support to a nation that desperately needed it. U.S. airmen who served in China had to contend with a Japanese invasion that, by 1940, controlled China’s skies, 95 percent of its industry, and one-quarter of the Chinese mainland and half its population, noted Jackson.

Supporting China, a country embroiled in a prolonged civil war at the time, was important to U.S. interests, stated the author, adding that keeping Japan “busy” in China reduced Japanese resources that would otherwise be used against U.S. forces in the Pacific.

Jackson provides accounts of singular heroism on the part of numerous U.S. airmen who served in relative anonymity during their time in China. But there are familiar names, as well.

Claire Lee Chennault is the maverick Army Air Force commander who formed the Flying Tigers, the U.S. group of flyers who struck a blow against Japanese air dominance.

There’s also Merian Cooper, the WWI veteran who escaped from a Soviet gulag after the war, who went on to co-write and direct King Kong (Cooper, himself, is at the controls of the bi-plane that toppled Kong from the top of the Empire State Building). At the age of 48, Cooper returned to the battlefield during WWII and helped Chennault plan a successful raid on Japanese-controlled Hong Kong.

Before becoming the venerable leader of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh was a friend of American forces in WWII. In return for his assistance, he asked for an autographed picture of Chennault and six pistols, explained Jackson. These were items the wily Ho used to forge political alliances.

The Chinese people, themselves, were more than receptive to American assistance during the war, said Jackson. “They knew the risk they were taking by helping Americans,” he said, referring to the Chinese civilians who delivered U.S. airmen who bailed out or survived crash landings to safety.

U.S. servicemen who landed in the jungle or mountainous terrain were brought back safely 90 percent of the time, Jackson said. Compare that with U.S. airmen downed in Europe during the war--they only had a one in five chance of returning safely, he said.

Despite Japan's policy of deadly reciprocity when it came to dealing with civilian assistance to Americans, the Chinese persevered, the author said.

Today, the U.S. and China are competing world powers, but it’s important to recall the two countries were once allies who overcame their differences to win a war, said Jackson.

Play This Book Loud is the literary equivalent of a trip to the record store, that enchanting experience of searching for something new from something old.

Joe Bonomo (pronounced Bo-know-mo, not the Turkish Taffy), an English professor at Northern Illinois University, starts his book that way, recalling the days of the coronavirus when he was offered hand sanitizer and plastic gloves at Green Tangerine, his local record shop.

From there, we depart on essays on Van Halen’s “Panama,” the Cramps, Green Day, Lester Bangs, Pickwick Records, Dick Clark’s Twenty Years of Rock and Roll double album, to name but a few of the subjects covered. There are also asides on Cragmont Cola (once sold at Safeway supermarkets), radio jingles, and “great archeological artifacts found on YouTube.”

While Bonomo does a lot of looking back, he brings us right to the present, where he feels we’re enjoying a golden age of musical writing. No, it’s no longer confined to the pages of Rolling Stone or The New Yorker but across the internet, where people like Josh Terry, Steve Pick, Tony Fletcher, Dan Epstein, Heather Ferris, and Aaron Gilbreath, to name a few, are busy posting stories.

Bonomo is busy building his own internet file with the Substack site, No Such Thing as Was. A quick glance at the site reveals that, in addition to posts on Amyl and the Sniffers, the Linda Lindas, Bad Nerves, and the Strokes, there’s a review of George Harrison’s Electronic Sound from 1969, a record that most of us have never heard (the back story on how the record was made may be even more fascinating than the review).

In talking about Lester Bangs, who died at the age of 33 in 1982, Bonomo cites the music journalist as his greatest influence. “He was more than a rock critic. The 45s and album cuts were simply the moving parts that got his words to the page. He was writing about what it means to be alive,” he said.

If you’ve ever come across a Pickwick Records release, you’ll be interested in Bonomo’s take on the subject. The company, which specialized in producing cheap knock-offs of hits of the day, was started in 1950 by Cy Leslie, “a Harvard-educated World War II vet who understood the dynamics of the wallet,” he noted. Recalling a Pickwick release of Beatle favorites, Bonomo is still amazed that the label attempted to duplicate "Mother," John Lennon's primal effort from an early solo album: "Who'd want to tackle a performance so raw and private, not to mention infamous and epochal?"

As for the 1973 Dick Clark release, “a wide-ranging potted history of rock and roll,” Bonomo pointed to the different genres of music represented on the album as well as the historic significance of the era that produced it. At the time of the album’s release, American Graffiti was also hitting theaters with a musical salute to nostalgia.

The author of Play This Book Loud always has something interesting to offer when it comes to the music front. Bonomo makes the point that Green Day, a band that still sells out arenas, has a career that parallels Bruce Springsteen in many ways.

Where else do you get an essay on the 7-Eleven convenience store chain’s 1966 release, “Do the Slurp?” The promo novelty 45 knocked Bonomo out as a kid, a memory he still can’t shake but happily shares with you.

McKeesport, Pa. has been through a lot in recent decades. Andrew Conte tells the story in his book, Death of the Daily News. The town, located 20 miles from Pittsburgh, once manufactured about 70 percent of all steel tubing used in the United States, earning the moniker of “Tube City.” Like other towns in southwestern Pennsylvania, McKeesport fell on hard times in the 1970s and 1980s as foreign steel imports undercut American manufacturers. The city’s population, that once topped 50,000 in the mid-20th century, is now down to 17,500.

The McKeesport business district, with its movie theaters, furniture stores, jewelry shops, and three department stores, withered away. But on Jan. 1, 2016, McKeesport faced another blow--life without the Daily News, the newspaper that had covered the area since 1884.

Like so many other papers in small towns across the country, the failure was due to a migration of advertisers to the internet, along with the inevitable decline in readership. No longer were papers owned by a single family or group in the town being served, but rather by media companies whose first responsibility was to stockholders and hedge fund owners.

Along with the loss of an outlet that provided a rundown of local news, the paper meant something else, Conte said. “The newspaper represented a shared sense of identity,” he said. People realized that the local paper was more than headlines and town council coverage. Some recalled that their first job was delivering the paper. Others counted the times family and friends had been pictured in its pages over the years.

Politicians who first breathed a sigh of relief, figuring that they no longer faced tough questions during a campaign or over a council issue, realized they’d also lost their megaphone to communicate accomplishments to the community.

The paper's iconic downtown office, with a black-and-white exterior, checkboard-tiled office, with its large map on the wall, no longer allowed free access to the public. “We lost that connection,” said Conte, founder and manager of the Center for Media Innovation in Pittsburgh.

But Conte still believes local news has a future. The subtitle of his book is How Citizen Gatekeepers Can Save Local Journalism. The work has only just begun to find the right formula that would use modern technology to provide meaningful information to communities like McKeesport, he said.

Digital news outlets are succeeding in places like Santa Cruz, Calif., and in Pennsylvania, where the Center for Media Innovation is operating, said Conte. “We’re also learning what doesn’t work. The Houston Landing was started with a $20 million investment, but the public didn’t take to it. It closed,” he said.

“I’m more encouraged by operations that start small and grow,” said Conte, who calls on the need for “citizen gatekeepers” to bring journalism into the 21st century. “We’re all gatekeepers now. The news now belongs to all of us, and we need to make sense of that,” he said.