Pennsylvania Books

I live 2 miles away from West Pittston and know people who either knew the Smurls or who are related to them. I actually attended their national press conference when all of these events occurred. I will *never* forget the feeling that I had when I first heard the story as a teen.
I used to be really well read with this topic but once the 'drama' of it all died down I didn't think much of it.
I became interested once again because last week at a party I spoke with someone who is the nephew of the Smurls. He claims that the events were true and even said that something happened one day while his dad was visiting them. Another girl that I know was a next door neighbor to them and swears of its truth because she, herself heard things. These are seemingly 'normal' people who I have known a while.
...It is a very intriguing story that was, in my opinion, ruined by the 'Hollywood' interpretation via the made-for-TV movie.
Currently the family lives about 8 miles from their former Chase Street home in West Pittston. The people who live there now, as far as I know, have had no disturbances.
This book is a great summary of events and gives me even more chills because I am so close to the source.

For those that know anything about Ed and Lorraine Warren, you know that they are the real deal. This book, which was made into a horrible, less than thrilling TV-Movie, is truly amazing, fearful, terrorizing, scary, intriguing.... and more. I first read this book when I was in high school and I had nightmares for weeks. Since then, I've enjoyed all the account the Warrens have provided on their website, and hope to still enjoy more information Lorraine may provide (Ed passed this past year).

If you are interested in the paranormal, hauntings or the supernatural, this book is an incredible read! Be warned, it will give you goosebumps and you will be scared! At least, any normal person would be! If you are interested in learning as much as you can about these topics, you really SHOULD read the book!

I read "The Haunted" many years ago as a teenager and was totally moved and even scared to read about the Smurl's horrible event that plagued their lives and home.

This book is an in-depth read, and puts the reader inside the lives of the Smurl family. I felt like I was part of the family with everything going on. It's certainly a page-turner. The pictures also make the text come to life.

Given all the bad things that happened, their faith and strong family ties and values made them overcome the paranormal activity. The activity stopped around in 1986 or so. It's 20 years later. I wonder how the Smurl family is doing?

I read the book, and can relate to the truth because of my own experiences with the paranormal.
This is by far the scariest demonic case I've ever read about...
This world does contain mystery.

I rarely read books, but this one caught my attention (possibly because of the fact that it is a true story). I just could not put this book down. I had read for several hours the first night. I did, however, have to turn on several lights because I kept hearing strange noises in the dark! (And the slightest creaks had really startled me!) After I could no longer keep my eyes open (after three in the morning), I did have to try to get to sleep (not completely in the dark, though). As soon as I got up less than six hours later, I picked up the book and I didn't put it down until I was finished. I was so hoping for a happy ending after all of the torment the family had endured for so long. Their story is completely believable and extraordinarily written!
I would give this book a lot more than just five stars. Superb!

This book is a perfect example of why you can't judge a book by its cover. Why is Rachel Zook, an Amishwoman, dressed like that (she is not dressed like that anywhere in the book)? Her hair was just the right color though (blackberry wine), and she was well-endowed (which her husband thought "sloppy", which made her husband come across as asexual--what man, even if he only has relations with his wife for the sake of procreating, doesn't take any pleasure in the act?).

I never understood the motivations for Rachel's husband and Jacob's brother, Simon Sauder. He made a great villain, but was it just that he hated his brother so much because his father favored the prodigal? That's very believable, though the underlying reason why he married Rachel (and abused her) was explained in the last part of the book, it seemed a bit far-fetched (but then, Simon was a religious zealot).

Ms. Blair's solution for Jacob and Rachel to still be together and still be Amish (which was so much a part of them), however, more than up for that. I got a real sense of community, and though this was not a Christian romance per se, these were refreshingly real characters of faith unlike many Christian romances where everybody gets saved or is "born again". There is no preaching here, no bashing the Amish or saying being Amish is superior to being English (think Beverly Lewis and Wanda E. Brunstetter, who are all-Amish, all the time). Being Amish is just a part of who Rachel and Jacob are and Annette works with this. This shows her strength as an author--no agenda here.

The love scenes were highly sensual and tastefully done without being pornographic. After all, these are not two real human beings doing it on the movie screen, so one can be a lot more descriptive with the written word, and no one's soul is sacrificed.

A very spiritual (while at the same time, earthy) novel that inspires.

For Amish schoolteacher Rachel Zook, the world beyond her tightly knit village was unknown-and the Elders decreed that it should stay that way. So when the man she loved abandoned their peaceful culture for a forbidden life among the "English", she couldn't follow him. Now bound in marriage to a man she doesn't love, Rachel is torn by longing when Jacob Sauder returns...

Jacob knows only one way to raise children-the Amish way. But asking the community he had forsaken to welcome him and his motherless children is more painful than he had imagined, especially when he learns that his beloved Rachel has wed his own brother. Amish law makes it impossible to dream of a future together...until tragedy forces Rachel and Jacob to place their faith in the power of love.

This is a great Amish romance with sex, lies, but no videotape. There is infidelity, love unrequieted, bad family relations, and bitter jealousy to name a few emotions in this novel. Although not altogether historically correct, it remains a fasinating read that holds tightly onto your interest and ends with an explosive unexpected finale. The choice of cover picture is most unfortunate as well as inaccurate, but worth the effort for what is between the bookcovers.

I am not a fan of romance novels, but this one came so highly recommended by a friend that I made an exception. I was reading Thee I Love on an airplane when I started weeping uncontrollably. (This is very hard for a grown man who's a bit sheepish about reading a romance in the first place.) This is one of the three or four books I have read in my life that moved me to tears.

A world-class novel hidden in a badly-chosen cover. This is a story that raises the bar on romance, transcends the genre, takes us to an amazing new world and doesn't let us go until we're emotionally exhausted, satisfied, amazed, and sated. Simply, unbelievably, wonderful. Kudos Ms. Blair. Thee, I Love would make top-notch movie.

I discovered and read Ms. Carter's lush tale of four intertwined lives some months ago and still remember my regret mixed with exhiliaration at turning the last page. Not wanting a book to end is probably among the higher compliments a reader can pay to fiction; to end a nonfictional story feeling thus, is rare indeed. Prior to RRG, Donna Tartt's fictional masterpiece "The Secret History" was my lonely, sole contender for this sort of accolade...
... It was precisely the lack of any undue focus on the women's probable physical intimacy, alongside a riveting collection of photographs that immediately caught my attention and held it. Throughout the whole of this story crept a quiet, matter-of-fact, stylistic elegance that kept this readers attention first and foremost on the place and the times, on three lives dedicated to art, on four women dedicated to each other. Brava!

Alice Carter has written an incredible story about three inspiring artists. It is ununsual to find a book with such a scholarly, intelligent perspective that is presented with a human warmth and emotional attachment to the individuals that are portrayed. The sensitive approach of the author is perhaps related to the fact that as a young child Professor Carter knew and admired these woman and they served as an inspiration in her life. Whatever the reason, she has crafted an outstanding, beautiful book that will stand as a classic story in the history of art, the struggles of women, and the nobility of the human spirit.

Some great reproductions here too, of some Pre-Raphaelite-style art from the Philadelphia area about 100 years ago. Violet spent over 25 years painting huge celebrations of the founding of Pennsylvania in the Harrirburg State Capitol. She may not ne Michaelangelo, but is not far behind his Sistine Chapel! This small coffee table book will never go out of style, and does a great job bringing back 3 great lady artists!

I bought this book with the idea of finding out more of the types of relationships women shared at the beginning of the twentieth century. I was astonished to find more than I bargained for. The Red Rose Girls provided more than insight into these relationships, it also provided a look inside the rise and fall of the progressive and arts and crafts movements. Pre Freud, the relationship of these woman was accepted and cherished as they lived together, and created their art. Post Freud, their relationships deteriorated as did their careers. All in all I found this book extremely entertaining, as well as heartening (a forty year relationship between two of the women) and the pictures are absolutely beautiful. If nothing else, as an art book it is extraordinary.

It was some months ago when I discovered and read Ms. Carter's lush tale of four intertwined lives. I still remember the regret and exhiliaration I felt on turning the final page.
Not wanting a story to end is perhaps among the higher compliments I would pay to a book, and usually one relegated to a rare work of fiction. In fact, prior to Red Rose Girls, Donna Tartt's masterpiece, The Secret History was my lonely sole contender for this sort of accolade. To add my name to the chorous of other reviews teetered on redundancy, lily-gilding or worse....gushing. But then, we New Englanders are a stiff lot, and loathe to such displays.
It was interesting then, to trip over a Feb. 8th review in which a reader, also from my birthplace, expressed some criticism of Carter's speculation on the probable physical nature of the characters relationship, finding it presumptuous and distracting. (my words)
It was precisely the lack of any undue focus on lesbianism, alongside a riveting collection of photographs, that caught my attention and held it for the duration. Throughout this fascinating account crept a quiet, matter-of-fact, stylistic elegance that kept my attention firmly on the place and the times, on three lives dedicated to art, on four lives dedicated to each other. Brava!

I've read most of John Gardner's novels, and Mickelsson's Ghosts is certainly my favorite, yet as with all other Gardner novels it's fraught with problems, particularly when it comes to Gardner's arrogance. For this was a man who was the self-proclaimed "greatest living author," who aimed to be remembered through the ages alongside literary giants like Proust and Chaucer, who razed and scolded his fellow authors without mercy. But now here we are twenty-six years after his unexpected death; John Gardner is forgotten, even unknown amongst what few true "readers" exist in this day and age; the majority of his novels have been out of print for decades, and when they ARE brought back into print the publishers must struggle to keep them so. Indeed, the authors Gardner railed against in his career-killing 1976 diatribe "On Moral Fiction" are the ones who are remembered today; I foresee Thomas Pynchon one day being considered alongside say Dante rather than Gardner. (Who knows, though: perhaps John Gardner could turn out to be the Herman Melville of the 20th Century, forgotten by his immediate generation, resurrected by the following. Maybe in thirty or forty years Mickelsson's Ghosts will be the Moby Dick of a new age. But I doubt it.)

Mickelsson's Ghosts has a simple set-up, with a metaphor any Serious Writer could dig into: a down-on-his-luck college professor buys a ramshackle house in the New York woods and sets about repairing it - the metaphor being, of course, that as he repairs the home he repairs his soul. Only Gardner jams a multitude of divergent threads, plots, characters, and digressions into this elephantine novel. Male witches who divine water holes in the thick woods, black trucks driven sans headlights in the dead of night, a houseful of redneck ghosts, true-blue undergrads who fret over mundane philosophical questions, rumored goings-on of puritanical Mormons afoot in the unwelcoming forest, the spirits of Martin Luther and Frederick Nietzsche, talk of UFOs and crop circles, radical photographers who keep the dying dream of the sixties alive, smarmy professors who sit around and endlessly discuss Big Issues. It's all here and more. And our guide through the dense bric-a-brac is Peter Mickelson, former college football star and current philosophy professor, gone to seed both physically and mentally - gone to seed, in fact, morally, spiritually, financially, and professionally. In his forties, freshly divorced, two adult children whom he no longer sees (one of them being the radical photographer, whose running from the government, it seems), his once-vaunted career in ruins. Author of a popular book on philosophy which at one point guaranteed him a long-standing career in the sun, but due to his own issues Mickelsson blew it, and now he withers away teaching introductory philosophy to undergrads at SUNY. This is our hero, a man who lives predominately in his memories, allowing his present troubles to accumulate and topple over like an overstuffed trash bin. In nearly thirty years of reading I've never come across as ineffectual a lead character as Peter Mickelsson, the first character who ever made me want to magically transport myself into the world of the novel so that I could punch him in his face.

We meet Mickelsson as he's buying the house which gradually (a few hundred pages in) he determines is haunted by ghosts. We know from the start that he's had a bad past few years. The first hundred pages of the novel promise a redemption for Mickelsson; he's bought this house, he's realized the mistakes he's made both professionally and emotionally, and he finds a new love with the fantastically-realized character Jessie Stark. A fellow professor, gorgeous, widowed at only thirty-five, Jessie is a living, breathing character whom Gardner created out of thin air (I pretty much fell in love with her myself); if ever one were to make a case that John Gardner WAS a literary giant, then his characters would be the first exhibit in the argument. Despite the long-winded digressions, the boorish philosophical discussions, the lack of forward momentum, despite all of those things which makes Gardner an acquired (yet still difficult) taste for the modern reader, his characters were nearly flesh and blood, three-dimensional, human beings with their own individual wants and needs and beliefs. This is particularly true of his main characters. Until brain-transplant science is perfected there will never be a better method of inhabiting another person's persona than through the novels of John Gardner. At any rate, Jessie basically throws herself at Mickelsson, and though he (and more importantly, WE) realizes that she is all he needs - she's gorgeous, smart, funny, and willing to help him navigate through the riotous mess he's made of his life - Mickelsson instead botches the promise and retreats into the insanity of his own mind. This is a book dense with inner turmoil, of thoughts growing from thoughts, of soliloquies delivered to the self, and we, the lucky readers, are there for it all. When action DOES arise it's over too quick, arising and culminating in a few pages - then fretted over for twice or three times the length. Or, worse yet, it's seemingly jammed into the narrative, an action sequence from an unrelated novel, as in the B-Movie denouement.

Only three relationships matter for Mickelsson as the novel proceeds: the one with the house, the one with Donnie (a local prostitute who falls in love with him), and the one with the ghosts. Gardner claimed in "On Becoming A Writer" (I think) that he enjoyed Stephen King's writing; King's influence is felt throughout the macabre sections in Mickelsson's haunted house. Many scenes are downright creepy, as Mickelsson, alone in his bedroom in the dead of night, hears voices chattering just outside his door. Yet Mickelsson, so ensnared in the ennui which consumes him in every other situation, just continues to lie there; even when the ghosts begin to actually appear to him (and touch him!), he remains as impassive as a Zen monk facing a loaded pistol. Only in Mickelsson's case the impassivity is not due to a studied indifference to life's passing troubles; it's due to his rapidly fading hold on sanity. And when Mickelsson recaptures his hold (to an extent) in the very final pages of the novel, the achievement comes so late that it doesn't harbor much of an emphatic thrill for the reader - instead, this wearying novel serves to leave you in your own ennui, glazed over at the wanton disregard Mickelsson harbors for everyone and everything outside of himself and his precious memories.

And the memories. Gardner was infamous for digressions, and Mickelsson's Ghost is mired with them, moreso than any other Gardner novel, even "Sunlight Dialogues." A case in point: halfway through the novel we have a scene where Mickelsson drives his newly-purchased (yet used and abused) Jeep to his morning classes. Along the way he reminisces (for several pages) about his one and only date with Jessie. Within this reminiscence Mickelsson recalls his troubled marriage - pages and pages about his wife Ellen and her early days at his side, followed by her disenchantment with life in the 1960s, followed by her rebirth as an "underground" chick, throwing performance pieces on the streets with her younger hippie friends, providing safe houses for poets on the run (Alan Ginsberg in a pseudonymous cameo). This in turn leads to a long essay on the sixties, on the movements and the dreams and the failures. From this back to the crushing and sad end of Mickelsson's marriage, and from there back to his date with Jessie; and from there, finally, back to Mickelsson in his jeep. About fifty pages have elapsed, and he's still in that Jeep; everything has occurred internally, forward movement of the plot has been nil. This is the case for most of the novel.

Death is close throughout. Thoughts of it, fears of it, acceptance of it. Mickelsson thinks about death constantly (what with ghosts hanging around, who could blame him?), and Gardner writes at length about the memories one hopes to leave behind when he or she is taken from this world. This morbidity is compounded by the irony that Gardner himself was dead within a year of the novel's publication, killed in a motorcycle wreck on a desolate country road. Mickelsson is a man at the end of his career, his salad days long past, any chance for a redemptive success crushed by his own bitterness and lashing tongue. It's not difficult to replace Mickelsson with Gardner; like his hero he had come to the end of his brief taste with fame, also due to his own actions. Gardner had been feted throughout the seventies, with critics praising his every release. The New York Times in particular graced him with positive reviews, even going so far as to proclaim him a "master." But then came "On Moral Fiction," where Gardner lambasted fellow writers for what he claimed was a lack of morality in their tales. The reaction was fast and harsh. Seek out critical reviews of Gardner's post-1976 novels and you will find a much different tone. The trophy horse had become the village mule. Also around this time nasty allegations arose concerning Gardner's nonfiction work, particularly his treatise on Chaucer, which it turns out had been plagiarized from other sources. All told, Gardner was now a man cast outside, a has-been. Much like Peter Mickelsson. And once you consider that Mickelsson's Ghost was received poorly both by critics and by readers (it barely sold its tiny first run), Gardner's death months later seems even more tragic...yet fated.

I've found that the reading of Gardner novels, for me at least, proceeds in the same fashion every time. The first several pages, as you get cozy with the blocks of prose and the relaxed pace, you realize you really are in the hands of a master, a man who not only knew how to teach writing but also knew how to write Literary Fiction With Lasting Merit, and you wonder, why doesn't anyone remember this guy? Then the rot sets in. As the pages progress and the digressions increase, the main plot vanishing in the horizon, you start flipping ahead a bit, checking if you'd miss anything important if you, say, maybe skipped a few pages. (But of course as a True Reader you ignore this impulse.) Halfway through you begin to hate this hoary-headed John Gardner, this man described by one hater as "a Hell's Angel grandmother," this man who, as one critic of Mickelsson's Ghost put it, "enjoys writing his novels more than we enjoy reading them." But you press on, and sometimes the end justifies the means. Mickelsson's Ghosts is a case where it does, "October Light," for example, is a case where it does not. As other reviewers have mentioned, Mickelsson's Ghost does indeed have a memorable ending, a bizarre one at that (which some Gardner-supporters have claimed turned original readers off from the novel, ruining their appreciation of it; something I find hard to believe, as it's my bet most of those original readers didn't even make it to the end). You'll be scratching your head over it for days, but it's my opinion (tiny spoiler alert), that one must look to the story of Mickelsson's grandfather, buried within the narrative, to understand what's happened to Mickelsson himself.

But make no mistake: this is a massive, enfolding novel which you can wrap yourself in like some tattered blanket. You can easily find yourself living within it, thinking of its characters as real people. You could easily find yourself moved by the genuine human pathos on each and every page. It all just depends on what kind of a reader you are, and what you demand from the fiction you read. If you don't mind a slow narrative, more internal action than external action, and pages and pages of speculation on the nature of death, then Mickelsson's Ghost will make for fine reading on a winter's night (though, despite the reviewer's claim below that this isn't "beach reading," I actually read Mickelsson's Ghost during a cruise in the Bahamas).

I have read most of Gardner's novels and was briefly a student of his in the 1970s. He was a larger than life character, and I have enjoyed many, though not all, of the Gardner novels I have read. Without question, this is my favorite. I put it off for many years but was inspired to pick it up after reading the Silesky biography. This book is a gem. The main character is a troubled philosophy professor who is sometimes difficult to like, but the book itself is one to love. It is philosophical work, but it is also part ghost story, part mystery, and part romance. The pages just keep turning, and the ending does not disappoint. I am hoping New Directions will choose to reissue this novel, along with the other Gardner books they are bringing back into print. To overlook it would be a big mistake.

So many readers minds are in concert regarding the reviews for this book and yet I found an original New York Times review from 1982 that was most unfavorable. It's instructive to keep in mind that there was a notable amount of unfair criticism targeted toward Mr. Gardner at the time this book came out, mainly because of `On Moral Fiction'. Bad mistake for Mr. Gardner. I can only imagine that he was looking forward to a spirited fight for the cause of higher art. Instead he found himself surrounded by resentful contemporaries with stinging tentacles. And so perhaps a critic or two approached this work with filtered glasses. Mickelsson's Ghosts is not only a `loose and baggy monster' like any good novel should be but is also a very visceral one that transcends the categorizations or genres it comes closest to. I don't think Gardner was working toward a mystery or a sci-fi or gothic necessarily and any solutions found here are not presented in a standard Mystery plot-driven format. etc. Most anyone that has approached this novel with a open mind (look at the customer's comments) knows its in a class of it's own. It succeeds at the highest level, pulling you in deep and leaving you in awe.

You know you're reading a good book when you find yourself purposefully delaying the conclusion to savour the experience longer. That's the kind of book this is: immensely detailed, intimate, fascinating. John Gardner was truly a master craftsman, and this is a masterpiece. The characters, minor and major, are fascinating, from the kooky old man next door who claims to be a witch, to Mickelsson himself, a philosopher with a brilliant mind, gradually coming undone as life delivers blow after blow against him.

The final scene is one I doubt I will ever forget, though I won't spoil it for you here ... do yourself a favour, get hold of this book. It's one to remember.

I can think of no book read over my 40 years of adult reading as deeply moving and thought-provoking as this book. The way I gauge the effect a book is having on me is the speed at which I am reading it - the slower I read it the more I am being affected, and the duration and frequency of times the book is remembered. I have never read a book as slowly as this one, and many years after reading the book I still think of it. I will admit that Mickelsson and his philosophic musings may not be for everyone. I would recommend him only to those who are unafraid of intense self-examination. Mickelsson's quest brings to mind the ancient dictum "Know thyself". The only books that have affected me nearly this deeply include the deeply brooding Moby Dick and the elegiac To the Lighthouse.

As a nursing student I loved this book. It gave a great perspective on some areas of nursing that nursing students may not be exposed to during clinicals. Toward the end of the book it did get into nursing/hospital politics and policy, which slowed things down. I wish that the author had ended with something better and more inspiring.

It's often said that in today's society we have no heroes. If you read this book, you will soon learn otherwise.

I really liked the aspects of this books that dealt with the three nurses performing their jobs in their perspective fields. That was great- but all the talk about nursing jobs getting cut really gets boring after a while. So much so I've been dreading reading the last chapter. Great book, just has some boring parts.

A must read for all those working IN or WITH the profession of nursing. Gordon discusses how the changes in our health care system have affected both the nurses role and quality patient care issues. The essential need for collaboration of all health care personnel is woven throughout the content. I required this book for a senior nursing course I just taught at Wayne State University in Detroit and the students were most impressed with the book and its approach to nursing, medicine and health care. A must read for nurses, physicians, hospital administration, potential students and the general public. Afterall, we are all potential patients and we should be aware of what is happening to the largest population of health care providers, the nurses!

The most under rated people in our society are nurses,this is an introduction to the ever present caregivers in healthcare today.The most varied role and most significant in all aspects of health care is the nurse.This was a wonderful read for all of those who may ever be the receiver of any aspect of their care from nurses in our country, basically everyone,a must have.For those considering the profession as a career,and the family members who would like an overview of "all in a days work", this will invoke serious thought.Yes, I am a nurse and for me to recommend a book written on nursing....kudos to all involved in the creation.

The book is a typical true crime book but it does provide background information about the mysterious accidental shooting death of beloved Pennsylvania attorney, Martin Thomas Dillon. He goes on a shooting trip to Gunsmoke with his supposed friend, Dr. Stephen Scher. Ironically, his friend is having an affair with Marty's wife, Patty. It's practically common knowledge. Sadly, the death was first ruled as an accident but Marty's family persisted to know the truth. They didn't believe Marty could accidentally shoot himself. The book is an easy read and I was more interested in the relationship between Patty and Stephen, the doctor and nurse. The author does an adequate job in providing details and reasoning. I felt sorry for the children, Michael and Suzanne Dillon, who would be raised by Patty and her second husband, Stephen, in New Mexico. Only a year later, the couple married and remained married until Stephen's arrest and trial. I don't think he could have gotten a fair trial or jury in the Montrose area. Anyway, he testified on his behalf which allowed a conviction. He is serving time in prison. Ironically, his former wife Ann was on the verge of suicide at the news of Marty's accidental death. She moved on and remarried happily to a wonderful guy.

I found myself shocked and surprise about the begining of this story The Secrets in the Grave. The story had taken place in a rural town in northern Pennsylvania in the mid 1970's, Two succesful people that go by the names of Marty Dillion who is a lawyer and a doctor who name is Stephen Scher.

These two men were tareget practing with rifles and shooting at clay pigeions. When Stephen had fired a shot from his rifle, accidently Marty was in the way and got a bullet in his chest. Marty had died in less then a hour before the authoritys and help came.

Stephen had told the authoritys that Dillion had accidently shot himself which he had manage to keep a straight face to make it look like he had nothing to do with the murder. If i was in stephen shoes i wouldn't beable to live with myself with out paying the consequences. I would have told the truth and less of a charge would be bought. But by lieing he would be getting himself into more trouble in the years to come by. There is a secret that is laying beneath the ground that will help authoritys solve this case but it will not be found right away. We will just have to continue to find out how they will solve this case.

A great book, but...I wanted more character description. It is very obvious who was willing to be interviewed by the author and who was not (namely, Dr. Scher and his wife Pat Dillon Scher). I guess they felt they would come out worse than they already do in the story. This book has been one of the saddest true crime stories I have ever read. Almost all of the main characters are despicable, but you can't put the book down.

Maria Eftimiades has given us a well-written, well-researched book on a murder that took 20 years to solve.

I don't know who I was more disgusted by: the sociopathic, cruel murderer Stephen Scher (who drove his first wife, Anne, to the brink of suicide); Pat Dillon Scher, who remains a spoiled brat to this day; Martin Dillon's two children who "disowned" their own grandparents for wanting the murder of their own father to pay for his heinous deed (Suzanne I would especially love to slap) or Pat's parents, who raised her to think she was better than everyone else in the world and "deserved the best", no matter who she hurt to get it.

All in all, great book. Difficult to put down!

The author does a superb job of bringing the reader all the details of the gruesome murder of Pennsylvania Attorney Marty Dillon.... June 2, 1976 Marty and his friend, Dr. Stephen Scher, went hunting.........according to Dr. Scher, Marty got killed while chasing a porpupine, when he tripped and his gun went off.... Before two years were gone by, the doctor married Marty's widow...the town became a little suspicious, and Marty's parents always believed something was "fishy"......... It took 20 years of battling the system, but at last Marty's body was exhumed .... the autopsy showed that the wounds were not found to be self-inflicted and his death was finally ruled a homicide......... I don't read true-crime novels as I find them too gory, gritty and disturbing..........however, while visiting my Mom, and forgetting to bring the book I was reading, I looked through her large pile..........since she's not a reader of fiction, my selection was limited........] This book was a quick and compelling read...My heart broke for Marty's parents......I suggest you read it yourself and draw your conclusions..........as for mine, I'm so glad that our great legal system still (for the most part) works!

The author's cousin, Bob, was my childhood best friend. I guess I was reading to find a hint of him when I found myself overwhelmed by the perfect character development of the people of our town. I was so moved that I actually had to put the book down for a few weeks because I was dreaming so much about home. Absolutely can't wait for David's next book.

David Drayer has impressed me! For a first novel, this one is a winner. It's a cross between a more innocent, rural Holden Caulfield (the main character, Seth, reminds me of him a bit) in Catcher and Anderson's Winesberg, OH, one of my all time favorites. It's refreshing to see a new writer who does so many things right! The first 5 chapters or so that revolve around Seth are terrific. If anything, I wanted to see more about Seth, although some of the side characters are memorably drawn as well (the shaving chapter was very well done!). The teenage cruelty is done very realistically and touchingly. As usual, the most sensitive one is the one called "jack off" for his whole life but we can tell he's the best catch of them all.

The final few chapters take a bit of momentum out of the book -- Seth's early life was much more interesting. But that's only a minor criticism of a terrific first effort.

This is not the kind of book I usually go for, but I was curious because David Drayer is my English teacher. I really loved it. I think everyone can find something to relate to and someone to identify with in this story. It covers 7 years of a small town, it's inhabitants and their not-so-closeted skeletons. I couldn't put it down and would have finished it the same day if I could. I highly recommend it.

I was very fortuate to have had Mr. Drayer as a teacher for an English class I took in college one semester. Apart from the book for a moment, he is a very down-to-earth and funny person! I'd never heard of him as a writer before I had him in class, and I have to say that's the only reason I picked up the book in the first place, and I'm glad that I did- I loved it!

This book reminds me of the small town I live in, and the people who circle around in it. The honesty of the writing, and the characters (their emotions,their reactions, their thoughts especially) really hit me. Some authors do a poor job of developing their characters and their emotions, but I really felt like I knew the characters- probably because a lot of the storylines in the book have happened to me, and many people close to me. Who hasn't had a huge crush on a REALLY good-looking teacher??? I know I have!! If you live in a small town, you know how it feels when you are itching to get out of it.

I laughed while reading this book not because I thought it was funny, but because I thought it was honest, and truthful! Most people think like these characters, but never express these thoughts out loud. Because in reality, what do we really want? (what do the characters want, maybe?) We want to have lots and lots of sex, passion, love, change, happiness....etc.

All in all, great book, I can't wait to read what he writes next!

Odd, isn't it, that the miserable and wasted coal fields should enjoy such a grip on at least our literary imaginations? From D. H. Lawrence to
Richard Llewellyn to The Deer Hunter to Homer Hickam, writers have celebrated escaping from mining country, but they've mostly (Lawrence being
the exception who proves the rule) looked back with some fondness. David Drayer's first novel is told in much the fashion of Sherwood Anderson's
Winesburg, Ohio, as a set of interconnected but not necessarily continuous stories. Here they are unified in that they trace the progress of Seth
Hardy, thirteen when we meet him, a man when he leaves town at the end of the book. The town is Cherry Run, Pennsylvania. The strip cuts of the
title are the remnants of the region's mining history.

Seth is a likable enough protagonist, undergoing the familiar torments of an awkward boy, with an unfortunate nickname, amongst high school
bullies. His particular nemesis is the loathsome Claude Coarsen. In a scene that provides a visceral thrill to anyone who's ever been bullied and that
offers a kind of insight into how kids might end up shooting up their schools, Seth draws a bead on Coarsen when they are both out hunting deer.
But in this case, Seth doesn't shoot. Equally compelling is a scene between Seth and the pretty young teacher who is one of his biggest supporters.
She ponders what would be so wrong about reaching out to this unhappy young man, yet has the good sense to control herself. And in many ways it
is Seth's father, Earl, who resides at the core of the book, a decent though reserved man who is capable of being just as strict with his son's high
school principal as he is with the boy and who proves a soft touch for a couple who are down on their luck.

This is an impressive debut, perhaps most impressive for Mr. Drayer's allegiance to his own material. He apparently resisted editors' attempts to strip
out secondary characters and he wisely avoided what must be a powerful temptation for any writer today, eschewing the annoyingly popular memoir
form and sticking with a novel. Mr. Drayer has said that he wants to return to these characters because he's interested to see what will happen to
them. You'll be curious too.

GRADE : B+

I read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories (short stories and novels) in a relatively short period of time (good for comparisons), and this was by FAR my favorite of them all. _Nothing_ is as it seems to be, not in the presenting murder mystery, nor in the background story. Both of them are fascinating stories in themselves; combined, it's truly amazing.

The last of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, and one of the two best. It contains more detection in its first section than The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Holmes (off-stage for much of The Hound) actively investigating the murder at Birlstone, and drawing his ever-fascinating deductions from raincoats and dumb-bells; indeed it is the only pure detective story among the four, with the reader given every opportunity to solve the crime. Although the solution is justly famous, it is but a variation on "The Norwood Builder," at much greater length. The second half of the tale concerns the doings of the Pinkerton agent Birdy Edwardes in the eponymous Valley, terrorised by the Freemasons, a gripping and powerful account which is perhaps of greater interest than the detection.

The story is a report on the actual events surrounding the arrest, conviction, and hanging of the Molly McGuyers in Schuylkill and Carbon Countys, Pennsylvania at the end of the 19th century. In the story the Mollys are like the gansters. In the Pa. coal region they are folk heros who fought and died for workers wrights. See the movie, "Molly McGuyers" staring Sean Conrey, it's an exact match.

The actual Pinkerton, McGowan, Died of old age in California.

'The Valley of Fear'. A real page turner but what makes it most memorable for me is not that Holmes is at his best, but Conan Doyle is. After reading this book I recommend you to read this book because it was a suspense story. The whole story moves around Mcginty who was a big criminal in the valley of vermisa also called the valley of fear. There was only one person who could face to that criminal and his name was Jack McMurdo. He behaved as a gangster and he had taken many risks in his life and he was not afraid to take more risks. Don't miss 'The Valley of Fear'. It's terrifying, exciting, and best of all, real.

I liked this book a lot and it's right up there behind The Sign of Four as the second best Sherlock Holmes novel. Though it's well known that Conan Doyle was growing tired of the character by this point.

The story is of a brutal murder in a mansion house in the English countryside. There's not much sense-making evidence to work on so Holmes and Watson go down to investigate along with Scotland Yard and the local police. Sure enough, Holmes solves the case rather quickly and all is revealed. But it's here that Conan Doyle uses the same split narrative he used in A Study in Scarlet. The story jumps far back in time and details the long, sinister plot leading up to the murder in the mansion. It's a good story and quite addictive. But I'm afraid I saw the plot twist coming (though it's an imaginative surprise) and only because there were no small revalations at any point, therefor I knew I big 'un was coming and deduced the logical conclusion.

And is it just me or is there a major anachronism in the story? Holmes speaks of Moriarty as if he is still alive. But didn't he chuck him of the Reichenbach falls and watch him fall to his death? Unless this story is set before then. And who is this mysterious Porlock? It was never cleared up. Perhaps in a future story eh?

Very nice pocket book with clear pictures of each bird. I always have it available when the birds are around the feeder and can clearly find what I'm looking for.

This is an excellant resource book. The descriptions of the birds are wonderful & the author's notes add more personal data for those covered.
I love it!

Quick and easy reference guide, coded by color, and I own two. My first one is worn out! Fits in your pocket.

My family loves this book. We keep it by the window overlooking our bird feeders. We have identified quite a few bird visitors.

This is a great little book. Easy to find birds (by color or name) without having to illiminate all the birds that aren't common in PA. Love the comparison section. Lots of information for the price.

I enjoyed Margaret Creighton's book. From far off Yarmouth, Maine, she has thrown her nets far and wide and hauled in a lot of historical flotsam and jetsam that might have escaped other scholars, in service of putting together another of her finely tuned historical studies of the underserved in American history. Here we find out more about the immigrant populations who comprised the Union Army, as well as the actual lives of the women of Gettysburg and the black citizens of the surrounding area. These are the shadow puppets of history, the folks who you might never have learned about by visiting the national park nor studying your social studies book.

You probably heard more about Mamie Eisenhower's residence at Gettysburg than you did about the women who were drafted into battle, whether they were forced to nurse, to cook, to slave, or to fight. Why is this? Partially, as Professor Creighton explains, these women were told, and they believed it, that their sacrifices did not matter. And that, perhaps, there was even something a little bit shameful about what they did, particularly if they were required to assist the invading Confederate army. Of the ravishment and rape that undoubtedly occurred, we know little but can surmise much, thanks to Creighton's research and the guarded testimony of forty Gettysburg women, mostly farmwives. Creighton looks at the nuance behind every statement, searching out human reality wherever it crops it head. "A middle-aged woman on a farm opened her door to a soldier on July second. By the way he was dressed, she was sure that he was a Louisiana Tiger. He told her that `General Lee had said that they should ask for food and if they would not give it they should demand it and that was what he was going to do.' She fed him ham. He ate some of it and then insulted her. The bread, he complained, was not fit to eat, `Madam,' he said, `I can go into any cabin in Virginia, poor and desolate as it is, from Winchester to Richmond, with not a fence standing, and get a better dinner than this.'" Creighton returns to this anecdote to eke out perceptions on the nature of resistance, and the implacability of the bad ham (Gettysburg women had to be fine actresses, for otherwise the Tiger in question might have guessed that the farmwife had fine chickens hidden with their beaks taped.)

As Creighton acknowledges, the presence of women on the Gettysburg battlefield is currently a contested site for scholars, particular feminist scholars, and she acknowledges that a host of others are trawling the same fields. The material remains of interest, and does indeed widen our picture of what happened that summer long ago, but I wondered, after finishing the book, if perhaps she might have written three separate books, for there's a sense in which the struggles of the immigrant soldiers, the Gettysburg women, and the freed, escaped or citizen slaves are experiences of very different registers and don't mesh together especially well except under cloudy language of the deracinated and ignored, and although Creighton tries her best, she can only link them this vaguely for the first two hundred times, then after that her rhetoric grows tiresome.

A lesson that comes through in Margaret Creighton's excellent The Colors of Courage is one, you'd think, we wouldn't need to learn: that the courage displayed by soldiers on the battlefield doesn't exhaust the meaning of the word. Curiously, though, it's a point that our culture seems to resist. Although we use the word "courage" in a number of different contexts, the template for our thinking about what it means to be courageous almost always is the battlefield with all its conventional associations.

But as Creighton points out, using the battle of Gettysburg as her focus point, courage comes in many "colors," and when it comes to the Civil War, we're only now beginning to discover what some of them are. Certainly, men facing one another on the battlefield display courage (although, as Gerald Linderman pointed out in his Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War, what counted as courage changed as the war progressed). But other kinds of courage as documented in Creighton's book include

--the courage of the civilian women at Gburg who protected their families (many of the town's men being absent) during the battle, negotiated with Confederates to avoid trouble, and tended the thousands of wounded before and after the three days;

--the courage of the African American residents in Gburg and southern Pennsylvania who had to contend with slave catchers that accompanied Lee's invading army, federal authorities who refused to let them bear arms against the invaders, and the gradual romanticization of the Civil War as a conflict in which "both sides fought for what they thought was right" that minimized the horror of slavery;

--the courage of German-Americans (derogatorily referred to as "Dutch"), who were seen by native-born Americans who viewed them as cowardly soldiers, lazy civilians, and buffoons everywhere. The heavily German-American 11th Corps, which (largely through no fault of its own) had been routed at Chancellorsville by Stonewall Jackson's surprise flank slam, were derided for their entirely honorable actions at Gburg simply because they were "Dutch";

--and the courage of generals such as Oliver Otis Howard and Carl Schurz, who both refused to subordinate moral to physical courage, and recognized that the stakes involved in putting an end to slavery were much more important than those offered by "the vogue of rugged, tough, and secular masculinity" (p. 234) too often then and now identified as courage.

A masterful book that opens new vistas on both the battle of Gettysburg and the meaning of the Civil War.

Despite its colorless title, The Colors of Courage is an interesting and revealing book that's well worth the reading. One learns much about native (Yankee) prejudice against German immigrants (allegedly stupid, clownish and cowardly), what happened in the town of Gettysburg during the three days of battle, and the experience of northern blacks, especially those near the Mason-Dixon line (only 7 miles away). Much fascinating material has been uncovered by fruitful research. The style of cool appraisal of historical fact though often gives way to one in which the author's paternalistic bigheartedness is apparent. Refreshingly, the author rejects the usual attempts at evoking sympathy or a misguided evenhandedness for the Confederacy and its soldiers, and presents the rebel army in all the horrific racism that was its soul and raison d'etre.

It is distressing though that much of the book is given over to a cloying gender self-promotion. Claims are made for the courageous self-sacrifice of Gettysburg womanhood, but little real courage is really described. The only incident that stands out in my mind is the fact that some Gettysburg women prepared meals for the Confederate soldiers who occupied the town during the battle, soldiers who, given the opportunity, would have killed their husbands, sons, brothers and fathers. These meals were prepared under some duress, of course, but when one woman courageously refuses she goes unpunished. But what could one expect from a gender that, in a 19th century rural backwater, suffered all the quasi-slavery and humiliations imposed by unchallenged male superiority -- not a fertile nursery for courage. The author notes many episodes of women's lives in Gettysburg, episodes that made me cringe with shame for these poor put-upon women. But amazingly these episodes are not presented as shameful at all, as if that would diminish these women as proud bearers of the title of womanhood. While chattel slavery is forthrightly despised, in this book gender slavery gets off scot-free! There is hardly a word that points the finger critically at the male superiority that so diminished the lives of these women. It's the elephant in the parlor -- overwhelmingly present, but unmentioned.

Despite this bizarre frame of reference, The Colors of Courage presents aspects of the war and the society that lived in its midst that are well worth discovering and whose uncovering justifies the obvious effort devoted to bringing these sidelights of the war to view.

Though Mrs. Creighton's text is well researched and factual, I believe it to be a bit extreme. I find that most claims made in the text are nothing more than generalizations. Yes, Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, however very few Union soldiers were fighting for this cause. Most Federal troops were fighting to preserve the Union, and quite a few were appaled over the idea of losing their lives to free the slaves. Additionaly, the majority of the Confederates namely Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson were not slave owners, and were simply fighting for state's rights. In fact, Lee asked Confederate President Jefferson Davis to incorporate black units into the Confederate Army. This was rejected, but by early 1865 the Confederate Army consisted of a few black units.
Secondly, although the citizens of Gettysburg suffered for a few weeks I tend to feel very little remorse. What Creighton believed to be major infractions against the Confederate Army was but mere childsplay to what Union General William T. Sherman dubbed "total war". In his infamous march to the sea(Atlanta to Savannah), his men robbed, killed, and humiliated southern citizens in an attempt to make the South lose it's fighting spirit. So please forgive me if I do not share in the citizen's of Pennsylvania's remorse for their two weeks of terror. Please do not get me wrong, I have nothing but the highest respect for those effected by the Civil War(fighting men and citizens alike). Yet, I believe it to be somewhat offensive to not even mention towns like Charleston, South Carolina and Vicksburg,Mississippi that were shelled and in the case of Vicksburg, starved into submission.
In summation, I believed Mrs. Creighton's book to be both informative and a good read. Please forgive me if I have offended anyone, and I will be more than happy to discuss this as well.

This book tells us, not about the battle, but what went on in the town of Gettysburg itself. Having lived there for 5 years, I was steeped in the folklore that the soldiers ran back and forth throught the streets of the town for three days, and with the exception of Jennie Wade (story: warned to go to the basement, courageously continued making bread) the townspeople were unscathed and John Burns (story: an irascible old coot), no townspeople participated. I had never heard of the Brian Family!

I was not without resources. I was the director of the public library. I met Michael Shaara, Bill Frassinito, Col. Sheads, Charlie Glatfelter, and a host of lesser and unknown historians, Park Service tested guides, civil war buffs and re-enacters. Perhaps I never asked Shaara (the one time I met him) and the others whom I saw more often, tacitly understanding that this battle was a white male thing, about these things. Maybe I accepted the script because the Gettysburg as I knew it was a quiet town, didn't get involved, and maybe didn't in 1863.

How could all that fighting occur in the town, without an effect, as defined by the local folklore surrounding the battle? Could the soldiers really be so courtly that they put aside their survival needs as not to disrupt to the town's civilians?

There are people who know this battle in great detail. They can recite (and argue about) the numbers of blue and gray who died in the wheat field, the peach orchard the round tops, etc. I never heard them talk about how the soldiers got fed (did they think they had were 3 squares at a mess hall?)

Creighton gives us not only the narrartive but also the answers as to how this history got burried.

Excellent work! Bravo Margaret Creighton!