Pennsylvania Books

The haunting York trilogy continues in "Faces in the Water," picking up the threads that the first book left dangling, and weaves them expertly into further complexity.

Dan has returned from York with some haunting memories of the odd gypsy family of Ambrose Faw, visions of Romans and Picts, and the discovery of a hereditary family disease. Now he's determined to leave the unusual vacation behind him, and spend some time with his kindly grandmother Blossom. But his time in York keeps intruding on the present.

His grandmother has hired a migrant worker named Lonnie, who reminds Dan of one of the gypsies from York. A letter comes from Joe, saying that the Faw family wants the silver denarius that was given to Dan at the end of the first book. Blossom makes some cryptic comments about Huntington's disease being an "evil" handed down through the family. And when Dan goes into the basement, where a stream runs through, he sees the face of Ambrose Faw watching him from the water.

When a magpie begins following him, Dan captures the bird and later sets it free. He is swept back in time over a thousand years, to York in the declining years of the Roman Empire, where he encounters an ancient parallel to the Faw family. How does this connect to the present, and how can he help the beautiful gypsy Orlenda?

The plot picks up the pace in "Faces," as some of the puzzles of "Shadows" are solved, but produce more questions as they are solved. For example, we see why Dan saw Jaspar as a wild man; but why does he see the Faw family sixteen hundred years in the past? What is the connection between these events and Huntington's disease? Or the connection between Blossom and the Faws? And what is up with those magpies?

Naylor's atmospheric writing is still present, with the nuanced dialogue and intricate characterizations of the first book. Not everyone is revealed on the outside, and that adds an aura of mystery to all the characters except Dan, who is our window to the events of the book. And though time travel is a well-worn cliche, Naylor manages to make it feel fresh and intriguing. It's virtually impossible to predict what is ahead for the characters or the plotline, and that's a delightful change from the usual ghost stories.

Undoubtedly "Footsteps at the Window" will be as good as "Shadows" and "Faces," as the second book leaves the readers waiting for the answers to its many questions. Excellent fantasy story for kids and adults alike.

This is a wonderful book that originated from the idea of the Wall of Faces at the Gettysburg Visitors Center. The Gettysburg Nat. Mil. Park Library has received over 500 images donated from families and private collectors. This book(album) contains 200 of these images. Some of the images arrive with a bit of history or family lore. The book is divided into three parts: July 1, July 2, and July 3. The images are arranged into alphabetical order and display the soldiers name, rank, unit, age(some)and the final result of the individual)survived,killed,wounded or captured.) Most of the images show amazing detail and I enjoyed studying the uniforms, weapons and gear that the soldiers actually carried onto the battlefield. Also on page 52 is my distant cousin,Capt.Charles A. Phillips from Salem, MA. who suvived to become an attorney after the war.

This is an informative, interesting, often exciting history of a little known series of automobile races. Seneca provides a thought-provoking analysis of the local politics behind the decisions of the Philadelphia elite regarding the holding of automobile races in Fairmount Park in the period 1908 to 1911. Although the races were safe and extremely popular, several members of the city's elite believed they were an inappropriate form of entertainment, and after 1911, the races were never held again. However, the four annual races brought together some of the leading race-drivers of the era, and a surprisingly wide variety of car models. Seneca gives a minute-by minute (and sometimes second-by-second) account of the races, to the point that you can almost hear the tires screech and the crowd shout, and smell the tires burning and the clouds of pungent gasoline exhaust! The book is a really interesting treatment and should appeal to auto enthusiasts, those interested in Philadelphia history, and to a broader audience of readers who would like to know more about popular culture in the early 20th century.

In the late '50s I had the unusual chance to personally ask FLW what school might be best to learn City Planning. Not knowing then that his inimitable, signature response would be "you can't learn that in a School, you have to learn by doing."

Later, I also had the pleasure of knowing Paul Bonfilio, and can attest that his own product here is a labor of love that reflects an intuitive, heartfelt resonance.

BTW, if you have the opportunity to personally visit Fallingwater, try to exactly time it to that week in May when the surrounding wooded Moutain Laurel canopy is in their full and profuse bloom for an added breathtakingly magical experience.

Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life is the amazing biography of the intelligent and cultured Fanny Kemble (1809-93), a Victorian celebrity known on both sides of the Atlantic as an actress, proud member of the Kemble theatrical dynasty, solo performer of Shakespeare, and author of journals about life on her husband's Georgia plantation. Fiercely antislavery despite being married to a wealthy slave owner, she published "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation", a text that revealed the horrific conditions under which slaves lived, and eventually underwent a divorce. Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life is the first biography in twenty-five years to study her life in its entirely, and highly recommended as an unforgettable portrait of a complex and principled woman.

We study the German heritage of our county and how many of the farms in our county were established. This book is great to show the children what is on the farm and the life of these new Americans. It was also great is showing the life of an indentured servant. Great book to have in your library!

According to Camporesi,a Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Pologna, Baroque Catholicism threatened its adherents with something unspeakably more fearsome than today's psychological provocations: the spectre and the fear of eternal punishment in "a slaughter-house, a torture chamber." There was the certainty of a wide variety of punishments: infections, muddy water, foul air, oozing sores, snakes, vicious dogs, fire, disorder, the gaping jaws of hideous beasts, heaps of mucus, feces, "an insatiably evil fever of cruelty," and, worst of all: no redemption possible. The ticket is one-way.

But what of Hell today? Camporesi asserts that it has all but disappeared, its once-fetid landscape gentrified, 'improved,' so that really, Hell has ceased to exist. Things have softened - in this life and the Church's hereafter. Think of the most terrible possibilities (genocide, torture, famine) here on earth. As "hellish" as they are, one dies and it is over.

What was the purpose of all this? There was a variety of goals. Keeping order was a major one, he asserts. "The Hell which was created by the Jesuits - the dominant model which would later influence the hells of other rival 'religions'- had been primarily conceived as a deterrent for the noble and high-class worlds, and designed to make the loathsome and disgusting smells of the the tomb waft up those large, refined noses." Camporesi further shows how so many conceptions of hell (and they changed over time, and within the Church) were often quite similar to how the poorest of the poor actually lived.

A second section discusses a preventative: the host. This section is less appalling, but relevant and interesting. "The mysterious food" was subject to thievery, intrigue, and large quantities of superstition. Camporesi covers all the angles.

This book is appalling and fantastic. Camporesi uses various sources, mostly Italian writiers and historians, and Dante's "Inferno," of course.

Anyone shocked that children are exposed to modern media violence will learn by reading this book that the Churchgot there first - hundreds of years ago. There was no V chip. Kids knew about hell, and it was much scarier than a night of "Cops," or R-rated films.

Definitely worth reading.

The word "riddle" in this title doesn't refer to the kind of riddles that ask you what's black and white and red/read all over. Instead, these Anglo-Saxon riddles open doors into the idea of metaphor in general - how one object reflects or metamorphosizes into another. Williamson writes beautifully about these things. Many of the English language's greatest poets and intellectuals have been fascinated by riddles - Richard Wilbur, W.H. Auden, Sigmund Freud, the list is long. Take a look at some of the roots of the riddle in Anglo-Saxon culture. Then fall into Roman riddles & Greek riddles and koans and Yiddish riddles and..........

I have used this cookbook since 1978. The recipies are easy to follow and the results are wonderful...haven't had a failure yet!
I have also enjoyed the menu suggestions and the photos as well as the commentary.

Julie Marie Bunck has done a splendid job in revealing to the reader the sometimes harsh policies that Fidel Castro has taken to enhance the development of a socialist/communist conscience in revolutionary Cuba. With meticulous research, she reveals the failures and successors of the Maximum Leader in attempting to construct socialism in all human forms.