New York Books

I met Tim Mulligan many years ago when living in the Hudson Valley and he signed one of his books for me. I've been to many places in the states/abroad in my travels, but the Mid-Hudson Valley is one of the most beautiful and life-affirming places I know of - and yes, I've been to Big Sur and Olympia Park.
I wrote a little blurb on my blog at: [...]
about a few places I inhabited while living there. Don't miss the Mohonk Mountain House (hike around the trails above the lodge), the old Catskill Mountain House site and overlook (gasp!), or Olana in Greenport area. That special light in the Catskill Mountains viewed from the other side of the Hudson River is awe-inspiring. Keep in mind that some of the food places Mr.Mulligan has referenced have closed, such as the Cafe Pongo in Tivoli. Oh! long gone are the magical Tivoli days rocking away on the old 1940's front porch glide rocker with a whole grain baguette filled with roasted vegetable, pesto and goat cheese with dogs and cats at your feet free to enter and exit the cafe with the owner supplied pet food and drink dishes scattered about with the smell of those wild flowers wafting on the warm breezes.

On the mark and very interesting. I want to make some trips to the Hudson Valley.

I have used this book on many of my forages into the Hudson River region and I have always found its inspired commentary, accurate information and insightful observations make it the perfect book for exploring this region. I highly recommend this book for all who visit and seek more information about the Hudson River Valley.

I read this lovely book for genealogical purposes. The migratory path of our family was from Westchester County in the 1600s to Schoharie County in the 1800s. There are a few towns mentioned here where our people had lived.
The book begins in Albany going toward New York City. I read it backwards one chapter at a time to really make the trip in the same direction that our family went!
Who knows if I will really take this trip? I collected travel brochures on France for a dozen years and then I really went three times. When I take this trip I am bringing this guide.

We purchased this book for our INN guests who are interested in learning more about the interesting history of the Hudson Valley of NY. We have owned it for about 3 weeks and at least 5 guests have taken it overnight to read and each guest has returned it to us with very positive comments on the accuracy of the contents. We highly recommend this book for anyone who is going to visit the Hudson Valley of NY! Pat and Bill, Innkeepers

This is a wonderful story about a couple who find an abandoned baby bird in a busy intersection and take it home to raise it. It is very touching because of their love that grew for little baby Stellina. She became a member of their family. My grandchildren love this kind and tender story and want me to read it to them again and again. The artwork is also delightful. I recommend this book for children and adults alike. My grandchildren are 2 to 9 and they all love it.

This is a beautifully told story that is very refreshing and sensitive, bringing tears to adult eyes and causing smiles and cooing in the young listeners. The ilustrations are delightful. Nothing but praise for this children's book.

This illustrations in this book are refreshing-- they are charming without being kitsch. They pique the imagination without surpressing it as some of the more photorealistic illustrations in childrens books tend to do.

Beware-- this book does deal with death, but it does so in a very gentle way. My children loved this book. I enjoyed it as well. The repetitive style also makes it suitable for younger children (older babies/toddlers) despite its length.

I was in the American Museum of Natural History last month, or rather, in their gift shop (honestly, is there any better place to shop for kiddie stuff?) when I noticed Pericoli's impressive rendering of the city skyline, Manhattan Unfurled, on prominent display.

I knew that on my shelf sat a more humble volume of his, about a single bird and not an entire cityscape. Stellina was a finch chick rescued by his wife, Holly, when she heard its tiny peeps at her feet above the roar of traffic.

While a press release and the book itself make much of the love that sprung between rescuer and foundling, I was struck more by Pericoli's obvious awe of his wife. He dotes on the way she fed the bird by trickling juice down her pinky, or played piano to inspire it to sing, or schlepped it in a plastic box whereever she went until it was old enough to be left alone in her tiny apartment.

He also refers to her as "Holly, my wife" on every single reference, in case you miss it. An end note explains she was only his future wife when Stellina peeped into their lives, and further confuses matters by saying a security guard first rescued the bird. There is no guard in Pericoli's narrative.

There is, however, what appears to be a lovely, stylized rendering of Holly, with an elongated nose and slender frame, dabbled with just enough watercolor to suggest her clothes or Stellina's plumage. Pericoli's use of pigment is like his spare prose, giving us only what's essential:

"It was evening when Holly, my wife,
decided to take Stellina home with her.

"They sat together for a while,
looking at each other,
and both must have wondered:
'And now? What's going to happen now?'"

Stellina finally died after eight years as Holly's well-tended pet, probably a better lifespan than she could've expected in the wild (I'm guessing). This tribute to the bird -- but really to its keeper -- is much like a splotch of warm color in the big, gray city.

One of the honors of being a school librarian is the opportunity to be there for some of the small but very important moments of your students lives.

Reading The True Story of Stellina reminded me of an early morning visit from a student who came in before school and asked "Do we have any books on birds?" Well, what do you want to find out about birds? Is this for a report? Is there any special type of bird you are looking for?

She was clutching a shoebox and slowly lifted the lid and began to explain how she had found-this-baby-bird-on-the-sidewalk-on-the-way-to-school-and-she-had-run-run-all-the-way-back-home-to-find-a-shoebox-and-now-she-had-it-in-the-box and-see-the-sticks-and-leaves-she-had-added? She needed to find out how to take care of the bird so she had come to her library to get help.

We ended up enlisting the help of our school nurse who is a professional 4-H mom, and has raised just about every kind of animal imaginable. I cannot remember now what happened to the bird but my young friend would have been enchanted by this gentle story.

Matteo Pericoli's wife hears a "cheep" and finds a baby bird on the noisy streets of Manhattan. She takes the little bird home and manages to feed it and care for it. Stellina lives and thrives and repays the couple with companionship and love for eight years. The drawings are light and delicate like the bird whose story they are telling. I am looking forward to sharing it with kids. They will be charmed.

TRY TO REMEMBER is both a gripping psychological thriller and an incredibly sensitive portrait of a family. As the parent of grown daughters, I felt for and with all the characters, and especially admired Kotker's imaginative portrayal of the father. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever been in therapy, anyone who has ever questioned the dynamics of recovered memory, and anyone looking to better understand his/her own adult children or parents. Hardly movie-of-the-week material, TRY TO REMEMBER struck me as a fine and enduring time capsule of late-20th century America.

Brilliantly portrayed power of the "shrink" and the devastation that can occur when misuse by the manipulation of a patient's mind occurs at the hands of a psychiatric counsellor. Beautifully written with wonderful characterization and descriptions of people,inner thoughts, places, and events, resulting in a tumultuous turmoil of family destruction, but leaving hope on a thread of possibility.

Zane Kotker's novel takes a long, hard look at the counseling profession and the potential damage--along with the good--that therapists with an agenda are capable of when they get their hands and minds on malleable, vulnerable patients. Reading this tale made me realize how easily this kind of family tragedy can occur, given the current climate of sexual guilt, confusion and uncertainty in which so many of us operate. In one sense, the story seems to have been lifted right off the front page of yesterday's daily newspaper; but what makes reading the book worthwhile are the human faces we meet behind the headlines. And her view of the fragility of family life. Let me add, I also enjoyed the snapshots of Nineties urban life among the twenty-somethings. As in her earlier books, Kotker shows humor, insight and compassion.

As a father, son, and therapist I know Kotker's novel to be true and frighteningly acute. Kotker's portrait of the american middleclass family caught inexorably in a terrible & invisible web of inept & venal "mental health" is beautifully and convincingly written. I ached for these people and raged against my incompent therapist colleague.

Kirkus is unfair. This book is not strident, and it is not a"movie-of-the-week" subject, but a moving novel of family life today. The mother and father are memorably portrayed. They could be one's parents, or oneself. The psychiatric profession doesn't look very good by the end of the book--but the picture is quite realistic. False memories and false accusations of sexual abuse are among the most tragic and fascinating phenomena of recent times, an undertow that more than one family has drowned in. This novel shows how such things can happen, and why, and how one young woman managed to free herself.

"Unearthing Gotham" is the story of historical archaeology in the city of New York. Historical archaelogy is the archaeological study of eras that might also have written documentation - so what can digging around in old privies tell us that the paper trail does not?

Cantwell and Wall prove the answer is "an almost infinite amount." From a painstaking analysis of shards of pottery found in various privies, for example, we learn how the world changes for women when New York became too big to walk (they no longer lived above the shop, so to speak). In landfill in lower Manhattan, the charred ghost of a ship that sunk in the harbor in the 17th-century tells us something about trade back then. Most touchingly, the discovery and excavation of the old African Burial Grounds tells us something about the lives of the enslaved (did you know that over 20% of the residents of colonial Manhattan were enslaved? I didn't; I learned it from this book).

The book is extremely well-designed, liberally illustrated with photos of digs, but also old maps and engravings. If you have lived or walked New York, it will inspire you to look at the city in a new way - the ground you tred on still bears the marks of centuries past.

By the way, the authors have also brought out a book of walking tours based on their discoveries - next time I'm in town I'm tucking it under my arm and having a good look around at the vestiges of the 17th-19th centuries presented here.

New York, like no other city in the world, is a city of spectacular heights and many books have been written about the buildings that rise to the skies. How many people, however, think about what lies beneath the vast weight of edifices and human life that exists above the ground? In this compelling and instructive book, Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall have a given us a lesson not only about the artifacts and remains that have lain dormant for centuries but also in the history that surrounds their burial and ultimate exposure.

In a time-line fashion (11,000 years before present to today) the authors reconstruct a picture of what life might have been like during these times. Lest one think the unearthings are limited to Manhattan, they are not. All five boroughs are represented. There were moments during the reading of this book that I wanted the authors to spend more time recounting the actual excavations to which they refer, but in the end their historical perspective is the link that saves the day. Without it, their offerings would be no more than a field trip.

My future trips around the city will be made with a new awareness as I ask myself, "I wonder what lies beneath....". It is a question we all can ask.

This is the very best book one could have if he is interested in the early history of New York City and the area immediately surrounding it. The coverage of Native Americans is especially strong, fascinating from beginning to end. The authors know their subject thoroughly, write beautifully, and have given us an exciting, scholarly work that will be a classic for some time to come.

This book was good but I must admit it was extremely repetitive and very over written. Facts that could've taken 1 sentence to reveal took pages. More like a long essay then a book. But still very good.

As a long-time student of and writer about old New York, this book held so many surprises for me that I felt like a college freshman again. For so many years I had read about the Native Americans who occupied this city, but the illustrations, maps and photos that accompany this complex narrative give it new, more vivid life for me. The experiences of the Dutch, African-Americans and British that followed are given a face, so to speak, by the detailed, but lively, narration. The graphics, especially of the extreme southern tip of Manhattan, are generous, clear, and highly educational for newcomers to and veterans of this history. (By the way, as a Brooklynite, I want to kiss the authors for covering all five boroughs, and not just focusing on Manhattan, as do most histories of NYC.) This is a book that can be enjoyed on so many levels. It is a great introduction to a relatively--and undeservedly--obscure subject.

This book presented an interesting concept regarding religous zealots. The point that this takes place within the Catholic church vs other religous sects, provides an interesting background that most people have a general understanding of.

The characters are well developed. It was hard to put this book down.

God bless William Heffernan, who shows how it is that the greatest religious scandals always result from cover-up, seldom from the scandal, per se. Two contemporary issues, secrecy about gays in the Roman Catholic priesthood and the secrecy that shrouds the operation of "Opus Christi" (no points for guessing what outfit he's sending up here), provide the framework for this well-paced novel.

Heffernan also gets right the self-importance of people attached to the powerful. His rendering of the Cardinal's aide-de-camp, the numeraries in Opus Christi, and their nemesis (a humorously drawn Jesuit priest and professor at Fordham) demonstrate the bad, the ugly, and the sterling good that play out in Church politics.

Ultimately, it is hard to say all that is praiseworthy about this novel without repeatedly reassuring potential readers that it does not bog down, that it never becomes polemic in its well-wrought moral points. Still, Heffernan cleverly threads throughout the plot the silliness and even wickedness of categorizing people by their bedroom activities. He reminds parents that not even the daughter of a police inspector is immune from making a stupid mistake with a stranger. The goodness of cleverness and intelligence prevailing at last over plodding intransigence and the self-interest that leads to evil is an over-arching theme, as well.

Sweeping aside the ample food for thought, this is a fast-paced, zig-zagging novel that riveted my attention from the first page through the last.

One of the really funny aspects of John Grisham's novel The Firm to me was the idea that a law firm could be a Mafia front. In Unholy Order William Heffernan presents an even more diabolic relationship between a secretive Catholic order and a Columbia drug cartel.

Heffernan's novel falls short only by failing to fully exploit the oppotunities the cultish criminal enterprise offers. As he draws near the end of his tale, the focus becomes concentrated on one member of Opus Dei, rather than the order itself.

While this enables him to wrap up his novel, the reader wants more. In a sense Grisham had the same problem and reached for the same quick solution in The Firm with the "mail fraud" prosecution. But this book is, if anything, more artfully presented than Grisham's classic, and such a facile solution is a bigger loss to the reader.

I've been a fan of Heffernan since I read Ritual, which was the first novel to feature Paul Devlin. Unholy Order is the best one in years. I'm not going to give a plot blow by blow. That's what the book jacket is for. The story is very interesting, the characters are as real as they get. An outstanding edition to a great series!

My favorite kind of novel. I couldn't put it down. Devlin and co. always entertains as they try to solve the hardest of cases when road block after road block is thrown in their path. All the supporting cast were great, even the villains. Loved the ending. Highly recommend.

I couldn't put the book down. UNTIMELY DEATH is just about the best novel of its kind that I have read. It drew me in in a way that even the best mystery writers never could.

Fred and Jan Yager obviously have delivered the foundation for a franchise series of mystery novels. Hope to see Kimberly Stone and Alan Blake in action again soon.

I've read mysteries for over thirty years, and most of them are forgettable. Untimely Death was one of those joyful reads, because I knew I'd met a detective that I wanted to read a whole series about, and because I couldn't figure it out. Well drawn, interesting characters, and easily worthy of adaptation to film. Hope to see more. Soon.

This book is wonderful. I don't read mysteries very often, but I enjoyed UNTIMELY DEATH right up to the last page. The characters are exceptionally well drawn, quirky, as human beings are, and twisted, as murderers are, but not bizarre or grotesque. The plot, as they say, is a page turner and there are so many surprising gems that the resolution is truly a mystery until the end.

Don't pick up this book if you have something important to do because you will not want to put it down. Untimely Death is a real page-burner.

Character development is good -- the people are real, and I can't wait for another book featuring Kimberly Stone. The Yagers' familiarity with New York gives us Left Coasters a view you won't find in a travelogue, and the descriptions are fascinating.

The well-designed plot moves at a perfect pace, and the suspension builds steadily, until the end, when you might discover you've been holding your breath a long time.

When I see the name Yager on a title, I'm not going to look any further. I'm going to get it, find a nice chunk of time and settle down for another good read.

This book is a fast, fun read. And while that may sound odd for a book about murder - it illustrates the real power behind this book. Like any good murder mystery, there has to be strong visualization, but without dwelling on the gory details. Here, the authors take you a step further, by dealing witthe psychological and emotional side of murder. As your read on, you develop a sense of understanding about the murderer and the motivations and demons that lead a person to kill. And this is the real breakthrough. Unlike most who-dun-its, which leave a trail of breadcrumbs and red herrings, Fred and Jan Yager plant their clues by taking you inside the killer's mind. In fact, you solve this mystery by carefully matching the killer's thought patterns with the behavior of the characters in the book. I haven't seen this technique used before. I eagerly await the sequel.

This is a beautiful book and a wonderful introduction to art for young children. In addition, children who are just learning to read can read the book themselves. My kindergarten aged grandson can read most of the book and loves to talk with an adult about the art. This book links meaningfully to the Baby Van GoghBaby Van Gogh video in the Baby Einstein series.

I have been an early childhood educator for over 36 years and am delighted that "Vincent's Colors" is available to my young students, ages 3-6. It is an exquisite introduction not only to the work of Vincent VanGogh but to the observation of color and art forms. In addition, the vocabulary associated with each picture links literacy to this introduction to art. Research clearly shows that the arts strengthen brain connections, particularly during the first five years of life. Every young child deserves this book in their early library!

I am a teacher in a class of 2 year olds and they LOVE this book. I have to read it at least 3 times per week, in addition to the children "reading" it themselves. The pictures are so bright and the words are so simple. We have even done pictures based on their favorite painting "Starry Night". I highly recommend this book to be added to any personal or classroom collection, especially if you are promoting art.

Vincents Colors is a beautiful book. I purchased it for my preschool to go along with the theme of illustrators and authors. The teachers used this book as a resource to go along with that theme.The children loved looking at the pictures.

I used this book for many lessons, integrating the visual art as well as the writing component. very lovely, easy for young children to relate to, stimulates their own artisty and a lovely book to own.

This coloring book is great. The detail in it is brilliant and the NY landmarks highlighted by the book are well selected. I especially love the appearance of Conan O'Brien in the Times Square picture. I definitely recommend this book to people of all ages and sizes! And its very reasonably priced! Thanks Pierre!

"Welcome to New York City" is perfect for kids and adults. My cousins love to color draw, and what better way to show them where they live by having fun coloring! Pierre, keep up the great work with the beautiful art work you have demonstrated and I'll be on the look out for the next book!

Welcome to New York City is a great coloring book for children and adults to share time and creativity together. I ordered it for my nephew and niece over the holidays, and with them living outside of New York, I was able to sit down and spend time with them as they colored the fine landmarks of this city and asked questions about the city I live in.

I brought 5 copies about 3 years ago. Gave them to friends. They loved it. I just decided to purchased 2 copies this time around. With the events of September 11th, I wanted a nice reminder of New York City. I highly recommend this book. The images are really well drawn. And as an adult it gave me an excuse to buy some crayons.

I purchased 4 copies back in August during a trip to New York. Great book. I didn't know until recently you could buy it on line here at Amazon (You should promote it more!). Am planning to purchase 2 copies this time around (One copy for myself this time!). Great work, Pierre. When will we see some other states... maybe Washington?

"My professor at college read the class a beautiful book called WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR PEACE? When she read the first paragraph I started to cry. I got caught up down there that day and it was devastating to me. I almost lost my life that day and it conjured up painful feelings. I just realized sitting in that classroom hurtful feelings were still inside of me. This book is special to me now because it will help children to understand what happened on 9/11 and help to teach the children how to love and respect one another in spite of our difference. Your book should be in every classroom in America." P.T.

The pictures and words are incredibly powerful in this beautiful book. As an ex-New Yorker, it reminded me of the importance of sharing these stories with my child and other children close to me. Many of them were not born when 9/11 happened but the movement for peace that grew from this experience is something that everyone needs to know of and to continually push for. Thank you for publishing these inspiring and sensitive art works so we can all use it as a spring board to move one step closer to peace.

everything that i thought it would be, its just how i felt that day and i was so happy when my mother bought me this book. its very inspirational and heartwarming.

I know two of the co-authors because there are my best friends. I was there when everything happened and we were just in class.I read the book and it's great. I give this book 5 stars and they give different perspective of kids feeling about 9/11. I advise you to buy and it's worth it.

when my mom bought me this book yesterday i was so inspired and touched. My brothers very good friend died on 9/11 and i was so sad, but when i read this book it brought back so many memories, i cried, but not because i was sad but because i was happy to know that there are other people who felt what i felt.

After reading Cortazar's The Winners (1960), I've decided that what makes a novel a classic is that the author writes about the worst of human behavior in a style that assumes every reader is a genius. This novel called on me to use all of my perceptions and knowledge as a person, as a reader.

By now, you will have learned that this novel is about a group of people who win a lottery and the prize is an ocean voyage, and that once settled onboard, several of the passengers behave badly, and the ship's crew is such--well, I won't give it away--that the voyage comes to an end only three days after it began. You will also have read from other reviewers or the publisher's notes that the character Persio has clairvoyant abilities; in a way, Persio is the higher consciousness of the novel; his thoughts lead the reader into self-examination (or not). For me, this novel was not a simple, summer read--but don't let me stop you.

The Winners is highly metaphorical: is the ship life itself? I think so. But the writing is more beautiful than life: many of the characters have the most sensitive, humane, and literate conversations, like Claudia and Paula, or Paula and Carlos. Surely, if this novel is Argentina, then people from Buenos Aires are living among the gods of culture and human potential. In that regard, this novel is hardly the Argentina I've heard about: breathtaking landscape, and women and men who love culture, but every now and then a dictator who murders people. The ship's crew is secretive and cunning like that. Read and see.

Appropriately, there is a sinister feeling about this novel from page one; something terrible impending, something beneath the surface of these polished people. I was totally fascinated, intrigued by many of the "characters": Claudia Lewbaum and Gabriel Medrano, Raul Costa, Carlos Lopez and Paula Lavalle, and Don Galo and Dr. Restelli, and the unforgettable Felipe Trejo, the 16-ish student, passionate for life, but without parental guidance, "lured" into the depths of the ships lower cabins where the crew seem alien and unpredictable. What a textual voyage--one in which the characters had to learn so much about themselves!

Cortazar places his characters in categories I've found people all fit--one or the other--like it or not--we are each either a duck or an eagle. Ducks follow of course and eagles set new paths. Ducks may have easier less lonely lives. Unless of course they inherit wealth and power--in which case they must be very confused and inflict chaos on the less entitled. Eagles succeed in endeavors against all odds and are therefore resented by those they seek to please. None of us has an easy time co-existing with others. No one wants to admit this of course! This book encourages reflection that may have social value, but it doesn't offer much in the way of a hopeful outcome for the social redemption of mankind--at least not in this generation. Therein lies its depth. We must expect less from our companions in life. We're all horrifyingly flawed. Somehow we must find the path to honesty and forgiveness. The book--?--I couldn't put it down. Now I can't get it out of my mind. If you want to live in denial don't read it.

I enjoyed "The Winners" though at times I found it a bit "heady". Its a novel that requires you keeping track as you go along. It took me while to figure out the setting, and what was happening (which means Cortazar did his job). There's so much symbolism and historical significance in his writing. I highly recommend the short stories collection "Blow Up" if you liked "The Winners."

What to say about this sardonic book that won't sound like an essay from the journal of the Modern Language Association? Yes, it's liminal. Yes, it's Lacanian. Yes, it's an existential comedy. Oy! Poor Julio Cortazar put himself in the sites of all the scholars of pretentious post-modern interpretation - just check out the amazon list of articles and books designed to take the fun out of reading him - and it's just about spoiled his reputation. But The Winners is a wild ride, my friends, an outrageously entertaining book in which a whole zoo of oddball Argentinians wind up together on an ark of satire.

There's an old tradition of books depicting a "ship of fools", from Erasmus to Sebastian Brant to Katherine Porter to Cortazar, and I suspect Erasmus had a classical model. They're all fun; I've never read a ship-of-fools book I didn't like, though I wouldn't mind NOT being a passenger on that ship myself. Reading The Winners reminded me strongly of Herman Melville's most experimental novel, The Confidence Man. None of the critics, so far as I've noticed, draw any connection between Cortazar and Melville. Heads up, PhD grubs! There's a thesis topic for you! Likewise, lovers of reading just for its own sake! I'm giving you two recommendations: The Winners & The Confidence Man. In the climate of the upcoming American elections, books about bunko and deception are bound to be comforting.

I read and enjoy Cortazar in the same way I enjoy Luis Bunuel films, in fact I think Bunuel could have made a wonderful film of THE WINNERS. Like Bunuel, Cortazar finds the things we accept as normal to be quite absurd but also like Bunuel he has a certain affection for those he makes fun of. All those on board the Malcolm are guilty of some sort of petty prejudice or limited world view but they all mingle and tolerate one another to a point. When things go absurdly wrong the lottery winners begin to wonder what it is they've actually won. Cortazar is an existential comic. A book which succeeds because it never forgets that despite our differences we are all bound together by our not knowing exactly what is going. With a little help from Cortazar we can see that knowing is just a pretense.
Perhaps the novel like Camus Plague is a parable with many possible levels of meaning. Not the least of which is the political level. After all Cortazar left Argentina under Peron to live and write in exile.