New York Books

Being female, it's difficult for me to appreciate the full context of why the Soprano's series is so appealing to men; but it surely is. To the extent that the series reflects the lives they lead, and hence, is the art by which they are most likely to identify with the dynamics, it must be successful due to its popularity. To the extent that it doesn't, it offers the opportunity to prevent lives from having to. Either way, it's a win-win situation since the positive and negative effects can be visualized and measured on the screen rather than through the high risk performance that people must try to live through to survive. Perhaps that is the series' peculiar appeal: safety and entertainment through scrutiny of what people could construe as dangerous territory involving dangerous people. To the extent that it measures a code of justice not often available to people on the outside, it serves to make the world a safer place because of its portrayals.

It's a book that contains five scripts of the best show on TV. It's more than just a TV show, it's a cultural event. It captures the modern day mafia in a brilliant, clever, dramatic, and often times funny way. If You are an inspiring writer, wishing to find a good book for form, or seeking a great work to emulate, then this is the book for You...

I bought this for my son because he is a huge Sopranos fan. However, I snatched it away from him and had a great time reviewing the scripts.
When you watch the show, the dialogue is often lost or ignored because the viewer tends to be caught up in the action. By having a script handy, you get a chance to analyze the writing style. While the plots have a great deal to do with the show's ultimate popularity, the crisp and effective dialogue which remains true to each character's development is equally important.
If you are interested in learning how to write for tv or movies, the scripts are great to analyze.

I've been waiting for the screen plays to be released ever since seeing the first season of THE SOPRANOS. The only draw back is the print doesn't seem dark enough. I hope it won't fade quickly. That said, it's still a great book and would make a wonderful gift to any hardcore fan of the show. Keep your fingers crossed that other scripts will soon follow.

The big irony is that when you read "The Sopranos: Selected Scripts from Three Seasons" expecting to have increased respect for the writers, what you come away with is even greater respect for the actors. I like to look over scripts of favorite television shows, not just to see what was changed, deleted or added to what eventually aired, but to enjoy the stage directions, where the writers work in all sorts of fun and telling details. However, compared to most other television scripts David Chase and company do not provide a lot of extra tips (neither did Shakespeare, come to think of it). Consequently, the chief attraction here for fans of the shows ends up being the dialogue that never made it to the screen along with the introduction by Chase.

Of course the introduction is insightful, albeit relatively short, as Chase talks about the creative and casting process. I particularly liked the part when he explains the multiple strands that comprise each episode (a rule clearly violated by the "College" script, which only has two) and the process by which "Soprano" scripts are written. The results are the "final" (i.e., shooting) scripts, and why the title page of each episode lists the various revisions (blue for 1st, pink for 2nd, yellow for 3rd, etc.). Unfortunately, unlike some other script collections, there are not any notations on the pages to indicate what color they are; I admit, I am curious as to what pages make it from the first draft all the way through production.

For selecting only five scripts from the first three seasons of "The Sopranos," this collection does a nice job. You have to have the "Pilot" episode and "College" is clearly the most memorable show from the first season. "The Happy Wanderer" is another pivotal episode in the show's history and "The Knight in White Satin Armor" contains one of the biggest surprises. "Pine Barrens" represents a prime example of the comic extremes of which the show is capable. So I have no complaints given the collective results. The final comment would be that it is interesting to read hour-long television scripts without teasers and four acts; just another reason to applaud HBO's efforts in this area. So, where is the script collection for "Six Feet Under"?

The Stonewall Riots of June 28-July 3, 1969, following a police raid on an illegal, mafia-owned gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, mark the decisive turning point in gay American history. The unprecedented uprising has taken on mythic dimension over the succeeding 35 years. Author and eyewitness Edmund White has compared Stonewall to the storming of the Bastille in 1789. Community lore has focused on colorful aspects of the melee, like the wresting of a parking meter from a sidewalk for use as a battering ram against police, the contemporaneous passing of Judy Garland, and the Rockette-style street theater participants used as a campy rebuke to the authorities. Yet given a lack of narrative detail about the events of the riots, Stonewall has become a metaphor for gay liberation while remaining vaguely understood.

Previous accounts of Stonewall, in the gay and mainstream press, and in Martin Duberman's 1992 book Stonewall, have suffered from the paucity of the historical record of the riots themselves. There is no film of the riots, and only one "frontline" picture survives from the critical night of June 28, 1969. Moreover the Sheridan Square area of New York where the riot was centered affords few vantage points from which crowd activity could be seen in overview. The insignificant press items from the time are bias-ridden and controverted in key particulars. Reconstruction would be impossible since the police lost the initiative soon after the raid, and there was no gay guerilla leader orchestrating the assault from "our " side according to some strategic plan. Given the dearth of historical data, the feature film Stonewall purported merely to be one queen's story, and is fictionalized at that.

Eyewitness accounts--though each is spotty considered in isolation--remain the primary information source about the Stonewall Riots themselves, while context of time and place help fill in interstitial detail. David Carter's masterful study, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, researched painstakingly over a ten-year period, has finally exhausted the store of information to be had about those climatic nights in 1969. Interviewing over 40 eyewitnesses and carefully analyzing the times and the milieu of Greenwich Village, where he lives, Carter has produced the first work that can be considered a comprehensive factual rendering of the Stonewall phenomenon. With so many witness accounts to work with he is able to sketch a breathtaking overview in his synthesis. Even with the scholarly pedigree the book is lively, readable, and at times downright fascinating.

The Stonewall Inn filled a unique niche in the gay scene of the time. Carter's witness accounts stress the centrality of dance to gay experience and interaction at the club. He theorizes that unfettered same-sex dancing to the music then-popular--a rarity at the time--created a unique social environment distinguishing the Stonewall and giving it its principal draw. Some observers saw a nascent gay tribal impulse incubating amidst the lights, sound, motion, and sensation--that group instinct subsequently animating the invisible hand that coalesced and coordinated the feverish gay assault on abusive law enforcement.

Carter has written what is sure to become the definitive history of the seminal event in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender struggle for civil rights and liberation. Both scholarly and highly readable, the book deserves attention from all who have benefited from the historical events Carter so faithfully recounts.

I thought this book was excellent. It read like fiction, and was a real page turner. The book was unbelievably well researched, and I enjoyed very much reading about this critical turning point in history. My only query to the author is this: (as Marty Robinson's niece), why didn't you contact any of his family members? You did all of this amazing research... yet missed pieces of the puzzle by failing to contact those who new him in a way that others didn't. I wonder if you did the same with other central heroes in the book... Otherwise, I think this book should be required reading in every high school history class. Bravo.

The Stonewall riots, beginning on June 27, 1969, in and around the Stonewall Inn in lower Manhattan, are pivotal at least in memory because they galvanized the gay liberation movement, which in the last generation has profoundly altered social attitudes toward gays and lesbians. The story is therefore well worth telling in itself, and particularly so since the original event has gradually become the subject of legend; further, the number of eyewitnesses who still survive is now beginning to dwindle.

Carter's narrative is very wide sweeping, particularly as to the background of the riots: the extensive persecution of gays in the 1950s and 1960s both nation-wide and in New York; the emergence of seedy Mafia-owned bars, such as the Stonewall, as a place of refuge; the incipient pre-Stonewall gay rights coalitions in New York and in San Francisco and Los Angeles; and so on. But Carter is also extremely sensitive to the individual stories of gays who migrated to large cities seeking at least a measure of freedom.

Carter's narrative, particularly of the riots, is not at all triumphalistic, nor is it weighted unfairly against the police and city authorities (who, even on the most neutral account, do not come off well). Often the narrative disintegrates into short bursts of conflicting story-telling from various viewpoints, but this just feeds the excitement. It is a very powerful saga, and Carter tells it well.

This book was helpful to me even though I lived through the riots; like many others, I'd bought into much of the false mythology about what happened that night. But it will be especially attractive to anyone who came of age after 1969, and who wants to know something about what the pre-Stonewall era is like. Just one small sample, from page 117: in 1968 a gay activist named Leo Laurence "had a picture of himself and his lover, Gale Whittington, with the latter shirtless and Laurence embracing him, published in the Barb [of Berkeley, CA]. Gale, who worked as an accounting clerk at the States Steamphip Line, was immediately fired from his job." That is very much how things once were.

This book reads like a novel; it is compelling and moving and cries out to be turned into a PBS/ David Burns special. An excellent history and a fascinating insight into how much has changed in 40 years.

While the title of the book is, of course, STONEWALL, and a large portion of the book is devoted to an almost minute-by-minute account of the fabled riots, Carter also takes considerable care in detailing all of the many contributing factors that led to the revolt against the police (debunking the ludicrous "because Judy Garland died" myth in the process) as well as the activism of several newly-founded gay groups that resulted from the action. The book is meticulously researched and footnoted and should stand as the definitive account of the subject for a good length of time to come. It took Carter ten years to write the book; it was ten years well spent.

this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it. i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you injoy.

thats my review! i hope i helped!

This book was written by a very eloquent author in 1922. At 23years of age, she carefully details her struggles of growing up inpoverty on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is one of a few books that deals with the difficulties faced by immigrants of to New York around the turn of the century. Her battles are those of a poor, Jewish girl growing up without a father in tenement housing. I thouroughly recommend this book to Jews, feminists and historians.

this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it.

i'm going to describe it as a story of a girl growing into a women on the streets of the lower east side of manhattan. she tells of different jobs and the boarders that her and her mother board to help pay the rent. its very hard for me to describe becuase of 2 reasons 1) you can't describe it you have to read it 2)i read it a year ago.

i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. i also loved the stories she has of her childhood. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you enjoy.

thats my review! i hope i helped!

Streets: Memoir Of The Lower East Side was written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1955. This remarkable memoir of a young Jewish girl's coming of age in the tenement slums of New York's Lower East Side is gritty, candid, vivid, engaging, sensitive, and streetsmart. Bella Spewack overcame obstacles of gender, background, and religious discriminations to succeed as a celebrated journalist, playwright, and screenwriter. Streets is highly recommended, articulate reading and will prove of special interest to students of American Jewish history, Women's Studies, and biographies reflecting the triumph of the human spirit over social and cultural barriers.

This is a coming of age story depicting the harrowing early life of an extraordinary talent. Told with an amazing eye for detail and a highly developed sense of humor, this is one of the most moving autobiographies I have read. Bella Spewack writes of her thirst for knowledge and determination. In later life Bella invented the Girl Scout cookie, became a noted journalist and wrote successful plays and movies. Streets tells of the difficult circumstances of her childhood.

On the road with Terence Winch in That Special Place. He takes the reader by the heart along a journey of moments remembered. Making quick stops at the corners of Galway and the Bronx, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, he reflects on his Irish American experience, unique to his place in time with friends, family, and the MUSIC that occupy it. He occasionally glances, not too long, down alley lanes haunted by grief and fear.

Good craic for anyone weathered and tendered by life.

In "That Special Place," Terence Winch manages to evoke the sights and sounds, and even the scents and tastes, of the many otherworldly settings in which traditional Irish music is played and heard. Terence can draw a portrait in prose like no one else, and his descriptions of the many colorful characters who populate his world are deserving of many rereads. For me, this transcendent book was equal parts Ciaran Carson's "Last Night's Fun" and Jimmy Breslin's "Table Money" (the former being a meditation on spontaneously-created Irish music, the latter being a roman à clef about an Irish family in New York, and both being great works, next to which this present volume can take its honored place). Terence can be sentimental in one passage, and humorous in the next, and at all events he manages to effortlessly transport you into his colorful world with every turn of phrase. Those of you who already know Terence Winch's work hopefully will have already snapped up this great volume of stories and poems. Those of you who are not familiar with his work should immediately rush to add this book to your collection. I finished "That Special Place" in just one sitting, and I plan to return to it again and again, just as I would revisit a favorite restaurant to savor its prize dishes.

Every story from this book transports me right to the middle of the action...I feel like I can smell the smoke of the bars and hear the music being played. I was amazed that 2 or 3 pages of a story evoked such a wide spectrum of emotions...laughter, longing, love. These stories connected me to people and places from another time...and I didn't want to come back. Finding good short stories is such a treasure and Terrence Winch seems to have no difficulty supplying us with beautiful writing, intriguing events and fantastic characters. I love this book and have already started re-reading my favorite stories!

Terence Winch's THAT SPECIAL PLACE evokes the whole range of emotions - I even laughed out loud from time to time. Reading it is like sitting comfortably and talking with family, friends, and neighbors. The book prompts an amazing flow of memories and ideas. Winch's passion for blood pudding took me back to my first and only encounter with the traditional Irish breakfast fare. His account of Willie Joe Carty's statement that "the famine wasn't so long ago" is a remarkable reminder of the connections between generations, and should encourage all of us to treasure the scarce resources of living history that all of our families represent. Everyone will greatly enjoy this book - especially those of Irish descent.

Terence Winch's new book, "That Special Place: New World Irish Stories", is a pure delight and can be read repeatedly for all the richness one finds there. A first generation Irish-American raised in the Bronx during the 50's, Winch is known for his distinguished career both as a musician and a writer. This latest book is a combination of reflections and vignettes about his life as the child of immigrant parents in a strong ethnic community and his adventures while working as a musician both in the U.S. and Ireland. If you have never heard of the "Irish Riviera" and think it must be somewhere off the western coast of Ireland, guess again. It was an area of Queens, otherwise know as Rockaway Beach, where the Winch family rented a cottage, his mother worked as a waitress, and the kids enjoyed both the beach and a host of lively characters who populated this colorful locale just outside of New York City. Winch relates how he and his brother spent their days on the beach just hanging out or collecting bottles for deposit. But it was the nights when the two boys met their mother after work and she treated them to ice cream or pizza that hold especially fond memories for him. As Winch weaves back and forth through time, he spins a tale that is populated with memorable characters, the zany and the mundane of a musician's existence and a deep respect for family and friends. In one piece entitled "The Pleasure Principle" Winch ambles through the story of one his favorite musical haunts and muses on how the sign behind the bar reading "Enjoy Life" could just have easily flashed "Get Really Drunk" on some nights while exhorting one to "Drink, Fight, Smoke" on others. But it is his meshing of the message on that sign coupled with his heartfelt story of a visit with his elderly Auntie Moll in Galway that places the sign's message within a deeper context. When Auntie Moll asks Winch and his wife if they are indeed enjoying life and they nod that they are, you can almost feel Moll's hand squeeze yours as she says, quite simply and lovingly, "Good, enjoy life." There is much life to savor and enjoy in this memorable book full of understated humor and a deep appreciation for family and friends.

It's absolutely asinine that this book was not among "The Top 100 Sports Books Of All Time" compiled by the staff of Sports Illustrated Magazine. It is a must read, you do not need to be a hockey or sports fan to enjoy this read, it is the "Ball Four" of hockey books. Don't miss it, if you can find it !

Although I'm not a NY Ranger's fan by any stretch of the imagination, this book is a long forgotten classic and a must read for every hockey fan. "Ratso", (Larry Sloman) did a great job in profiling the NY Ranger players on and off the ice and he is able to insinuate, instances of sexcapades and drug use among the players and still protect their privacy, he takes us behind the scenes of the Manhatten party life with celebrities, models and hockey players. I was able to find this book in an old inner city library sometime in the late 70's, early 80's. The chance of you finding it now are slim and nil, but if you do get a hold of it, I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

I've owned this book for over 20 years, and I still pick it up from time to time to read it . .it is honestly that interesting and compelling. In no way would I consider myself as being a New York Ranger fan whatsoever. That being said, when I had finished reading this book, I found myself at times actually rooting for the Rangers in the playoffs based on the writing skill of "Ratso" Sloman. It is that good. If you can only read one hockey book in your lifetime, read this one.

As JHRay has already mentioned ... it's funny how rbettendorf could review this book and find such information as: personal bios of Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, and Mike Richter as well as the rangers winning the Stanley Cup in 1994.

This book was published in 1981. Mess was in Edmonton and Richter and Leetch were still in high school my friend.

On the off chance that anyone else is searching for this book, the other review posted is not a review of Sloman's book. As you can see, this book was published in 1982, years before the cup win in '94...

Sloman's book is about the late 70's and early 80's. He is friends with several Rangers, and writes about his experiences with them.

For a SERIOUS hockey fan, a great book. For a casual fan, probably a pass.

BTW, Sloman has been on Howard Sterns show many times.

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.