Vermont Books

The Explorer's Guide was a fabulous reference for anyone considering visiting the charming state of Vermont. We took it with us everywhere on our recent vacation to Vermont and found it invaluable. We discovered that we have so much more to see and plan to return many times (with this guide as a reference!).....

We used this guide exclusively for our Vermont leaf peeping adventure, October, 2007.

Wonderful!!!!

This book provides all the information you need for a first-time trip to Vermont.

I bought this for my trip to Vermont and read it for the most part. It provided useful information for the most part. However, I did find that a few things were hyped up somewhat. Apart from that, this guide was useful to plan my visit to Vermont. I did find that the authors recommendation of restaurants were in the high end price ranges and were not really useful for me since I was looking for something more in the medium range. And some local favorites such as "Pie in the sky" in Stowe were not provided the coverage they deserved. This restaurant was moderately priced and had the best homemade italian food that I have ever had in the U.S. Apart from this, I would definitely recommend this as a worthwhile purchase since it clearly identifies scenic routes, local attractions, side roads etc.

We used this book this summer to travel throughout Vermont. We found the guide very helpful. This book helped us see places of wonder, taste fantastic food, and meet wonderful, friendly people! The info was very helpful. Before our trip I studied the guide, and marked all possible interests, then research each of those points online before we left, both tools helped create a fantastic wonderful adventure!

I love cookbooks and have a lot of them. This has truly become a favorite. I have made 5 recipes from this book and have enjoyed and marveled at everyone. The chicken with apples and roasted sausage with cider dressing was unbelievable. The apple blackberry crisp is a new family favorite. It is such a fun read. Makes me feel very connected to my food.
It truly makes you want to go to Vermont to visit the farm. A real pleasure you won't be disappointed.

This cookbook made a perfect present for those living in Vermont. My daughter living in Vermont really appreciated this gift.

Always on a search for a good apple pie recipe and WOW I found one here. It was fast, easy and delicious. It even looked like the photograph in the book.

I bought this for my wife after eating at the Gatsbyesque Shelburne Farms Inn this summer (at which Chef Gencarelli is the head chef) and must say it is fabulous. The recipies are both incredibly delicious and beautiful, as well as approachable; with the emphasis on local ingredients you don't have to order the book from Amazon and then half the ingredients from "obscurefoodstuffs.com" or the like. We have both loved making recipies from it. You will love this book!

This is a beautiful cookbook! The recipes are a great mix of rich and complex to earthy, fresh and simple. There are also wonderful pieces between the recipes on Vermont farmers and artisan food makers and the featured local ingredients which are fun and informative reading. I might add these recipes are certainly not just for the local Vermonter as I'm out in California and easily able to cook the recipes by occasionally using a suggested alternate ingredient. I've made a number of recipes from the book already and can't wait to make more, some will certainly become standards in my house.

Much as I love novels, there are times when short, pithy, engaging non-fiction is exactly what I feel like reading. And I am well aware that there are damned few writers in the world who can claim mastery of both forms. Chris Bohjalian is one such writer, and "Idyll Banter" is a wonderful little book that illuminates an artistic paradox: that the act of sharing what is personal and private somehow irises the experience open into deeply touching universality.

I have long admired Bohjalian's work--"Water Witches" and "Midwives" are among my favorite novels--and I recommend "Idyll Banter" unequivocably. His brief, concentrated accounts of births, deaths, weddings, dances, and dinners in a very small town engage the reader in ways not immediately apparent. I've never spent time in Lincoln, Vermont, but I feel that I know these people, somehow. It isn't a rich place, or a perfect one, but it is genuine, and it is beloved, and, in Bohjalian's deft hands, it comes alive: complex, unexpected, deeply rooted in history and advancing winningly into into the 21st century.

The best examples of this sort of book creates a sort of envy, a wistfulness, a longing to belong, however briefly, to the place described. Bohjalian manages to create the feelings that we, too, all of us, might have a welcome share in a fulfilling and happy life in this community. And if not to Lincoln, then encouraging us to look again at our own neighborhood and our own families with newly opened and appreciative eyes. Really well done. Really well-written.

It is a pleasure to read such an upbeat book..I'm ready to pack and move..I want to live the simple life too...

This is a delightful collection of short essays focusing on the community of Lincoln, Vermont, where Bohjalian lives with his family.

Readers from New England will recognize and appreciate the many typically New England elements that Bohjalian observes in his essays: the woes of septic tanks and mud seasons, the black flies, the sometimes contentious town meetings, the uncanny quiet and stillness after the first winter snow. But while Bohjalian writes very specifically about Lincoln, Vermont, introducing us to his neighbors, his church, his country store, his subject is really the larger one of community and what constitutes a good life. Bohjalian does not idealize small-town life; he is well aware of the economic realities of rural America and writes movingly, for example, about the disappearance of Vermont's dairy farms. Nevertheless, his abiding love and affection for his town and its inhabitants make Lincoln, Vermont-and towns like it-seem like the ideal place to live, work, and raise a family.

Although these are occasional pieces, written, Bohjalian notes, as a break from his regular work as a fiction writer, these are tightly crafted, acutely observed essays. There is never an excess word, but at the same time, the pace feels unhurried. Bohjalian manages to strike just the right balance between humor and poignancy. He is especially funny when writing about his limitations as a handyman. Other pieces, especially the essay about the destruction of Lincoln's library by flood and the elegies (for people as well as a cat and a horse), are genuinely moving. Because the pieces are short, interesting, and self-contained, this is the perfect collection for dipping into.

For most people, Chris Bohjalian is best known as a novelist with books such as THE BUFFALO SLODIER and MIDVIVES to his credit. The people of Lincoln, Vermont and the vicinity probably best know Bohjalian as a columnist for THE BURLINGTON FREE PRESS. Now readers outside of Vermont can read and appreciate his reflections in small town life in IDYLL BANTER, a collection of these columns.

Bohjalian is hardly the first person to leave a major city and find a different pace to life in a small town. He is also not the first writer to explore life in a small town. The essays do not include tried and true clichés but rather give an honest and refreshing look at life in general. Most of the essays are upbeat and thought provoking. Bohjalian is involved in each of them, yet the book is not about the author and his family. Rather the author and his family give perspective to Bohjalian's observations. Perhaps the most moving passages in the book can be found when he talks about the Church where he worships and the his reflections on the town cemetery

The book will appeal to a wide variety of readers, but it is my guess that people involved in teaching and public speaking will probably find the book useful. People involved in preaching and ministry will also find in the book excellent sermon and homily starters.

This book had me laughing out loud one moment, and sighing wistfully the next. The characters in it seemed so real -- probably because they are real! Anyway, I was very, very moved by the people in this strange and quirky little town. There are some touching and poignant stories in here -- and then some, like the one about the outhouse races, that are a scream.

Archer Mayor is a new discovery for me and I am SO glad I stumbled across a couple of his books. This was the first that I read and it was fabulous. Since Mr. Mayor lives in Brattleboro, he makes Vermont come alive in a way that someone who doesn't would not be able to do. I have never been to Vermont, but I could vividly see the scenes in my mind.

This novel creates a mystifying mix of murders, each level becoming more complex - it is beautifully done and Joe Gunther is a terrific character - complex, insightful and full of the sort of off-beat stuff that makes a good cop character. As he tries to solve first a mysterious fire that resulted in five deaths, then a brutal stabbing, then yet another horrifying death that seems to disrupt the entire flow of the investigation, he is stymied at every turn by members of a group of people who belong to a sect of "back to nature" worshippers, who have rejected all modern conveniences - and refuse to interact with those who do not, even by talking to them. To make matters worse, members of the community who lived there before their arrival resent them and feel they are a cult - there is a lot of tension simmering under the surface.

But, don't want to ruin it for you! Just go out and read the book - you won't be sorry!

As a frequent visitor of Brattleboro Vermont, I can tell you that Mr. Mayor knows the town and it's surrounding area like no one else. However, the real reason this novel and all his subsequent works are so gripping is because of his excellent characterization and ability to build suspense. All his characters are well drawn, but his protagonist, Joe Gunther is so real, that I have trouble believing he is fictional. A great read for all who appreciate realism in a mystery.

Lt. Joe Gunther is having a crisis, and decides the best way to deal with it is to runaway to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to where he spent his "idealic" summers as a young boy. Well we all know that you can't go home again, because thirty years later home doesn't exist anymore. Your lucky if it hasn't been turned into a Wal-Mart.

In the case of Gannet Vermont, the opposite has happened; the town is slowly dying when it is injected with 'new' money by a sect known as the 'Natural Order'. But like any two edged sword, the Order has now become a problem for it's neighbors. While in Gannet, Joe becomes involved in the investigation of a fire in one of the houses owned by the Order, where five people died.

Joe is led, a merry chase by the leader of the Order, and by the murder of a parent of a member and the murder of an old childhood friend (who was the main suspect in the first murder). In the end, the solution to all of your questions will be answered; and the answers will be reasonable (not pulled out of the air at the end) as to what and why things happened.

All of Archer Mayor's books have a gripping story line. Although the stories are first class, the pictures drawn with words as the story unfolds are the best that I have ever encountered. The magnificent metaphors can create, in less than one sentence, images that may take other authors pages.

Although each book is independent in and of itself, I enjoy reading the stories in sequence. There is a steady progression in character development and interpersonal relationships as we go from story to story.

If you are a mystery fan, I am sure that you will enjoy the entire series as much as I have. If you are a student taking a course in creative writing, I don't think that you will find a better word artist than Archer Mayor.

Joe Gunther needs to escape from Brattleboro. The pressures of his job and his deteriorating relationship with his girl friend have become too much so he takes a temporary assignment in Gannet, Vermont. Gannet is where he spent many happy summers while growing up and he hopes the atmosphere will help him get back on track. However, a mysterious fire that leaves five dead, a strange cult, a missing young woman, and a murder blamed on his boyhood friend Rennie, all place Gunther right back in the hot seat as he tries to unravel who killed who.

As in all Gunther novels the police work is believable and the characterization is strong. Gunther is not a fiery detective but he is methodical and eventually puts all the pieces together. I didn't feel that this novel was as strong as "The Skeleton's Knee" or "Fruits of the Poisonous Tree" but it is still a good read for mystery lovers.

An outstanding book that I picked up in the children's section of my local library. The haunting photo on the book jacket drew my attention, and I just had to read the story.

It turns out that the photograph is rather famous; it was taken by Edward Hines and still resides in a museum. He had taken pictures of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, and became curious about what happened to them after arriving in the U.S. He "followed" them to the towns they settled in and discovered the issues of child labor laws that were not enforced. He used subterfuge to get access to some of the mills, and took photographs of the children who worked there for long hours in terrible conditions. Because of his efforts, social change eventually came.

The author's story is the account of fictional characters (other than Mr. Hines, who visits their town and mill). It is well written, from the viewpoint of a young girl who describes what life is like for her and her friends and family. I ached for Grace as she struggled to please her parents and do well in the mill, and ached for her to find the better life that she longer for

Twelve-year-old Grace, daughter of immigrant parents from Canada, is a bouncing, energetic, vivacious rural Vermonter. Grace is torn between her teacher's desire for her to make a better life through education and her mother's desire for her to work in the mills to support her family. Highly intelligent Grace is eager to grow up and go to work, but discovers that, being left handed, she is less capable than the other workers. One day, Lewis Hine, a photographer, comes to secretly investigate the mill and takes Grace's picture. This fantastically well-written book (completely in Grace's voice) is one of the best young adult novels I've ever read. Grace's world is very real, from the detailed descriptions of the mill to the characters that surround her and determine her destiny. The historical tale (set in 1910) makes us, as Lewis Hine's photographs do, look directly into the eyes of the child labor issue. Grace, in her excitement and need to work in the mills to provide for her family, but her even deeper need to do more with her life. Grace--as all young teenagers do--must face her domineering mother's expectations for her life and to become her own person. A beautiful, funny, clever, well-characterized, poignant, and powerful novel. Grade: A

When a children's author wishes to write a piece of historical fiction, there are a number of ways to do so. They can write about a specific historical moment. The fall of Pompeii, for example, or perhaps a battle during the Civil War. They can also just pick a period in time rather than any one single moment. The most difficult historical fiction, however, is when an author decides to incorporate a real person into their fictional narrative. This technique is a staple of poorly written children's books. You know what I mean. The old idea that falls along the lines of Martin Luther King Jr. meets a kid from the future and teaches him a valuable lesson, yadda yadda yadda. Ugh. It takes a careful hand and a steady talent to do what Elizabeth Winthrop has accomplished with, "Counting On Grace". Winthrop knows that if you were going to write a book where, for example, a small girl meets someone like Lewis Hine, you're going to have to give your hero (not the historical figure) enough of a backstory and life to make her just as real as Hine himself. The joy of "Counting On Grace" is that even though this is a story about a horrific time concerning horrific events, it's not depressing or much in the way of a downer. It's a beautiful, emotional, remarkable little book. Mangled hands and all.

Grace can't stand still. Every day her family goes to work in a Vermont cotton mill while she goes to school with the other mill children. She's a good student, of course, but she can't even read without her feet dancing about. That changes fairly soon, however, and much to her delight. She and her friend Arthur are going to go work on their mothers' machines in the mill, she willingly, he unwilling. But finally making some money for her family isn't as much fun as Grace had anticipated. She's incredibly tired and Arthur seems to have a dangerous plan in mind for getting out of working. It isn't until the two kids help their former teacher Miss Lesley contact the authorities about the working conditions of the mill that something begins to change. Something in the form of a photographer by the name of Lewis Hine. Now Grace needs to decide what to do with the rest of her life. Spend her days working in the mill or seek something more?

The inspiration for this tale, author Elizabeth Winthrop says, came in the form of a picture of a young girl named Addie. The photograph, taken by Lewis Hine, was on display in the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont. The photograph is shown at the back of the book, and Winthrop tells the story of the real girl shown there. Her tale is just as interesting as that of Grace's and "The Story Behind the Photograph" worthy reading in and of itself. Add in Winthrop's meticulous Bibliography and you've got yourself some well-researched top-notch writing.

Part of the wonder of this book is that Grace's parents are neither heroes nor villains. There's a great deal of respect given to their difficult situation. They love their children, of course they do! But these are poor people who need as much money as they can get, given their circumstances. Sure, their kids could get seriously hurt tending to the machines in the mill, but there's always the thought that the attentive ones will survive the "lazy" or inattentive ones. At one point the schoolteacher Miss Lesley complains that she's tired of wanting more for the mill children than their own parents want. This lack of ambition for a better life could easily have turned the story into a children = good, parents = bad tale. But life itself is not that simple. Nor, for that matter, is this book. Grace's mother is a rough woman with a great deal of violence to her, but you understand why she does the things she does. Still, it's hard not to agree with Grace when she happens to remark, "Suddenly, I don't like the family God gave me".

I learned a great deal from "Counting On Grace" about why these children worked in the mills as often as they did. At first I couldn't understand why Arthur's mother insisted that he help her in the mill when it was clear that the two of them preferred him in school. It becomes far more understandable when you see that the mill owners owned their employees' homes. A child that didn't work in the mill could place his or her parents' jobs in danger. Lewis Hine probably said it best when Winthrop quotes him saying, "I have always been more interested in persons than in people".

I know I said that the book wasn't depressing, but not all endings in this book are happy ones. They're there to give the novel a feeling of authenticity. Winthrop doesn't employ any miraculous occurrences or deus ex machina. Still, there is happiness here. And as Winthrop herself says of historical fiction, "I'm not saying it happened, I'm saying it could have happened". A remarkable novel.

Although identified as a children's book, "Counting on Grace" is a book that should reward readers of all ages. The author, with great skill and sensitivity, weaves a fictional account of a young girl who is forced to work in the local cotton mill with historical fact about the documentation of these conditions. especially by the renown photographer of working children, Lewis Hines. With three grandchildren exactly the age of Grace, I found this gripping story provided a rare look at how some children were forced to enter the adult world, with its difficulties and dangers, and were summarily deprived of their childhood and education. This is a unique look at mill towns and the people and families who struggled there at the turn of the 20th century. I highly recommend "Counting on Grace" for readers whatever their age.

As you will probably all find out, the true story of Addie is in this month's issue of the Smithsonian Magazine. I have not yet read Counting on Grace but I will do so now that I have seen the magazine article.

...this is one of those few books that i could randomly open to a page,-any page- and be thoroughly satisfied. It is that well-written. I was transported. I think that is one of the best compliments you can give to a work of fiction. I literally felt like i left my immediate surroundings and was with her on all her adventures.

One of the most grabbing, well written books I've read in a long time. It was especially intriguing as I read it while on holiday in Zanzibar! A definite read for anyone going there, and for anyone interested in a really good read.

If the shape of a life is determined by what one chooses to notice, maybe its trajectory is determined by what one fails to notice. In a world where nothing and no one are what they seem, Marcella D'Souza, intelligent, beautiful and determined, flees the haunted shores of her native Zanzibar to build a new life amidst an ad hoc family of ambitious immigrants in London. In this politically volatile, multi-cultural landscape where no one truly "belongs" Marcella finds love and an unexpected sense of belonging. The life she designs is satisfying and successful, but ultimately falls prey to the hidden designs of others. Multiple schemes, misapprehended systems and coincidence conspire, collide and explode into chaos. But Roger King, through his intriguing protagonist, seems to be saying that even chaos is illusive. "Disorder is only order we can't see, and coincidences are the evidence." Once betrayed, imprisoned and presently living in quiet exile, Marcella is once again reinventing herself in a foreign world, this time as a professor of Multi-cultural studies at a small Vermont College. From this temporary sanctuary she explores the graceful havoc of her personal history in a voice both poignant and utterly devoid of self-pity. "I had failed to read the signs. I had looked up and out when I should have looked down and in. I watched my front when I should have watched my back. I only noticed that...I failed to correctly evaluate... overlooked... misheard...mistook...I had only myself to blame." But personal responsibility, like personal history, is not so easily traced in a world of blurred borders.

Roger King is an adept magician weaving an intricate web in time. Marcella's tumultuous history casts sticky threads into an uncertain future and her present is delicately balanced between the two. The drama that unfolds when timelines meet is powerful -- it's unpredictable and yet somehow manages to deliver a mysterious sense of inevitability. Along the way, King's complex assortment of characters, all enchanting and unsavory in varying degrees, are rendered with profound compassion and insight. It's deeply satisfying reading.

The writing style is accessible and smart; complex without being confusing; insightful and reflective without weighing heavily. A great read!!!
What makes reading this novel so enjoyable is the adept weaving of history -- Zanzibar has a complex history, and it is told through the stories of the narrator, a young woman -- as well as via an insightful grasp of the contemporary condition -- of mobility, of otherness, of migration; it is both the tale of an individual, and the story of millions.
The author Roger King uses a wonderful method, of the narrator thinking about both past and present -- to bring us the careful, reflective details of an individual's life while at the same time painting a picture of the complex past (and present) difficulties of Zanzibar (particularly relevant given recent international press attention to this island archipelago off Tanzania).
The narrator, a young Goan (Indian and Portuguese descent; many settled in Zanzibar) woman who has recently come to the U.S. to teach, relates both delightfully concrete details of her life in Vermont and her past in Zanzibar, all the while revealing a very reflective story of personal changes and growth, wrangling with her past and present, as an "exotic" immigrant to the U.S. The weaving of past and present, of concrete and cerebral, make this a wonderfully rich story, both intensely personal and more broadly historical.

The wanderings of Marcella D'Souza, the protagonist of Roger King's brilliant new novel, have begun in her native Zanzibar; taken her to the bustling, multi-ethnic streets of Bayswater, London; and finally deposited her in a quiet college town in snowy Vermont, where she has been assigned to teach a vaguely-defined course in "multi-cultural studies." Looking back on her odyssey, she has this observation: "I think I have the making of a new theory here. Maybe these days, everything is so international, there's always an advantage in being from somewhere else. What is important is not local knowledge, but foreign knowledge. If the whole world is in motion, then the world's displaced are those who stay at home." "Those who stay at home" have had little role to play in Marcella's world. As a naive, ambitious newcomer to London--the New York Times calls her a "modern-day Candide"--she falls in with a group of equally peripatetic friends, people whose racial identity, national origin, and even religious affiliations can only be expressed via a long series of adjectives: "I've got it," an earnest British friend remarks of Marcella herself, "You're a Goan Indian Portuguese Arab African of Catholic Moslem parentage." This group of friends, living a hustling and often exuberant existence in the immigrants' netherworld of Thatcher's England, contains elements that the reader rightfully suspects will pull Marcella into dangerous waters. And indeed, from the novel's first page we know that she will end up serving time in prison for an unnamed crime. But the novel unfolds with such luminous grace, effortlessly moving us from scenes of the past, into the present, and back again yet more years, that we surrender to its shifting timeline without impatience. Instead, our knowledge of Marcella and her world becomes more richly layered. Our deepening understanding makes the novel's final revelations far more satisfying then if they had been disclosed earlier. A gloriously enjoyable novel, and one that adds to the reader's perception of a world that exists, if below the radar, in the most ordinary corners of the U.S. and Europe today.

Have you had to redone, redue, redo something over and over again? You're at the end, but go back to the start? If you have, then you know just how the main character in The Hero of Ticonderoga feels.
Therese is a 5th grade girl from Vermont and her teacher has to leave for two months, and gives instructions for the sub to announce an oral report assignment the class has to do on Vermont. One lucky student gets to have the privilege of doing their project on Vermont's Revolutionary hero, Ethan Allen. As you may have thought, Therese gets picked to do the "fabulous" project. She doesn't want to do the project like someone doesn't want a wet donkey in a fourth of July parade. But now has to do it in front of the class. She doesn't get to do it just once, but 4 times. Now that's ridiculous!
Therese at the end realizes that she is more than just a good oral reporter, but a good actor! She also finds friends who she thought could never be. And enemies she thought were her friends, but stabbed her in the back like a little kid spits out spinach.
You might think that this book is a girlie book, but it's about someone finding out who they really while going through friendship obstacles, mean teachers, and family.

Presenting an oral report can be an adventure! Ticonderoga tells about a girl in school who gives an oral report of Ethan Allen, the first leader of Vermont's Green Mountain. This book is packed with historical events that will amaze you!
A girl named Theresee isn't happy about the way she looks and her life. Theresee never got invited to parties, and she never liked her parents. One day when she went to school she had to do a report about a leader called Ethan Allen. When her substitute teacher Mr. Santanggelo told her to do the report, all of her classmates gathered around her desk as if they wanted to trade with her. They wanted to trade because they thought her person would be easier to research. It turned out, it was hard to find a lot of information on Ethan Allen, but Theresee didn't give up. She learned a lot of facts about Ethan Allen and became a shining star in her class. She finally felt good about herself.
This book thought me a lot about history. I never knew anything about Ethan Allen before this book. This book is a good book for an older student or an adult who likes history.

More than simply a book about an unlikely heroine -- a girl, who succeeds despite all expectations (even her own); more than simply a biography (once removed) of an unlikely hero -- Ethan Allen, who led the green mountain boys to an unexpected victory against the British; this is a wonderful tale about the unwritten laws, of ethics and valor, of friendship and family.

The Hero of Ticonderoga is an important book for children of all ages to read. It teaches us that if we work hard, w ewill start to like what we are doing in school.

Tessy is an engaging character and it's easy to root for her as she tries to avoid flunking the sixth grade by giving a great report on Ethan Allen. The author certainly knows her history and her geography, and how to write a book that will win over young readers, but her most sterling achievement is that she finesses material that could easily turn pedantic in less sure hands.

Bruce Coffin provides a wonderful picture of the Woodstock, Vt. of his youth in the 40's and 50's. What's more, he allows us to share in his struggle to deal with the phenomenon of memory. There are two kinds of memory, he points out: voluntary and involuntary. He allows us to read into his mind as he explores the involuntary side of memory - those that are triggered by a long forgotten taste or smell, or a name which randomly pops into ones head, and the chain of memory and vision thus triggered.
It is often said that one "can't go back". However, Coffin claims that "sometime around middle age we discover our past as a new and well-furnished addition to our lives". Coffin makes the point that we have brought it all along with us, and that is what we are today, and there can be joy in recollecting it. He has done much research and contacted many old friends and former neighbors to fill in the gaps in his voluntary memory of what once made up the small town of his youth.
This gentle and thoughtful read aids us in finding those sweet spots of our own past. What an opportunity!

As a student of Bruce Coffins, i have gone throughout my highschool years listening him read us a christmas story each year, and listening to him teach about the things that he loves. he also has told us childhood memories which this story brings to life in a whole new way. i appreciate him as a teacher and an author.

Mr. Coffin is an excellent visualist who shares his ideas and memories through a fluid notion of writing that can only be compared to his story telling at Christmas. I am trying to use my best grammar here, and truth is I have not yet read this book- but I know without a doubt that it will be great, because Mr. Coffin is the one who wrote it. With a mind like his, nothing but genius can result.

The Long Light of Those Days

Review

Bruce Coffin has an eye for exalted moments and an ear for the language in which those moments live again. He has reclaimed much here, and further, he has done so with such generosity that we feel our own histories in his stories and descriptions of the people, bicycles, stores, ball games, homes, and mountains and woods of Woodstock, Vermont. This book, an act of unusual piety, brings a village to life in such a way as to reclaim something in us as well. Mr. Coffin's re-collections of Woodstock in the middle of the last century suggests our way home.

If you like Wendell Berry's ability to transport you back in time, to simpler days, and to make you feel like you grew up in a place you've never even visited, read Bruce's book about a very special place and a very special time.

I'm saddened to see far too many people pigeon-hole Howard Frank Mosher as a 'writer of regional interest' -- maybe only those who live along the Mississippi should read Mark Twain, then. True, Mosher's books all take place in Vermont -- but these are such well-written, absorbing stories, the characters so unforgettable, that any one who appreciates fine literature can thoroughly enjoy them.

This volume collects 6 of Mosher's short stories along with the title novella -- the latter being possibly his most well-known work, having been made into an exceptional film with the amazingly-talented Rip Torn in the role of a lifetime as Noel Lord, Mosher's cantankerous ex-lumberjack. Lord is mentioned in some of the other stories, as well as in some of Mosher's novels -- and other characters make appearances in more than one work as well.

Set in 1927 Vermont, 'Where the rivers flow north' takes the familiar theme of the rugged individualist going up against the evil, unfeeling corporation, and breathes new life into it. Mosher's flowing style, combined with his incredible ability to bring to the printed page all the nuances of his characters' personalities -- warts and all -- give this and all of his works the finishing touches that only a fine craftsman can give. Noel Lord's Native American housekeeper/wife, Bangor, is one of the most memorable characters you'll ever run across. She and Lord have a classic yin-yang relationship that, most likely, neither one would acknowledge. A reader from any part of the nation can get inside these people, can feel and experience everything that happens to them -- and any time we can do that, we can learn and we can grow.

The characters in all of the stories here are, as in all of Mosher's works, vividly drawn -- Alabama Jones, the innocent-but-worldly aspiring carnival performer -- Burl, an old woman lying in a nursing home waiting to die, looking back at her life with a combination of bitterness and longing -- Eban and Walter, brothers, neighbors, at odds in their life over things large and small, but brothers -- a man dying, clinging to life through a kept peacock -- a boy passes through a coming-of-age event, a flood, which changes forever the way he views both his brother and his father -- another man, Henry Coville, makes some painful recollections and decisions as he feels the end of his life approach. Mosher paints them all with the deft brush strokes of an artist who intimately knows his subjects and the landscape in which their lives are played out.

Howard Frank Mosher is an immensely talented, always entertaining writer -- he deserves to be widely read, and what a treat is awaiting those who read him for the first time...!

I made my way to Howard Frank Mosher via Edward Hoagland, another Vermonter and writer of considerable talent. Hoagland mentioned Howard in a few of his essays on Kingdom Country and apparently the two were friends and competitors. Since I find Hoagland so good, I figured any writer he considers a peer must be worth a gander. After having read Where the Rivers Flow North I see that the two are peers and competitors. This book consists of six short stories and one novella of just over a hundred pages.

Starting with the short stories. They are quiet salient, well-crafted works that succeed universally, as literary stories about men and women grappling with the weighty issues of life, and as quasi-historical vignettes that pull back the veil on an interesting region of our country. None of them exceeds fifteen pages, but within that short space Mosher packs a lot of action, intrigue, humor, and drama. Nearly all of the characters are of a low social economic class, men and women struggling to eek out a living in the north woods, either as farmers, bootleggers, gas station attendants, loggers, aspiring race?car drivers, prostitutes, deer hunters, wardens, or what have you. Mosher knows his world well - and it's a harrowing world at that. Nature - the woods, the mountains, the snow and cold -becomes almost another character in these stories; but it's not just beautiful. Any tourist could write about the beauty of a landscape. Mosher is so talented because he takes you, with his well-crafted characters, into the heart of the landscape, to learn what it feels like to wrestle with it from inside. The nature of Kingdom Country that Mosher conjures up is vengeful - there is no surface level sentimentality here - this is the real deal. Nowhere is this felt more than in the novella Where the Rivers Flow North. This story perfectly brings together Mosher's strengths - intimate knowledge of nature, memorable and nuanced characters, local history, and a compelling story line rife with metaphors.

If you are on the fence about this writer, I urge you to take a chance. If you like Stienbeck and his California, you'll like Mosher and his northern Vermont.

I am a hypercritcal reader and I love it when I pick up a book I cannot stop reading. I have subsequently ordered all of Mosher's books and cannot wait to read them. Mosher is not a good writer he is a great American writer. He builds character and place like the master he is. Thank you Mr. Mosher.

After I found out that former my in-laws knew Howard Mosher personally and my ex-husband had him as a teacher and coach in school and hung out with Howard's kids in high school I HAD to read a book written by him. This is the first book I read by Howard and I can't wait to read more. What a great illustration of Vermont in the early 1900's!

I read this every November, when the days start to get short and the first snow flies. This collection portrays a lost and disappearing Vermont, a way of life on the verge of extinction.

Though I never thought of Vermont's role in the war against the South, except related to their Heavy Artillery, the price was right and I bought it on Amazon. When I finally opened it to read, I found a really good treatment of Grant's Overland Campaign, with excerpts from Vermonter's letters about ferocious combat, horrendous casualties, hot and dusty forced marches and night marches - all that can make you feel some of what it was like to be involved. I recommend this even for Sons of Confederate Veterans like myself! There is little of the usual propaganda about who was justified, and the author's writing is very pleasing.

I did not quite know what to expect from this book considering it was published by a non-academic press and written by a political bureaucrat, but I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. Battered Stars is well written and informative, adding a new fresh perspective to an over-studied portion of the Civil War. I have read over a hundred Civil War books and I have seen many second rate efforts by non-professionals, but Battered Stars is highly recommended. My only wish is that Coffin had used professional footnotes to show exactly where his quotes were coming from, but most sources are nonetheless clear.

A powerful historical account of Vermont's role in the Civil War, The Battered Stars: One State's Civil War Ordeal During Grant's Overland Campaign by American Civil War historian and expert Howard Coffin (himself a sixth generation Vermonter with four ancestors who served with the Vermont regiments in the Overland Campaign) is founded on a wealth of primary sources and archival materials, including wartime letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts. The state of Vermont paid a toll in blood from the strife of the war, and the brutal battles are explored in detail as well as the resolve of those who stayed at home and did their best to keep the wheels turning. A welcome and much appreciated contribution to the growing field of Civil War Studies, The Battered Stars is a powerful, fascinating account highly recommended for civil war buffs, as well as anyone native to Vermont who wants to immerse themselves in the gripping saga of a watershed time of civil war.

Howard Coffin has established himself as the premier authority on Vermont and the Civil War. He has exhaustively researched Vermont's historical records including countless letters and diaries from the actual participants. He allows them to directly share their personal, heroic, sorrowful and inspiring stories and insights. It is difficult today to appreciate the pain and suffering which was brought home to every Vermont family during this Campaign. Mr. Coffin does honor to their memories and has provided a valuable research source for those interested in this period.

In the Preface, the author, Howard Coffin, states "I doubt that any northern states suffered more sever losses during a limited period of time than did Vermont during the Overland Campaign." Page 20 notes "In the great eastern battles of the last spring and early summer of 1864, no northern state, certainly on a per capita basis, would pay a higher price than little Vermont." The Vermont Brigade was unique it that it had been formed entirely of the regiments from a single state.

Coffin provides an excellent narrative of the brigade's combat experiences in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna River and Cold Harbor in the Army of the Potomac's 40 day Overland Campaign. Here, the Vermonters suffered distortional high casualties. For example, in defending the Wilderness crossroads "The killed and wounded of the Vermont Brigade numbered 1200" as they "suffered one-tenth the entire loss of Grant's army in killed and wounded in the Wilderness." Extensive use of soldier's letters and diaries greatly adds to the narratives with family correspondence giving insight into wartime life in small-town Vermont. Most interesting is Chapter Eight's account of the treatment of the wounded in hastily organized field hospitals and later treatment at Fredericksburg and in Vermont.

The narrative of fighting in the trenches at Cold Harbor is most fascinating. The author states "The Confederate victory (Cold Harbor) had been the most one-sided of the war." There were no big attacks but rather "day by day the killing went on while night by night, the works were dug deeper and became more complex." WWI Trench warfare was reminiscent of this campaign and with only a change in army names and location, Cold Harbor would describe a 1917 battle on the Western Front. The text contains a brief but interesting account of Grant's evacuation from Cold Harbor, the crossing of the James River and the initiation of the siege of Petersburg, Virginia.

Finally, the text deals with Vermont's substantial combat losses and the post war Vermont public reaction to the Civil War. The total loss of the state of Vermont in the Overland Campaign approached 3000 men. "Among the fallen were some of the bravest and best."

As prominent Civil War historian James McPherson states on the book's dust jacket, "This is Civil War history at its best."