Town Books

Incredible story. Incredible characters. A film could be made to join the ranks of Hollywood's greatest movies. Oscars abound. It's got it all ... a "girl" movie, a "guy" movie, sweeping story lines, incredible adventures, unbelievable events ... all set against the backdrop of the Florida Keys ... Cubans, Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, Caucasians, ball players, fisherman, priest, robbers, cheating spouses, good brother, bad brother, meddling mother, mysterious Jewish builder, monuments on a beach, hurricane ... This BOOK has everything that would make a great movie. Life, marriage and the struggle with the two. Hollywood, take notice! Make Mary Hood a household name.

The characters, the plot, the message - great hope and rejuvenation played out in an intoxicating location - a true refreshing novel. Bravo! Encore!

I loved this book..especially Senora Rios and her meddling and of course Mrs. Lockridge and the neighbor's cats. Great characters throughout. A great read and would love to see the movie. Great job Mary!

Incredible story. Incredible characters. A film could be made to join the ranks of Hollywood's greatest movies. Oscars abound. It's got it all ... a "girl" movie, a "guy" movie, sweeping story lines, incredible adventures, unbelievable events ... all set against the backdrop of the Florida Keys ... Cubans, Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, Caucasians, ball players, fisherman, priest, robbers, cheating spouses, good brother, bad brother, meddling mother, mysterious Jewish builder, monuments on a beach, hurricane ... This BOOK has everything that would make a great movie. Life, marriage and the struggle with the two. Hollywood, take notice! Make Mary Hood a household name.

Mary Hood is a secret that needs to get out. I found out that Amy Tan listed her as among the company of Alice Munro and the great living women writers in Best American Short Stories of 1999. Familiar Heat is a novel that confronts evil, but leaves you feeling like there is much in humanity worth praise. These characters are amazing and human. Mary Hood is more than a writer; she is a wise woman who knows a point can be made just as easily through laughter as through knee-jerk tragedy.

Warm and insightful story of a white boy growing up in a poor black/latino neighborhood in the 60s. Fascinating perspective on the experiences and perspectives of blacks, whites and latinos. Also, a touching story of a boy coming of age, dealing with a best friend who is gay. Open and honest -- addresses issues of drugs, alcohol, gangs, crime, violence and racism but recognizes the good too. He maintains a positive outlook (in the book and in life).

Flying over 96th Street encourages the reader to examine race and relationships. It challenges the reader to look beyond the color of one's skin and examine what happens when you allow yourself to trust and love others who neither look like you or who at first glance seem so different.

A must read for those yearning to explore their relationship with others - and a exceptional message for young people - encouraging them to reach beyond their small circle, embrace and take the risk to love others who "appear" so different.

Flying Over 96th Street is a great read. Tom Webber tells his story in with humor and remarkable powers of observation. As a New Yorker, I loved the details of "El Bario".. But you don't have to be a New Yorker to get into the experience of this young guy who goes "beyond the looking glass" of the white middle class world into another reality-- where HE is the minority...

Even though race and class is rarely (if ever) being discussed nationally, it is a core issue of who we are as Americans. And for those of us who talk about it, it is often just that-- talk. Kudos to the generations of the Webber family who put their neighborhood where their mouth is...

Webber's portrait of New York in the 1950s and 60s is full of vivid description. He captures the sounds and smells of his neighborhood and, more importantly, draws his characters with an empathetic brush. Yet the book is not just an elegy to a time past. Dr Webber deals deftly and incisevely with class, race and prejudice, while never preaching or teaching. Every page is full of delights. It is a deeply touching book that will rank as one of the great New York City memoirs.

Flying over 96th Street is the most moving memoir I have ever read. It tells the story of a white young boy growing up in Spanish Harlem durnig the 50s and early 60s and how he and his new black and Puerto Rican friends grow to appreciate, help, teach, and love each other. It is a totally absorbing account of coming of age and should be read by every high school student in america.

I had this book when I was a teen and lost it. I've read it a few times. I can't say that about many books. I've also read More Forgotton Town a few times as well. A must have for anyone interested in Jersey history.

Henry Charton Beck spent much of his spare time in the 1930s traipsing around the rural areas of New Jersey searching out local history and lore. He wrote about what he learned in newspaper articles and then in full-length books. This book is the first in a series, published in 1936 (always in print since then, but never revised).

Beck is concerned with the tiny settlements that grew and died mainly in the Pine Barrens, a huge, sparsely settled area that stretches across a good portion of southern NJ. Beginning with Ongs Hat, he tells about 37 different places, one per chapter. The chapters are short, and all the places were visited by Beck, with much of his narrative told through his own eyes. Many of the places are still identified on larger topo maps (there are no maps in the book, unfortunately); very few of these places were ever large enough to support a post office and were merely placenames. Photos grace the book, though what is depicted in them has long disappeared for the most part. Also missing, though it would be very helpful, is an index.

Beck's style has the effect of drawing the reader out into the field to see what he's seen. I've been to quite a few of the places mentioned in the book and have enjoyed having the book along with me. Being almost 70 years old, the book is somewhat outdated (some isolated areas he writes about outside of the Pine Barren reserve are filled with housing developments and strip malls now), but it's still a great book on the local history of southern NJ of long ago.

Including Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey I also owned 4 other books by Henry Carlton Beck.
I purchaded these books in 1982 and read them over and over until the pages became worn.
There is no better way to study and get to know the ghost and forgotten towns of southern New Jersey than through these books.
Henry Carlton Beck put his heart into every word and deed, the information coming from that is wonderful.
There is no better reading on southern New Jersey that can be found on book shelves.
These books will live on forever and to experience his windom in these is a real blessing.
I lost all my books to a fire but plan to replace them next month.
If your interest is in southern New Jersey these are the books to have on your shelf.

Beware that once you read this book, you'll be hooked on trying to find these towns.

An excellent reference for those looking to disover the history of Southern New Jersey.

Need a brief escape from the modern world? Want to know what life was like a hundred years ago in Southern NJ? This is the book for you. Mr. Beck wrote in a beautiful, yet folksy style about the people and places that once existed in what we now call the Pine Barrens. After reading this, I am anxious to go back and look for some of these places myself.

Since I was born in 1945, World War II and the Holocaust had always been history to me. So when I spent five years working in Germany, I constantly wondered about the older people I met--"How did you respond to Hitler's regime? What do you feel now?" Even with Germans of my own generation, the topic was one I felt uncomfortable raising.
I have found Mimi Schwartz's book fascinating because she acknowledges very human conflicted feelings, the need for Gentile Germans to feel they did the best they could to help their neighbors, the deep-seated fear of a Jewish survivor who wants to believe people are basically good, the almost militant fervor of a young German Gentile seeking to discover the darkness of his parents' past. And Schwartz raises timely questions about conflicts between Christians, Jews, and Muslims that trouble this century.
Beyond the topic, I am intrigued with issues of writing memoir which Schwartz's book raises. How much should an author reveal about personal feelings? How does the writer reconcile conflicting memories? Can a writer allow herself to become vulnerable? To be too naive?
I have hardly been able to put this book down since finding it at the library, and now I want a copy for myself to highlight and reread.

In Good Neighbors, Bad Times, Mimi Schwartz writes a highly nuanced account of the Holocaust and how it affected the small German town where her father was born and which he remembered fondly until his death in the 1970s. While other reviewers have suggested this memoir for a Holocaust shelf or course, I recommend it to Christians seeking to understand how religious prejudice can blind us to the humanity of those who worship differently.

Schwartz writes engagingly of growing up in a neighborhood of mostly Jews and longing to break out. She did this by first attending the University of Michigan and later (after marrying her Jewish boyfriend) assimilating into the predominantly Christian town of Princeton, NJ. Schwartz seems to have identified more with her mother, a city girl, than her father, who was born into a cattle trading family and left the village referred to here as Benheim to fight in World War I. As a soldier, he saw how Jews were treated in Russia and when, in 1933, he attended a rally at which thousands of enthusiastic Germans saluted Adolph Hitler, he knew to leave.

While Arthur Loewengart and his brothers came to the United States, other villagers emigrated to Palestine, which was still under British rule. In the end, all but 89 of the village's Jews escaped. They were deported to camps where only two survived. Throughout her childhood, Arthur told Mimi that people in Benheim were different, kinder and more principled than the typical Nazi. After he died, she wondered if what he said was true. She began to connect the dots between survivors in New York and Israel and the German village where no Jews live today.

Her journey both physical and metaphysical is told here. It is a story of small kindnesses (and cruelties) in the midst of unimaginable larger horrors, and how truth is deeply textured but well worth knowing.

"Before Hitler, everyone got along," according to the author of "Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village". This a true story of decency and compassion in a small German village and how its generosity stood in the face of an empire of Nazi hatred. Author Mimi Schwartz recalls tales from her father and goes on a journey that spanned over three continents and a dozen years to get the more complete story of her father's village and learns interesting details about it all from every interview and discussion. "Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village" is highly recommended for Holocaust studies shelves and for anyone seeking a more upbeat account of 1930s Germany.

As those who lived through the Holocaust are rapidly disappearing, this sensitive and open-minded work captures the anguish and inner conflicts of Jews and Gentiles living in a small German village during the Nazi period.
Knowing a number of the people Mimi Schwartz depicts, I can enthusiastically attest to her accurate portrayals.
For those of us born after this time, but still bearing some of its burden, there are important questions: What was the flavor of 400 years of mutual tolerance? How did this harmony disappear? What can we understand about ourselves in reflecting on the daily moral challenges of life lived under an evil regime?
There are no easy answers here, but a moving and true story.

2008 marks seventy years since the tragic events of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of destruction against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. Mimi Schwartz, author of "Good Neighbors / Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village" wasn't born yet. She would be grow up in Queens, New York, on milkshakes and hamburgers, and her father's stories of life in Germany, a life she had very little interest in. Her father grew up in Benheim (the name of the village has been changed to protect privacy), a little village of Christians and Jews in southwest Germany where according to all accounts Jews and Christians lived peacefully side by side. No allied bombs fell on Benheim during WWII so much of it is still preserved. The synagogue which was attacked during Kristallnacht is still there, now as an Evangelical Church. One can still visit the Jewish cemetery with 946 old graves.

Schwartz was in a village in Israel when she saw an old Benheim Torah and was told that "the Christians of Benheim rescued the Torah for us during Kristallnacht." That story sent her on a quest to discover all that she could about this little village, to determine if, like her father had always told her, Benheim was special in that the people there got along and would do anything to help one another.

In "Good Neighbors / Bad Times" Schwarz interviews many old Benheimers, some in Israel and some in America. She also visits Benheim several times, a village which now has no Jews. The Jews that were there either escaped in time or were killed in the concentration camps. Only two Benheimers who were interred in the concentration camps survived. The other eighty-seven were murdered. On her journey, Schwarz discovers a series of individual stories and individual perspectives which each tell part of the whole story. She discovers both the Jewish and the Gentile perspective on what happened. She struggles with knowing what everyone knows now versus what people knew then. There was a large swastika that had been erected in the town in 1934, but as one Benheimer stated, "It was not important; no one knew what it would mean." She learned of other kind deeds that occurred in Benheim and of a second Torah that was saved and is now located in Burlington, Vermont. She learned of how good people struggled to live through such difficult times, of people too scared to take a stand and the punishments that came to those who did. She learned of children being indoctrinated with hate in the local school and parents who struggled to fight against it.

"Good Neighbors / Bad Times" is a valuable work of social history. It is so important to preserve the stories of those who lived through these tragic events. In the end, Schwartz decides that Benheim was special, that decency managed to prevail there despite the Nazi hate that infected the land. As Schwartz states, "decency is often such a solitary act; it's evil that draws a noisy crowd." "Good Neighbors / bad Times" is recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish / Christian relationships during the World War II era. It would also make a wonderful text for a college course on the topic.

This book is wonderful both for its content and ability to describe the Coast's landscape and lifestyle perfectly. I travel to the Coast regularly, and Owen's descriptions are right on target. I read the book in about three days, it was so good. Not only are the books descriptions of the Coast spectacular, the story is great too. I thoroughly enjoyed every character, plot twist, surprise, and shock. He also inserted enough interesting facts to the work that I actually learned something as I read.

A wonderfully warm, human, and quirky cast of characters populate these pages. The plot is full of twists, surprises, and moments of sublime, perfect absurdity that will have you laughing out loud. Highly recommended.

I live just a few miles from Gulfport and have spent a great deal of time there. I work and used to live in New Orleans. I was really impressed with Mr. Owen's ability to describe the area and to catch the essence of these places.

Rory, his main character, is both interesting and funny. How Mr. Owen knows all the stuff he knows is amazing. I kept thinking when I read it how great a movie this would be. It has it all-humor, mystery, suspense, romance and surprises. In fact, I liked all his characters. I am going to buy another couple of books to give to friends as gifts. I am hoping that there will be more of his books in the future.

I found the main character believable and funny. The author's descriptions of the gulf coast are right on target. I live a few miles from there and am very familiar with the area. I recommend this book to all.

The Funniest book I've read all year! The characters are novel and the book is offbeat and different. I'd like to read more about Rory Ripple and friends.

Half Empty is not the sort of book that offers easy solutions or neat and tidy endings. The characters are flawed, sometimes self-destructive human beings. They do things that you know are wrong, that they know are wrong, but they do them anyway.

There are no heroes in white hats or cookie cutter archetype characters. Even Denis, the main character, has moments where he is really an unlikeable person. Having been sober for 30 days he now has to deal with the result of his drinking: the rest of his life. His stuggle to find love, not strangle his boss, and somehow still have something like a social life when all his friends continue to drink is well written in a sparse, almost spartan style that doesn't hide the ugliness and struggle behind flowery words or rationalizations.

Physically, my copy of the book was actually a cut above those issued by larger publishers with a good tight binding and crisp printing on good quality paper.

There is some rather explicit sexual content so Half Empty is probably not a good book for the children, but other than that I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys good literature.

Half Empty is about a guy who was drunk for a long time and one day decided to stop drinking and realized that he had surrounded himself with idiots and that he drank because life sucks and to face reality head on without booze or drugs or religion ain't easy. The book is about him facing life and romantic relationships.
It is better than junky novels because when you are on junk or booze you can hide in it. Because to face life without the booze or junk is where the horror is, where truth comes into play. It is easy to deny reality and lie to yourself when you are drunk.
What is really great about this book that blew my mind is how accessible the prose is. If you read romance, pop horror, Bukowski, or Ellis you can easily get into this book. Tim Hall is obviously well read and has worked on his craft to the point of madness to get this kind of accessibility. It is a perfect synthesis of several genres in one, and he doesn't fail to displease anyone who reads those secluded genres.
The book is action packed too, no filler. He wastes no time in the book. The prose uses concrete langauge with few big words and it always conveys a clear picture in the mind so your imagination can sink into the story.
I call this review a new type of lit because the book appeals to so many different people, it is for everyone. I wouldn't even know what section of the store to put it in, romance, literature, or young adult it could easily fit into.

Tim Hall uses "Half Empty" as the gateway into the average, psychotic New Yorker's mind. At times, I felt as if he were reading my own mind and writing my internalized thoughts in his book.

I was especially pleased to see heavy Camus influence in Hall's writing. Imagine if Camus were able to write "The Stranger" in a NYC setting with a twist of modernism and a hint of individualistic rebellion! And such wonderful ways to bring suspense and drama to the reader!

Tim Hall's Half Empty perfectly captures the twilight moments between your last drink (not that long ago) your next drink (not today) and all of the mind-numbingly horrific moments in-between when one has to deal with a lousy job and desperately trying to put up with people who you can tolerate drunk, but would rather kill yourself than talk with a second longer while sober. It's the mundanity of sobriety that Hall captures well, the lingering moments, the desperate attempts to kill time on weekends and evenings that makes this book not just another cautionary tale for newbie friends of Bill but a gripping tale of the search for an honest feeling in a dishonest world. I'll drink to that.

Half Empty is not only an engrossing read --compelling plot, witty voice, believable characters, in a vivid urban setting-- but it's an important novel. So much literature has either romanticized drunks and addicts as "hip" heroes, or demonized them as evil villains. At last, with Half Empty we get a novel that portrays the nitty gritty and hardships of maintaining early sobriety in a world that clings stubbornly to its myths and ignorance about addiction. More than that, this is a novel about resistance to change, about a struggle for human transformation just when it's needed most.

I love this book, and I love reading it to my 2 year old niece. For a step-into books it's cute, and humourous! My niece loves the book so much she is into her second copy. Hot Dog is about a dog that is so hot, and can't seem to find a cool place. He meets different people and animals and wants them to share their fan, or their ice cream, or their shady log- but all he hears is NO WAY DOG! Better than other step-into books - it's cute, rhymes, and has a good sharing moral at the end. It's creative, and is just plain fun to read out loud!!

I am a first grade teacher, looking for books for my small reading groups. I decided not to order this one* but will keep the one copy in my library. Most my students should be able to read it independently & I think they'll find it funny. (I wasn't wild about a phrase written as a sentence in the book: In the pool.)


* I liked these better for groups:

Big Egg/ Step into Rdg.
Jack and Jill and Big Dog Bill/ Step into Rdg.
Big Brown Bear/ Green Light Readers

The illustrations in this book are hilarious, The text is perfect for children that are just starting to read.Simple one syllable words with two to three words per page. But the best part of this book is the illustrations, I just love them. The dog spends the entire book hot and trying to cool off. Every attempt he makes fails until the very end. You find your yourself rooting for the dog. This is one of my son't favorite books, he wants to read it every night.

I am a Pre-Kindergarten teacher and I introduced this story to my class on the first day of school after we get in from the playground. They love it and relate to the hot little dog in the story.

This book is ideal for a child and an adult to sit and read together. It has predictable and easy words and the kids have fun watching the dog do anything to cool off on a hot day.

When I read it to the class, they enjoy it so much they take it from storytime and read it themselves. This is the kind of book that inspires young people to have a love for reading. They realize that reading is fun and can be easy too. This book was favorite from the first day.

I have begun to use these Road to Reading books in my resource classroom and the students love them. They especially loved Hot Dog. Many of the words are on the state mandated word lists for K-2. The pictures are terrific and the story is interesting and funny to the kids. I thought it was great too-in fact we all fell in love with the little "Hot Dog".

I REALLY loved this book. I like to read, but it's only sometimes that I find a book that I get hooked to. At first I just picked it out because it had a nice cover. I figured, since it was long and I was reading some other books at the time, that it would be another book that I would just get partway through. Reading about all these animals was so fun! Before this I had never heard of a bulbul or a sugar glider. It has cute illustrations too. I am definatly glad I read it and I think you will love it too!

My whole family loved THE HOUSE OF A MILLION PETS. I gave it to my 14-year-old for Christmas and then all the adults in the house snuck it and read it while he wasn't looking. It is both touching and hysterically funny. The stories reminded me of Jean Shepherd's books. A great gift for the pet-lover in your life.

Yes, this is ostensibly a children's book, so I started by reading it to my 9-year-old daughter one evening before she went to bed. However, it was so enjoyable that I couldn't resist continuing on my own. When I got to the chapter about the dogs I laughed so hard I thought I'd wake up the entire house. This book is simultaneously thoughtful and uproarious, practical and fun. It'll be the perfect kids' birthday present- I've already ordered several copies. Both my daughter and I can't wait to see what the author comes up with next!

Compared to animal lover and caretaker Hodgman, I'm a novice, with my dog and my beta fish, but her book is so inspiring, I'm thinking of getting a sugar glider or a white capped bulbul or maybe just a dachshund. Definitely not a baby bat, although I enjoyed reading about how she lovingly cared for one. This is a book I'll give my vet to keep in the waiting room. There's something for everyone in it, and it's hard to put it down, but when you do, you'll be smiling. The illustrations are precious; they work for readers of any age.

This is a charming book for all ages. The author describes her experiences with dozens of pets, from dogs and cats to prairie dogs, bulbuls, wild owls, and snapping turtles. The book imparts a lot of fascinating information, and at the same time is very funny. A great find!

Insightful. From someone who knows. I don't ordinarily go for poetry (with a few exceptions: Charles Bukowski, Pleasant Gehman, Bill Shields, Dan Fante, Jim Northrup, Jack Micheline, etc.) so it's rare for me to spend money on a poetry book--but when I do, it's usually something worthwhile--and this certainly is that: a gem of a book. I'd like to see Suzanne Lummis write more. The lady has paid her dues and it shows. I don't recommend everything I read--but this is certainly a book I would recommend. Too bad it's such a slim volume. There's an old saying, though: good things come in small packages--and Suzanne Loomis' IN DANGER is certainly one of those good things. I had to give it five stars. Also, that was a moving obit the lady wrote in the L.A. Times a few years back when the late great Charles Bukowski passed on. The piece was so well done that I had to cut it out and frame it. I don't know, I'm sure others have felt this way, but there they were: tears rolling down my face when I heard that Buk was no longer with us. Thank you, Suzanne Lummis.

suzanne lummis take the femme fatale sterotype and inverts it, and as a result, witty and evocative poems are born out of her experience in los angeles; especially the dirty parts that no one wants to know about. the poems should be read while drinking a stiff one or listening to tom waits...astonishing....

Can't add much to David St. Johns' rave intro, but simply put, these poems live up to this bold title in ways intriguing, charming and stark. Though they're indelibly fringe Hollywood, they penetrate mysteries that have no address. In other words, these poems are excellent. You'll love discovering every one.

Two lines to give you a taste: "City of sirens and lowdown ways, neons wincing like nerve ends, see what you've done?" and "You were the B-movie I just had to sit through again." Equally touching and jolting, these poems are one part earthquake and two parts heartache.

Usually in Raymond Chandler (the writer whose noir Los Angeles world leaps to mind when you're reading In Danger), the women are darkly lit and shot slightly out of focus-they're alluring, risky, always our of reach. Suzanne Lummis has turned the tables. She gets inside these shadowy creatures; she's the femme whose got her weapon trained on Marlowe, a guy who's not such a prince after all. It's a brilliant conceit, and it sustains itself throughout this fascinating collection. Like her heroines, Lummis' poetry skirts an edge; it's breathless, chancy, full of juice. If only more poets wrote this way.

This novel was chosen by Barnes & Noble for the "Discover Great New Writers" program....It received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, indicating a novel of unusual merit and interest...Books Ireland said "This is a work of such might and muscle....Buy it."...The Irish Times said "Phelan has taken a...theme, the slaughter of innocence, and by dint of sheer lyrical power has turned it into something you won't forget for a very long time."...Library Journal said "This first novel, an unforgettable exploration of the shattering effects of violence, belongs in most fiction collections.... The French translation, "A La Saison des Marguerites," is published by Editions Balland.

Barnes & Noble selected IN THE SEASON OF THE DAISIES for its "Discover Great New Writers" program. Publisher's Weekly (1996) called IN THE SEASON... a "powerful novel" and awarded it a starred review. Library Journal (1993) said "This first novel, an unforgettable exploration of the shattering effects of violence, belongs in most fiction collections." The Irish Times (1993) said "Phelan has taken a...theme, the slaughter of innocence, and turned it into something you won't forget for a very long time." Books Ireland said "This is a work of such might and muscle....Buy it."

A wonderful and provocative book although some may find the subject matter a bit too rough for light reading. The book combines a graceful lyricism with a whole variety of interesting symbolism which implies the author's depth of human understanding.

One curious example would be the character of Ms. Bevan who connotes pure compassion and understanding; a true Madonna figure. She is modern, monied, dignified and thought to be Protestant by everyone in town, which she is not. This subtle reflection of Irish self-loathing and the fact that Mr. Sheehan, a kind of suffering moral hero, is the only one capable of even speaking to her makes an interesting commentary.

Also of note is the book's ambiguous treatment of Irish Republicanism. IRA members are all damaged characters suffering from their involvement and regretful, neurotic or base and ruthless in the extreme. It is fundamentally a romantic novel whereby the enviable qualities are of a personal nature and the "collective" goals are misguided and taken-up by unfortunate rabble and impetuous youth.

Who is responsible for Willie's death? The English, the IRA, all who where present, only those in favour of the killing, the village that reared the killers? The verdict seems to be that all are guilty, the pain real and perhaps the living suffer most.

I think this book started out a little hard to understand and take in, but once you got down and started reading it, it grabbed you and sucked you in. It was well written and it gave you an idea of grief and love. I think anyone who hasn't read the book should.

Being somewhat of an "Americanized" European expatriate, I've always had trouble understanding the passion and connections inherent to that mysteriously unique Irish sensibility. Perhaps it has something to do with the vast ocean separating the U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Phelan's book is so touching, so powerful, I was moved to tears at one point. It's a deeply emotional account of one boy's personal tragedy... and coming out of it feels like coming off a long and painful relationship gone wrong. I'm grateful for having read it, and even more grateful to Mr. Phelan for writing it, but I hope I never suffer as much in my lifetime as little Seanie Doolin.

A great read, and suprising page-turner .. an absolutely unforgettable narrative. At times it reminded me (vaguely) of William Faulkner.