White Books

As a teacher librarian I start the year with this book and the matching flip doll. It is always a big hit. A good follow-up is What Happened to Marion's Book by Brook Berg. (There is a Marion plush too.)

Carmen Agra Deedy spoke at the California School Library Conference a few years ago and was fabulous. It's no wonder her books reflect her marvelous storytelling talent. I can't wait to read Martina the Beautiful Cockroach aloud this year.

I read this book in my elementary school library every year. I love how the kindergarten teacher, Miss Lemon, tells Miss Lotta Scales that the library belongs to the children...because it does! A school library isn't an archive. Who wants to come to a library where you get yelled at? I try to be Miss Lottie as much as I can. Every book-loving adult and child needs a copy of this story!

Very cute book! I love the way Carmen Deedy plays on words in her books! They are all well written, have great story lines, and kids love them. Ingenious writer. I would recommend this book.

This book is a realistic measure of librarians in the minds of young children. When first introduced to the library at their elementary school the list of rules can intimidate children. The person who personifies those rules can come across as a bit of a monster. However, once they are exposed to each other, the children warm to the librarian and soon consider her to be a dear friend. I was involved in the PTA where my daughter went to elementary school and witnessed this transformation firsthand.
Miss Lotta Scales is a real dragon and the new librarian. Her rules for library use are fierce and she backs them up with rhetoric that is fiery in the literal rather than figurative sense. However, once one little girl with bad eyesight takes a book and begins reading it to the other children, Miss Scales takes over and literally cracks up. The scales fall off and underneath there is a sweet Miss Lotty that the children adore. Library time is now a time to look forward to and enjoy rather than dread.
This is a delightful book about the fears that all children beginning elementary school have. I recommend it to all parents of such children.

I love "The Library Dragon"!! Why? It is so clever in illustrations but more so in word play. There is a flip doll The Library Dragon Flip Doll that goes with this book to show the dual nature of both the dragon and the librarian. I am burning to explain!

A dragon is hired by the principal to protect the library books. In order to do that, she gets rid of all the old books and replaces them with nice, new, clean books. Everyone knows the ONLY way to keep them that way is to keep them on the shelves. So Library Dragon institutes new policies: no books out, no children in. After weeks of no story time in the library, the children begin to suffer from withdrawal.

As often happens in fairy tales anything can happen and does. Molly Brickmeyer has lost her glasses and cannot see beyond her hand. She wanders into the library, a book drops into her hand--Library Dragon is fast asleep-- and she starts reading aloud. Little children hear her and wander into the library to listen. Then Library Dragon awakes and an ancient memory crowds her brain. She takes the book and begins reading.

What happens afterward is the stuff of happy endings. Suffice it to say that scales are involved and a tail and one lap.

Other related books to look at are:
The Shelf Elf
Mr. Wiggle's Library
Library Lion
Tomas and the Library Lady (Dragonfly Books)
Wild About Books (Irma S and James H Black Honor for Excellence in Children's Literature (Awards))

Very helpful information for a new shih tzu owner. All I needed to know about grooming, which was my primary concern.

Jo Ann White is the Shih Tzu expert! This book tells you everything you need to know about the Shih Tzu. A must have for someone who is seriously considering this breed of dog.

Excellent resource for the Shih Tzu fancier and prospective owners. Relates everything from their orgin, care, grooming, how to "tie" a top knot, whelping, agility, etc. etc. Cannot recommend enough. Great book.

This book covers everything about the shih tzu standard. It gives detailed pictures on all the aspects of the shih tzu. this book is 5x bigger then any other shih tzu book. this bok is a must if you are getting a shih tzu or show dog.

Very informative about the origins and showing of the shih tzu. I would have liked more in depth information on breeding but otherwise very good book with nice laminated pages and 100's of photos all in color. Overall very pleased with this book and would recommend highly.

I like the book. There's a lot of positive things to ponder. The book I got was super-tiny, like a little flip-book or something. I guess you could say it's very pocket-sized, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Keep it with me all the time. Helps me to realign into balance and impeccability when the kindness and compassion within me gets challenged, inert or thoughtless. Pocket sized.

This little book can bring you peace. My wife turned me on to White Eagle and his book "The quiet mind." Keep it in your pocket or backpack and just read it when you get upset. It works.

This is one of my favorite daily books. It has the most wonderful quotations to soothe and inspire you, whether you're sad, depressed, stressed, angry, frustrated, worried, irritated, fearful, or upset in any way. The words of wisdom ring true to me on every level and, its gentle teaching makes me feel deeply loved and attended by loving spiritual beings.

One of the most real and grounding books I have ever read. It can quiet any raging storm. It certainly quieted mine. I have owned this book for years, and everytime that I read it, it's like reading it for the very first time. It is always new. And I am one to rarely read the same book over and over and over. You really do get it when you read this book. Every word resonates with my soul. I am at a point in my life, and am having experiences that are making me really assimilate the truths presented in the book as the way to do this life while on earth. So simple, yet power beyond any earthly measure that I've come across. It has replaced my need for a therapist and other things recommended for controlling anxiety and depression. I am now able to let go and trust in what I've always known to be true. If you purchase the book, you are giving yourself and the planet, because we will all benefit, a great gift.

I loved this book and so did my son. it's really nice when your trying to teach your toddler colors. the pages are very bright

This is such a cute story. SHORT with simple text and great images. The rabbit hops into various tubs of colors and even mixes a few. Cute story that keeps my kids interested. My 2 year old is learning about colors and my 4 year old finds the mixing of those colors to create new ones to be very interesting. Really has triggered their imaginations and creativity. Fun little book. It gets requested here often.

I used this book to teach primary, secondary and color mixing to my K-2 art students. They love it and it's a great alternative to the color wheel!

Excellent book for children learning colour combinations. I also painted small pails and made felts to retell the story. The children at Preschool think this is magic.

Wonderful book to help children learn their colors and explore art. I would highly recommend this book.

In a similar setup to the Gavagan's Bar stories, but, as Clarke says, set in the UK, not the USA.

His bar actually features John Christopher, John Wyndham and 'George Whitley' in small cameos in the tall tales recounted by Harry Purvis. So a haunt of the literary types someone under a newspaper building or thereabouts, is what he says, so maybe pointing out a real pub somewhere he liked?

Anyway, all from around the 1950 mark, these. All they are intended to be is fun stories, and the author pretty much succeeds at that, in general.


Tales from the White Hart : Silence Please! - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Big Game Hunt - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Patent Pending - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Armaments Race - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Critical Mass - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Ultimate Melody - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Pacifist - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Next Tenants - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Moving Spirit - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Man Who Ploughed the Sea - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Reluctant Orchid - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Cold War - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : What Goes Up - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Sleeping Beauty - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch - Arthur C. Clarke


Negative feedback showstopping blowup.

3.5 out of 5


Giant Squid control lacking.

3 out of 5


Sensation register commerce.

2.5 out of 5


Captain Zoom gun prop death ray.

3.5 out of 5


Bee ooze.

3.5 out of 5


Stuck in a hit pattern.

3 out of 5


War program insults.

3.5 out of 5


The number of mad scientists who wish to conquer the world, said Harry Purvis, looking thoughtfully at his beer, has been grossly exaggerated.

3 out of 5


Whiskey making case a bomb.

3 out of 5


Submarine getaway extraction.

3.5 out of 5


Wellsian hothouse epic coward.

4 out of 5


Iceberg towing bet interruption.

3 out of 5


Antigravity flameout.

3 out of 5


Snoring cure insomnia reversal.

3.5 out of 5


Word count loop cheat pushover.

3.5 out of 5





3.5 out of 5

Absolutely Hilarious. A must have. I shouted for Joy when I saw it was in print again.

I couldn't put this down. I'm a new comer to science fiction, but if all the sci-fi writers can do what A.C. Clark does in this book, I am really looking forward to reading them. Each short story in the book relate to one another. They basically build up to a climax and then you're left wondering, "Is that it??? I want more!". Even though this book was written circa 1957, it is a "way out" read and very enjoyable!

I wouldn't throw it away! This is one of the most entertaining collections of stories in the sci-fi genre. At the White Hart, a British pub, are an odd assortment of patrons from the literary and scientific fields, as well as laymen interested in the discussions going on around them. One Harry Purvis inevitably manages to dominate the talk with his incredible tales of wondrous scientific romance, which he insists are true. He will often find a good reason for leaving just as a flaw in his story starts to become obvious to one or more of his listeners, and they wax suspicious that the tale truly is incredible. The way Clarke weaves real science with interesting and hilarious short fiction makes this one of my favorites of all his works. I would especially recommend it to readers who are new to science-fiction. Unlike a lot of such works, this one only gets better with age.

If you can think of one set of SF short stories involving tall tales told in bars, it's probably Spider Robinson's "Callahan's' series. But if you can think of two, this is probably the second.

Although never as big a Clarke fan as I've been of Asimov and Heinlein, I still have fond memories of several of Clarke's books. _Rendezvous with Rama_ is probably his best novel and it's been one of my favorites of his since it was first published. His short stories, too, are generally of high quality (remember e.g. 'The Nine Billion Names of God'?).

The series of tales collected herein is a bit different (for Clarke). For one thing, they're _funny_ -- Arthur C. Clarke funny, that is, not Douglas Adams funny, but funny all the same.

They're on the light side and they're deftly executed. But don't expect guffaws; in order to appreciate Harry Purvis and his stories, you pretty much have to be the sort of person who thinks 'The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch' is a funny title.

If you've read Clarke but you haven't read this book, grab a copy and see what you think. The 'White Hart' isn't Callahan's, but it's a pleasant place to hang out and listen to some tall tales.

This is a really interesting look at the evolution of black culture through the lense of music. Some of the author's opinions about later music (50's-60's) may seem out of touch to today's readers, but overall it is well worth reading.

The origin of Africans in America and the music they produced over the last three hundred years was very interesting to read. Mr. Jones provides a chronological and historically based history of the evolution of Black music in America.

He also points out that when black music is accepted by the mainstream it becomes a diluted and pitiful shell of its former greater self. I agree. If anyone notices whenever a beloved artist goes mainstream, generally his or her music is so shallow, you wonder what happened to the real person. I guess it is all about the dollars. They want to get paid. They know that most folks in the mainstream society cannot take or intellectually and spiritually relate to the rawness of our people's music. It is too powerful and personal. The black experience is unique, which affects our worldview and attitudes.

However, the black folk, the masses, always create new music or keep the real music alive. We continuously create, and the mainstream is darn well lucky. If not for black folks, I don't know what in de world they would do with dye selves. Lady this would be such a dull place.

This is one of the most important books on America and American history, culture and citizenship. It would benefit the world if it were incorporated into public education. Someone said that nations are judged by their art and this book examines that subject superlatively. This study of the blues examines the evolving cosmology of the Africans and their journey and creation: the blues, one of the singular most powerful beauties of America. He shows how from the blues came all and embraced all other peoples and cultures. Baraka's ability to live the thoughts of the originators enables us to understand the profoundity of their sorrow and sublimity of their joy.

The other day a friend rashly claimed that art and music were equally hard to describe in words. I asked him to tell me about a certain painting of Picasso's. He did, but claimed it wasn't accurate. "OK," I said, "you're right, but now tell me about Mozart's Jupiter Symphony." He opened his mouth, closed it, looked at me, and said, "Yeah, I see what you mean." Writing a book about the blues would be equally hard, it seems to me. So, LeRoi Jones did what he could, back in 1963, to tie the indescribable to the more concrete. He wrote a social history of African-Americans in the USA through the prism of music or---maybe on the principle of red and yellow tile floors (are they red with yellow designs or yellow with red designs ?)---he wrote a book on African-American music through the prism of social history. It is one of the most important books on American music (and American society) that you can find. It has stood the test of time. He begins from the Africans who came to North America as slaves bearing very different cultures, confronted by an absolutely different view of the world emanating from their new masters. Here he tries to show how African music became transformed into African-AMERICAN music and then American. He continues then up through the generations of slavery, to Emancipation, migration to the cities, World War I, the Depression, World War II and the bebop age of the Fifties. The book is pre-Civil Rights movement, pre-Martin Luther King. Jones may have looked down on the NAACP and its allies as "white liberal supported organizations", I'm not sure, but they don't appear. The times are symbolized by the use of "Negro" throughout. I agree, the tome is dated, but don't reject it, don't pooh-pooh the man. This is a very intelligent, very worthwhile book. Anyone, particularly from outside the USA, who wants to know the history of African-American music within its social environment ought still to read BLUES PEOPLE. He writes, "If Negro music can be seen to be the result of certain attitudes, certain specific ways of thinking about the world (and only ultimately about the ways in which music can be made), then the basic hypothesis of this book is understood." [p.153] Jones goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of those attitudes and thoughts.

My main criticism, apart from the fact that history dictates that we must be left a half century behind contemporary realities, is that though Jones obviously knew and loved the blues and jazz and all the various styles ( if not swing), his approach is coldly academic, highly dispassionate. He may criticize people who tried to make money, he may downplay all those who "abandoned" their roots, but my disappointment is that there is nothing of himself in the work barring a few mentions of his family. He does not share his enthusiasm. Music is beauty after all. I am sure he wanted the book to be taken as a serious essay, which it is. But in keeping himself removed from the discussion, being so analytic and professional in the style of the day, he has robbed us "readers of the future" of many insights.

African-American experience in the USA expressed itself most particularly in the blues, only later did that musical mode become part of the general American culture, often watered down, sometimes imitated by those who didn't wish to fit in or who wished to cash in. When conditions have changed, when the black middle class has entered mainstream America, and the urban underclass is wrapped up in hip-hop, gangsta rap culture, which is relentlessly commercialized by the powerful media, talking about the blues may seem a matter for historians or ethnomusicologists. Still, BLUES PEOPLE resonates strongly if we try to understand where we have been. As for where we are going---that old line sums it up---we're goin where the Southern cross the yella dog.

I actually purchased the first paperback edition this book a long time ago, and I learned that it had been out of print for quite some time. It was a time when I was a casual listener of blues and jazz, and didn't think about the roots of the music I was listening to. The book was interesting enough, but it didn't have information about more contemporary stuff, as it was printed in 1963.

Recently, I found this book in the upper shelves of my library, having completely forgotten about it in spite of my infatuation with the blues for the better part of the last two decades. It was a most welcome surprise for me, as it contained a compact but comprehensive introduction to the time period from the first Africans came to America to the 1920s when their music was first recorded, and laid the groundwork to how this music evolved in a sociological context. The rural lifestyle, the reflections of the exodus from the south on the music and subsequent refined, urban sound are discussed in this framework.

Although it would not really appeal to the casual reader and listener, "Blues People" is invaluable for the serious blues and jazz fan for setting the music into the general context of social life and external effects that made this music what it is today.

One of my favorite books of all time. The story about freindship and loyalty is so wonderful. If a spider and a pig can get along, why can't we humans all get along? A "feel good" book (though sad at times) if I ever read one.

This book is a great size for a read along or for the children to follow. This is a wonderful story. All children should read this.

I purchased this book for my great niece. I was very happy with it. Well worth the price.

Classic book and I want to read it to my son. I'm sure he'll appreciate it when he gets older. It was shipped in perfect condition. Thank you!

This is the same book you read as a child but in a hard cover, with giant print. I am really happy with the high quality of this book.

Perfect introduction to Diane Arbus' work, fairly large format, good quality prints, and including an unusual approach to her biography.

this book as good, as good is phptographer Diane Arbus, good hard cover, good printed, and its not just an album, it contains lot of interesting information worth to discovery, I truely recomend this book for everyone who likes "real" things

Diane Arbus' works reflect for me, the tragic echoes of an artist's disconnected soul in search of kinship. I believe her subjects reflected this inner state in its polarity - from the curiously delightful to the stark nakedness of oddity. "What do i see when i look in the mirror? I search for you, to document your being, your existence, your very breath because you rebel for me, against all that they say is conventional, permissable and normal. i record your pneuma and the beauty of your unorthodoxy."
Be delighted to own this book if you truly appreciate art and the soul that creates it. You won't be disappointed.

I had the great fortune to see Revelations in person when the show was at the MET in NYC in 2004. There is nothing like seeing actual prints in person but this gorgous book is the next best thing. The paper stock is top notch as is the binding. I proudly display this book on my coffee table for family and friends to enjoy.

The legacy of dead artists is always in the hands of others. As Doon Arbus, Diane's daughter, laments, some go way to far in "analyzing" the work of her mother. (For a particularly abominable and repulsive example of this, see Anthony Lee and John Stultz's "Diane Arbus: Family Albums".)

This gigantic Arbus exhibition was mounted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It features 200 Arbus photos, spanning her entire work and more than 300 auxillary images of her notebooks, darkroom and so on.

There are several short, informative and informed essays (unlike the aforementioned "Family Albums).

The production is gorgeous.

What is unfortunate about Arbus' work is that it is rarely explained in detail. People see Arbus' work and conclude that she really saw these weird people in the wild, so to speak. The reality is shown in fair detail here. For example, Arbus' absolute classic "Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park" is shown with a contact sheet making it clear that Arbus took the one image that showed this little boy in a freakish pose. The other 11 images show a normal young boy playing. But Arbus wanted her subjects to appear as if they were trying out for a freak show. That was her point. That's why, for example, Arbus photographed "Dominatrix embracing her client" instead of a family picnic with everyone smiling for the camera.

Arbus - and this exhibition demonstrates the point - used electronic flash and high contrast to make her subjects appear weird. Weird was Arbus' metier. You can see this again in the contact sheet from which her freakish "Boy at a parade" is taken. Arbus does not print the sprightly looking woman holding a "Support Our Boys" sign and an American flag. No, she prints the pimply faced, self-concious boy wearing a plastic straw hat, a bow tie and carrying an American flag. She prints it because the harsh strobe makes the uncomfortable boy look like a freak.

Arbus was fascinated by the unsual, including twins and triplets. She suffered from various psychological problems, possibly alcoholism and drug addiction and killed herself.

She left behind a magnificient body of work, one that too often (again, see the awful "Family Albums") is subjected to academic balderdash.

In "Dane Arbus: Revelations", Arbus the person, Arbus the photographer is presented in splendid detail. It's a marvelous work.

Jerry

I just like Brink's stories! It is mostly difficult to have a break once you have started to read his book.

Ben Du Toit teaches history and geography in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the period of the height of the youth riots in the township of Soweto. At Ben's school, Gordon Ngubene, a native, is a cleaner and he occasionally does little chores for Ben. When Ben sees that Jonathan, Gordon's son, is showing signs of intelligence and diligence, he decides to partly finance his education. One day however, Jonathan takes part in a demonstration which ends up in a violent riot and is arrested by the police. A few weeks later, after a harrowing quest through countless offices, Ben and Gordon are informed that Jonathan died "of natural causes" while in detention.
Due to the mystery surrounding his son's death, Gordon gives up his job in order to devote himself entirely to the enquiries which have become an obsession with him. Both the Special Branch and the Security Police are annoyed about Gordon's insistence and soon enough Gordon is arrested. After numerous attempts to try to trace Gordon and speak to him, Ben and Gordon's wife Emily are told by the spokesman of the Security Police that Gordon apparently committed suicide by hanging himself with strips torn from his blanket.
But Ben Du Toit senses that the official explanations for both Jonathan's and Gordon's deaths are just a pretext for poorly disguised murders and so he decides to take matters in his own hands and starts investigating.
Mr Brink's novel is a harrowing account of a solitary man's fight against all the atrocities of the Apartheid. During this dark period in the history of South Africa, a white man had to be a real hero to fight for the right of the Afrikaners. The author beautifully captures the fact that Ben has to fight not only the resentment of the people of the other race, but also that of the people belonging to his own race - his family for a start. The descriptions of the townships of Johannesburg, particularly that of Soweto, are breathtaking in their accuracy and poignancy.

Brinks sketches the life of a idealistic man - Ben du Toit that lives his life in Apartheid South Africa on the brink of normalcy until the mysterious death of a black American friend and his son points to government involvement. As du Toit becomes obsessed with discovering the truth he becomes the symbol of Afrikaner conscience struggling to cope with the conflict and alienation that this crusade against Apartheid causes. With Apartheid being woven into the Afrikaner concept of nationhood and religion Ben finds himself not only in conflict with his family or the government but with his own history and ultimately with his own identity and even his soul. du Toit becomes a classical Afrikaner in his stubborn steadfast refusal to sway from his course , irrespective of the consequences, that he believes to be the only just and morally acceptable one.

He painfully exposes the moral vacuum of Apartheid and how it alienates not just du Toit from himself and his family but ultimately the Afrikaner from their fellow South Africans, as well as their own ideas of justice and morality.

The original Afrikaans language edition packs a powerful punch and is beautiful to read. English translation loses a bit of impact and fails to capture the finesse of the master writer in his mother tongue but is never the less worth burning the midnight oil for. It should however be noted that the story is dated and not a balanced portrayal of South Africa, Afrikaners or Apartheid.

Good fiction but not a historical treatise of Apartheid as some reviewers seem to think.

During the 1970's in South Africa, several protests were happening against the apartheid acts and the education of African natives to speak Afrikaans, instead of their chosen language. In Andre Brink's brilliant novel, A Dry White Season, he presents the brutality of the African struggle for freedom from the white leaders by telling the story of one man's effort to clear his black friend's name. When Gordon Ngubene, a janitor at the local school in Johannesburg, finds his son dead without a clue of what happened, he asks his colleague Ben Dutoit for financial help and support. After certain inquiries were developed on Gordon's behalf for his son, Jonathan, he is arrested by the police and is marked by his own "suicide". However once Ben begins to unfold the evidence that leads to what truly happened, he is caught in a jungle of lies, danger, and an atrocious form of racism.

Ben Dutoit was a simple man content with his mediocre life based on his wife, two daughters, and his teaching. Although the Special Branch had become more involved in the town where he lived, he purely continued throughout his basic routine day in and day out. Once Gordon is told by the Security Police that his son has died of "natural causes" while in a severe detention for publicly protesting, it seems that he will stop at nothing to figure out what had occurred the night of Jonathan's death. "If it was me, all right. But he is my child and I must know. God is my witness today: I cannot stop before I know what happened to him and where they buried him. His body belongs to me. It is my son's body."(Pg.49 A Dry White Season). Throughout this time period, whites naturally assumed themselves superior to that of the African race, and ruthless acts were brought upon the blacks daily. Brink vividly described the numerous cruelties aimed at the "inferior race" due to such instinctive racism. The author conjures the understanding of the reader to see how simple it would be for Ben to turn a blind eye on Gordon's tragedy. Yet after Gordon is accused of strangling himself by tying bits of torn blanket together, Ben is convinced that it was torture that killed the prisoner, and Ben just cannot let the case go with injustice. One can sense just how stubborn Ben truly is regarding the truth of his friend's alleged murder, mainly because of the emotions depicted by Brink that the reader can pick up on. Assembling as much evidence against the Special Branch's summary of Gordon's arrest, with the help of taxi driver and informational guide Stanley, Ben attempts to prove that the police are sadistic liars that have crossed the line of racism and have entered a territory of the highest form of hatred. Publicity of his "Negro loving" efforts have provoked such racists to seek ways to harm Ben and his family, such as sending bombs in the mail and shooting through his windows at night. I simply cannot comprehend the motive of someone to physically or mentally abuse another for their own views. However nothing could frighten him from completing what he had started in the first place, not even the terrifying Captain Stolz who had threatened him many times during the case. The thorough detail Brink constructed to picture the startling police officer was amazing, admitting a very clear idea of just how alarming this character must have been. Aware of his immense caution in his own case, he presented one of his old college friends with pieces of information in order to write a biography of Ben Dutoit. Two weeks later, Ben was killed in a hit and run car accident, but fortunately for him, his story would not be left untold. I personally found myself having to read certain paragraphs repeatedly in order to really grasp what was happening in all of the excitement, which I appreciated from the author. The plot was persistently heart pumping, giving off the effect that South Africa's horrifying and unfair history was not given the deliberate attention it deserved.

Before this misfortune had happened, Ben had been conceived as having a rather introverted personality, spending most of his time alone playing chess in his den. However the demand for real facts about what had definitely taken place seemed to have changed his behavior. Suddenly Ben was actually offering his true opinions back to those that he would not dare before, such as Captain Stolz, no matter how harsh or unsettling. After this unexpected alteration, Ben began to become more aware of his surroundings, more observant of his daily routines that he had developed into over the years. The author made sure to explain Ben's strange emotions in noticing things in his life that seemed unfit to him. "All at once this is what seemed foreign to him: not what he had seen in the course of the long bewildering afternoon, but this. His garden, with the sprinkler on the lawn. His house, with white walls, and orange tiled roof, and windows and rounded stoop. His wife appearing in the front door. As if he'd never seen it before in his life."(Pg.99 A Dry White Season). If you take a considerable amount of time to glance at your own life, as I have done from the direction of this book, you perceive things that might belong to you, though they might seem impossible to be yours. The process is difficult to explain, until you try to complete it yourself. Brink wrote the character as if his own qualities were shifting along to the varied events of Gordon's death case. The author seemed to have used Ben's life as symbolism of how one moment could alter anyone's life as they know it. A calamity such as this could happen to anyone, even I, and this thought makes me wonder. How would the way I act now be changed?

The Soweto protests of the 1970's in South Africa led to many empty lots filled with tear-gas, public shootings, and violent massacres of black citizens. In the novel A Dry White Season, Andre Brink tells the tale of one honorable man that knew too much information for his own good at a time era like his generation, which guided him into a vast land of moral corruption. Ben Dutoit's story has captivated my imagination, gripped my heart, crossed my frustrations, and stirred my tears. This book has taught me, as well as numerous other readers as well, to follow your instincts and never let justice go unserved. "Perhaps all one can really hope for, all I am entitled to, is no more than this: to write it down. To report what I know. So that it will not be possible for any man ever to say again: I knew nothing about it. (Pg.316 A Dry White Season).

i read this while i was a high school student and i can honestly say it has been one of the few books that have made an impact on the way i view society. read it! you'll love it!

This book takes place in the early 1800's in Massachuetts. Two young men, both Irish-Catholics are convicted and hung for a murder they did not commit. Their only "crime" was their nationality and religion. The book describes in great details the many injustices these two innocent men endured, from their arrest, the way they were treated in jail, and to their so called trial and their hanging. It was 200 years later that the state of Massachuetts proclaimed their innocence. This book will teach you lessons in our history as to just how some of our immigrants were treated. It will bring tears to your eyes.

It's 1806 in predominantly Protestant Massachusetts. Dirt-poor Irish Catholics are regarded with emotions running the scale from indifference to loathing. The Catholic Church clings to a tenuous foothold, walking a shaky tightrope while attending to its flock of Irish immigrants. None other than Sam Adams warns Massachusetts' citizens: `As you value your precious civil liberty and everything you call dear to you, be on the guard against Popery.'

Into this mix gallop two hapless, real-life Irishmen, the subjects of author White's fictionalized account of the murder of one Marcus Lyon, whose lifeless body was found near the Boston Post Road in 1805. Dominic Daley and James Hallinan stand accused of bludgeoning and robbing Lyon, leaving him partially buried by rocks, after stuffing their pockets with his money. Although the state locates no eyewitness to the murder, the illiterate Daley and drifter Hallinan are found holding money---notes drawn on Lyon's bank. Worse yet they are Irishmen. Bound over for trial, the pair languishes in a dark, damp dungeon for six months alternately freezing and broiling, not allowed to bathe regularly, or to see visitors. Legal counsel is nonexistent.

Daley's mother, the indomitable Rose, and Daley's faithful wife Finola, seek an ally in a local priest, Frenchman Father Jean Cheverus, a man tortured by his own demons. What we know about Cheverus is that he escaped the massacre of priests who refused to sign loyalty oaths during the Jacobin's assault on the white-walled Convent of the Carmes---The Garden of Martyrs---during the French Revolution. White's fictionalized Cheverus, however, gets hunted down by an angry mob on the streets of Paris and denies three times that he is a priest, thus avoiding a sure beheading. A haunted Cheverus immigrates to America where, unable to forgive himself for his denial, he assumes an associate role to Father Matignon in the fledgling parish of mostly Irish Catholics.

Feeling inadequate and fearful, Father Cheverus hesitates to act on Finola Daley's petition to him to seek better treatment for the prisoners from Massachusetts Attorney General James Sullivan. Further, Cheverus is hesitant to buck the Protestant status quo in a state where Sullivan and Governor Caleb Strong crawl over each other to prove who is tougher on the burgeoning papist scum. Curiously, along the way Sullivan forgets that his forbears hailed from County Limerick.

Believing in the probable guilt of the accused pair, Cheverus is allowed to travel to Northampton, Massachusetts, to visit Hallinan and Daley and hear their confessions. With Finola and Daley's young son in tow, Cheverus arrives in a town gripped by lynch-mob mentality. Ignoring the taunts of local toughs, Father Cheverus goes through an epiphany, consumed by the thought that he's now fulfilling prophesy of his late mother who told him he would do great deeds for others during his priesthood. Father Cheverus is further astounded by Daley's confession as the accused refuses to acknowledge killing Marcus Lyon. Then Hallinan tells the priest something that the prisoner has never told anyone----that he abandoned his pregnant girlfriend Bridey in Ireland, after promising to marry her. Almost on cue, Father Cheverus describes his own tormenting moment of weakness on the streets of Paris. Emotions of self-absolution overcome both men.


The author's meticulous research uncovers a blight of prosecutorial misconduct at trial, including the judge's instructions to the jury to disregard holes shot in the testimony of the state's lead witness, thirteen-year-old Laertes Fuller, who constructs an improbable murder-scene timeframe. Allowed an impossible three days to prepare a defense, attorney Francis Blake does a credible job, leaving no doubt that Daley and Hallinan are on trial for the crime of being Irish. Unable to testify in their own behalf, only the word of young Fuller, who claims he saw Daley leading Lyon's horse near the road, is damning. Unable to convince anyone except Father Cheverus and Daley's wife that they found Lyon's money near the murder scene, the end is never in doubt. To the delight of a frenzied throng, Daley and Hallinan hang in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1806.

In 1984 Governor Michael Dukakis exonerates Dominic Daley and James Hallinan of the murder of Marcus Lyon, citing religious and ethnic intolerance of the period, failure of the prosecution to allow attorney Francis Blake time needed to prepare a defense, and for failing to allow the accused to enlist witnesses.


Michael White authored the acclaimed novel A Brother's Blood. He is a professor at Fairfield University and lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

I have always been a fan of Michael C. White's work. He is one of our most talented contemporary authors, as his latest book proves. White transports the reader from Boston in the 1800s to France during the Revolution with seemingly effortless prose rich in historical detail. Readers will truly care for White's deeply drawn characters, Daley, Halligan and Cheverus, and will anxiously turn the pages in order to discover the men's fate. This is a deeply moving, impressively researched and wonderfully realized novel- a must read.

Michael C. White has based his novel on a factual incident, which I had never heard of before: a murder in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1805. There are many fine things about this excellently written book, among them a battle for a soul which is the most engrossing I have read since I read Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder(read 18 Mar 1947 - re-read 27 Nov 1982). Usually I prefer a factual account of an event as against a fictional account but in this instance it seems to me that the fictional additions to the account enhance rather than detract from the drama of the events related.

Few of you would be surprised to hear that political expediency sometimes takes priority over sacred duty in Boston's Catholic Church. What Mike White reveals in his fourth novel The Garden of Martyrs, is that in Boston, the Church's craving for secular power and social acceptance has led it to neglect its most vulnerable parishioners from its earliest days.

In a novelization of the true story of two men tried, convicted and hanged for murder in Federalist Massachusetts he vividly portrays an era when the Irish were despised and persecuted by New England's Protestant majority. The only crime these two men committed turned out to be that they were both Irish, and Catholic.

Fictionalizing true crime is an endeavor thwart with danger. White deftly avoids the many traps by focusing on character, drawing deep and psychologically revealing portraits of two men - the Irish defendant, James Halligan, and Boston's French Priest, Father Cheveras.

White weaves the fate of the innocent men into the wider fabric of New England politics. By contrasting the subjective reality of these very different characters, and exploring their European backstories, he shows us how each was forced from their homeland by intolerable conditions, and the hopes and fancies that sustained their migrations.

Through the death row musings of the itinerant Halligan, White skillfully juxtaposes the personal and the political. The injustice done to two innocent men is the injustice done to an ethnic and religious minority.

This book is important because we tend to think of African Americans, Jews and Women as victims of mob hate and witch hunts. Catholic-hating in New England is half forgotten now. White, a Protestant, brings this sorry time to life, reminding us all that today's hatred may end up as tomorrow's shame.