C Books

I first read this book when it was published. I have lost count of the number of times I have read it since then. This was among the first books to go to my Kindle. I love all of Elizabeth Peters' books, but for sheer lunacy, this one remains my favorite.

This is one of my favorites in the Barbara Michaels / Elizabeth Peters collection, brimming over with all my most beloved elements: a young female protagonist, unconventional relatives, an enormous, rambling old house complete with a menagerie of ill-behaved pets, fateful secrets, flawless characters, and of course, a few resident ghosts.

Ellie has come to her irascible Aunt Kate's home in rural Virginia to house-sit while said Aunt Kate takes a brief vacation. Ellie just has to inhabit the house, water the plants, and take care of Kate's veritable stable of pets, including dogs, cats, and one rat named after a local politician. On her very first night in the old house alone Ellie has an unwelcome spectral visitor, and from that moment forward, nothing is quite as it seems. The library is vandalized, more ghostly figures appear, and the apparently rich and scandalous past of some of the town's most distinguished inhabitants re-awakens to shake up the present. Ellie feels a little out of her league, and so ropes in various friends and neighbors to help her figure out what's going on as genuine danger seems to be closing in.

We all want an Aunt Kate, or at least I do! She's the perfect picture of the kind of eccentricity that's cozy rather than creepy, and her skill at witchcraft - or at least the rumor of it, which is as good as the real thing, around these parts! - is as much a part of her as her obsession with the Washington Redskins. Technically she's away for much of the story, but her character is very much a part of it. Ted, Dr. Gold, Don, the Grants, Miss Mary and the other characters fill out their parts with gusto, adding wonderfully to the atmosphere.

Always a pleasure, Miss Peters/Michaels/Mertz!

Fun, nice dialog, nice characters. The story's conclusion just didn't carry much punch for me.

I've read this book several times. I love coming back to it after a couple of years and enjoying it all over again. The best thing about Elizabeth Peters/B Michaels is that she creates a cozy atmostphere, with every day occurences (such as eating lunch...sleeping...,) yet, there are not so every day occurences thrown in - ghosts, etc. It makes it feel like is business as usual to suspect that a ghost is inhabiting your house. I just love the atmostphere she creates! She doesn't write these types of books anymore, - not a dynasty - like Amelia (love those too, of course), but these single book stories, and I miss them!

Ellie has agreed to house sit for her Aunt Kate. Her pompous fiance drives her down to impress the rich old lady, who dislikes him immediately. After Kate's departure with the fiance to the airport. Ellie experiences all kinds of strange manifestations involving the six founding families of the area. A rare book telling of their boring scandals seems to be the trigger. A neighbor agrees to help her solve the mystery. It seems like a practical joke, until an old friend of Kate's gets seriously injured....

This was a very quick read and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I picked it up and didn't stop reading until the last page. The characters are quirky and entertaining. The atmosphere appropriately creepy, and the story line engrossing. A very good read.

I'm still reading this book and it has brought many good things to light for me. I'm sending my copy to a friend so she can read it and understand more things about herself.

This book was so inspiring and at time overwhelming... It will make you cry with the poetic reverence, and laugh with its abunding charm.... It give great insight on comming out, and It helps you to decide when is right for you to enter into your own journey on the road to being free.. to being OUT

This book unites the coming out experiences of black women from different socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds.
This collection of 49 short stories/poems/essays and interviews offers an insight into the complexities and issues surrounding women of colour as they search for and claim their identities. The selections which are fictional and non-fictional, are personal, daring, honest, funny, moving and thought provoking.
In short, this is a powerful book which easily transcends the Women's Studies/African American Studies and the Gay and Lesbian arenas, making it the quintessential "must read" for all.

READING THIS BOOK WAS AN INSIDE PEEP AT WHAT GOES ON INSIDE THE HEART AND SOUL OF EVERY WOMAN WHO EVER THOUGHT ABOUT LOVING ANOTHER WOMAN....IT CONFIRMED THAT THE WARMTH, INTIMACY, CLOSENESS, SISTERGIRL CONNECTION THAT I FEEL WHEN IM WITH MY SPECIAL FRIEND IS NOT SICK, OR IMMORAL BUT SPECIAL AND WORTH HOLDING ON TO DESPITE WHAT PEOPLE WHO CANT RELATE MIGHT THINK. THANK YOU TO ALL THE WRITERS AND ESPECIALLY LISA C. MOORE. LOOKING FORWARD TO DOES YOUR POPS KNOW ? (SMILE)

"Does Your Mama Know?" was worth the time and effort that I spent visiting four different bookstores and walking a total of four miles or so. "Does Your Mama Know?" is like "The Color Purple," "The Women of Brewster Place" and "Zami" but better. Similar to these books, Moore's book validated my experiences as a lesbian of color. Her well-chosen stories highlight almost every conceivable coming out experience. Although the book is VERY hard to find -- there are only 8,000 copies floating around the world -- I would recommend this to any black lesbian, regardless of nationality.

After wanting this book for along time and being a somewhat hard core Edward Gorey fan, I finally ordered and received this book. I sat with it and experienced an intimate glimpse into his private world and found myself feeling and learning so much about this man and our times. I seriously laughed and cried and everything in between by the time I finished my first page-though. The rich content of the images took me on a journey through his home and collections that touched many familiar and unfamiliar bases. I not only gained insight into the man, but into a window in time in the art and collecting world that was very familiar to me as a baby-boomer aged art/literature/theater type. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is the least bit interested in Edward Gorey and the late 20th century arts milieu. I was/am profoundly moved by this book and know that I will revisit it often.

This is a beautiful book of photographs and text that allows the reader an intriguing view of the home in which Edward Gorey lived and the collections of curious objects, books, and cats he filled it with.

The photographs are large and beautiful - haunting even - and there are lots of them. There is just the right amount of text to cast some light on the man behind the house and his elusive character - anecdotes about his life, his work, his friends and the things that inspired him.

If you are fan of Edward Gorey, or of eclectic interior decorating and design, and displaying collections of antiques, this book will be a treasure in your library.

That's really all I can say. I have been waiting for this book for a long time, and it was the most incredible thing. Amazing photos. Read up on Gorey first, though. The details are some much better when you get the little visual jokes Gorey set up in his day-to-day life.

This book wouldn't mean much to anyone who isn't already a Gorey fan. I own (and love) the compilations 'Amphigorey', 'Amphigorey Too' & 'Amphogorey Also', so have a head start. I also have the auto(?) biography 'Ascending Peculiarity', which is almost a necessary co-requisite to this book - it helps explain the cats, and many other Gorey details. Now that the individual books are available again, I'm tempted to get them too, because they are such nice objects - but only if the kids promise to share with me!

If you are an Ogdred Weary fan...this is a truly wonderful book. Photographs of the exterior (peeling paint and kind of saggy porch) and the interior rooms of the house on Cape Cod in Gorey lived and worked, along with his cats and figbashes, piles of thousands of books, assorted rocks and oddish things, and the expected miriad of curiosities. Alas, or delightfully...just the environment one would expect of the eccentric Edward. A cabinet of curiosities...a delight!

Like fine wine, these essays get better with time. Beware of trying to rush through these fine philosophical teachings. Like Maxwell house, it's good to the last drop!

If you're considering more than one selection, stop. This is the only collection you need from Emerson. It's not only an exquisite read for the insights, prose, and poetry, but also for the overall experience of handling this volume--the lightness of the paper, the weight of the book. I am reading this on the heels of Walden, by Emerson's good friend, Henry David Thoreau, and I continue to be inspired and enthralled with every page. If you are an aspiring writer, you will find the finest of mentors, the most courageous of advocates. This is all the motivation you need to take your own chance in sharing your own deepest insights about the human experience.

I haven't even bought this Lib. of America edition and I know it is important. I have the Thoreau collection and all I have to say is that these New England writers of that era were critical thinkers and universal in their thoughts. Of great importance is the understanding of true spirituality, which both Emerson and Thoreau embody. Thoreau once said "We are rich in proportion to the number of things we can afford to leave alone."

It is wonderful to have all of Emerson's essays in one volume. Like his great pupil and friend Thoreau , Emerson is a poetic thinker of the highest order. His essays are filled with aphoristic gems . They contain not simply thoughts on different subjects but an organic and coherent way of seeing and understanding the world. They are the work of a genuine American philosophical voice.
There is so much to read here that it is difficult to know where to begin, though I have an especial feeling for 'Representative Men' with its exaltation of great individual human beings .Because he is so poetic and because his writing is so dense with meaning it does not always make for easy reading. But it is firm in principle and great in suggestiveness.
The way to understand where Whitman and in a sense even William James are coming from is to read this work.

I have lately developed a love affair with the Library of America, and this is its most important book. Emerson more than any other struck a course for the future of American letters outside the confines of the British tradition. This edition has all of the standard essays you would find in any one volume paperback (Self-Reliance, Harvard Divinity School Address, etc.), plus many more less known yet important (e.g. the complete Representative Men).

I once was a paperback junkie, but there is something so beautiful in a well bound hardcover, and there are few hardcovers as both elegant and durable as the LOA.

Having thyroid problems for over 12 years and having read every book ever published on thyroid disease, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. What I found was the best book there is on thyroid problems! Not only was it an easy read (finished it in one sitting), it was full of useful information from both a clinical doctor and reseach doctor's point of view (Dr. Friedman is both). I have since thrown away all my other thyroid books and this book is the only reference I use. I recommend this book to everyone with thyroid problems and their friends and family to help anyone understand this complex and debilitating health epidemic.

Dr. Friedman's thyroid disease health guide is comprehensive, very well written and most of all, easy to read. I personally have two other thyroid reference books and once I purchased his book, I've basically relegated the other two to the book case with Dr. Friedman's book residing on my desk. Kudos Dr. Friedman, you've succeeded in educating a person who needs more information and made him more comfortable and better aware just by reading your excellent book.

This is a must read for persons with thyroid or other endocrine disorders. Dr. Friedman is a brilliant diagnostician and endocrinology researcher and has put together a book that reflects his immense learning and experience. This patient-friendly book on an extremely complicated and frustrating topic will be welcomed by sufferers of endocrine disorders. Dr. Friedman clearly lays out the nature and treatment of many endocrine disorders. This text will be of use to those many patients who must rely on general practitioners in indentifying and treating their endocrine disorders. Endocrine disorders are frequently misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. Despite the common reliance on blood work, there is still an art and feel to properly diagnosing and treating endocrine disorders that requires a high degree of physician/patient communication. This book will go a long way to enable patients to learn about their illness and to better enable them to communicate with their physicians.

For anyone with a thyroid problem, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU! I wish it could have been published years earlier when I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Dr. Friedman and Winnie Yu have put together information that is easy to read and understand. As the title implies, they have included everything you will need to know. The more information and knowledge you accumulate about any condition you have, the better able you will be to get proper treatment. I thought "life" was really slowing me down, but it was really my thyroid!

It has now been a year since my initial diagnosis of hypothryoidism and Hashimoto's Thryoiditis in July 2006. In my intial year, I have read many articles and research on thryoid disease, but most did not answer all my questions. I recently came across this book during my initial appointment with Dr. Friedman in July 2007. This book not only answered my questions, but it answered other items I did not know. This book has a lot information, but it is basic enough for all levels to understand. I highly recommend this book for those with thryoid problems and/or family and/or friends with thryoid problems.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!

This is one of my favorite books--fascinating and informative. I've sent copies to several family members.

I have always fantasized about being a world traveling journalist living a life of adventure and bringing my unique point of view to my readers. Alas, that is not to be. However, I certainly have a deep appreciation for up-close and personal viewpoints of world events. That's why I absolutely loved this book and devoured the entire thing in one big orgy of uninterrupted reading.

Subtitled "A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Bagdad to Timbuktu", Yaroslav Trofimov, an Italian citizen, is a Wall Street Journal reporter whose knowledge of languages, including Arabic, gave him access to people and places often denied to Westerners. He wrote this book between 2001 and 2005 and his writing style is simple, personal and full of facts, history and perspective. As I turned the pages, I was right there with him as he traveled around the Islamic world talking to clerics, ordinary Muslims and heads of state about their views on the current "War On Terror" that has brought attention to their perspective and, especially in the case of Iraq, has turned their lives upside down. He visited Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mali and Bosnia. That's quite a lot of places for one small book. They are all different, of course, but all share the Islamic world view, which, to my western eyes is a fresh perspective which gave me the chills as I slowly grasped the mounting significance of the present-day conflicts in all of these regions.

The clashes have been going on for thousands of years, but modern technology has accelerated the process and there is a culture class on a grand scale happening all over the world. The author devotes four full chapters to Iraq, and, to his credit, acknowledges the difficult job of American and British military personnel whose presence in the region has created a whole new set of problems for the Iraqi people who once viewed them as liberators. Those days are gone forever though. I knew all this before I read the book, of course, but it's one thing to read newspaper accounts and watch a small sound byte on CNN or Fox News. It's another thing entirely to feel I was in the shoes of this reporter, eating the food, dodging the gunfire and talking to individuals. My own sensitivities have also been stirred deeply and I know I will never quite view the Muslim world the same again.

The book is short, a mere 303 pages, but the author's skill managed to enlighten me about so much. Bosnia is very different from Timbuktu or Yemen, and sometimes it seemed as if these peoples have little in common. But the Islamic point of view is always there and very different from the Western world view. I applaud the author for clarifying this for me. Highly recommended.

I love this book so much that I already bought another to send to a friend. I will probably do it again if another friend did not buy it already on my advise. Mr. Trofinov succeed in making laugh while teaching me stuff about the world of Islam while others succeed only in making me cringe, fear, making my blood boil. The Journal is lucky to have him as a reporter.

This is a good book filled with personal experiences of a talented journalist who has travelled extensively in the arab world. It contains haunting images of people and suffering and explores the ironies and contradictions of the Arab world. One is presented with an image of a hypocritical Saudi Arabia, which uses Islam to keep its people down, and comparisons with a more secular Mali, which has found a way to reconcile modernity and religious values.

The book is unflinching in its critique of the American invasion of Iraq and the unintended consequence of the occupation. It is harrowing in its depiction of the vehemence of anti-Americanism from the wealthy suburbs of Cairo to the slums of Yemen. It create different looks at the seeming monolithic Hezbollah, unified by both public service and violent opposition to Israel.

The one drawback is that the book is totally framed by the perspective of the author. To say it is an uncomprimising look at the contradictions of Modern Islam and the failure of US foreign policy is to overlook the subjectivity of the writing. Choosing to focus on mismanagement or soldiers gloating over Arab deaths, the author ignores the nobility of others who struggle to make a positive impact. Some things in the book are taken at face value, when more thorough inspection should be required. For instance, at some point the book claims American forces shot and killed an Iraqi man for discharging his gun, thinking his house was being burglarized. How did the author arrive at this conclusion ? Ask the dead man ? The conclusion to be drawn is that Trofimov took representations of others at face value, but when Trofimov experience pro-US sentiment, he assumes it to be the result of toadying rather than genuine sentiment.

In the end, you have a well written book, containing fascinating yet selective experiences of the author. I recommend it as a fascinating journalistic travel journal, but like any journal one shaded by the authors subjective opinions.

Popular contemporary Islamic culture gets an airing in Yaroslav Trofimov's FAITH AT WAR, and the the non-islamic world is subject to a rude awakening 312 pages later. The author is very much a part of and participant in his inquiries into the attitudes that fuel resentment against the West and the US, whether in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan or Bosnia.

I was astonished to learn of the paranoia and proclivity to believe the wildest conspiracy theories throughout Islamic societies. Indeed, and as a validation of Trofimov, a personal friend of mine recently visited Iran with his Iranian wife. On a mountain climb above Tehran with his Iranian-American daughters, he encountered two AK-47 wielding guardians of the Islamic revolution who were keen to ply my friend with all manner of anti-semitic conspiracy theories, including the long-discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the "Israeli plot" to blow up the World Trade Center. Similar notions abound in Trofimov's accounts of his travels to "the frontlines of Islam" in the wake of the September 11 Al Qaeda attacks in the US.

FAITH AT WAR is a model of engaging journalism, with its riveting insights and Trofimov's determination - even at great risk to the writer's life - to get Islamic spokesmen to speak with him, revealing their livid concerns and lurid fixations. The paperback edition comes with an updated afterword and there is a helpful glossary of terms as well. The book is a fine primer/introduction to the contradictions inherent in the contemporary global Islamic resurgence largely fueled by the fanatical, retrogressive Saudi Arabian brand of Wahabist Islam. Highly recommended.

I AM A GREAT LOVER OF VICTORIAN-STYLE, FORMAL, PERFECTLY-RHYMED AND MUSICAL VERSE BY THE ROMANTICS, SUCH AS KEATS, GEORGE GORDON,LORD BYRON, CHARLES SWINBURNE, P. B. SHELLEY AND E. A. POE. IT IS EXTREMELY RARE NOW, IN AMERICA AT LEAST, TO FIND A POET WHO NOT ONLY COMPARES TO THESE GREAT POETIC GIANTS, BUT WHO, IN SOME CASES, ACTUALLY SURPASSES THEM IN HIS ABILITY TO SUSTAIN ATMOSPHERE, RHYTM, TENSION AND PERFECTION OF END AND INTERNAL RHYME. MR. KEVIN NICHOLAS ROBERTS HAS ACCOMPLISHED ALL OF THESE THINGS. I HAVE GIVEN COPIES OF BOTH HIS BOOKS, FATAL WOMEN & QUEST FOR THE BELOVED, TO ALL THE POETRY LOVERS I KNOW, AND AS A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN LITERATURE:POETRY, I KNOW QUITE A FEW. WITHOUT FAIL, HE HAS PLEASED AND AMAZED THEM ALL! THE ONLY COMPLAINTS I HAVE HEARD IS THAT THE BOOK IS TOO BRIEF--IT CONTAINS ONLY 21 POEMS (SOME VERY LONG, OTHERS SONNNETS, SHORT RONDELS AND THE LIKE, AVERAING ABOUT 3 PAGES PER POEM. THOUGH MY TWO FAVORITE POEMS, "OPHELIA" AND "ALLAYNE" ARE BOTH OVER 10 PAGES IN LENGTH, ACHIEVING WHAT POE ONCE SAID WAS IMPOSSIBLE: TO SUSTAIN PERFECTION AND ATMOSPHERIC TENSION FOR MORE THAN 40 STANZAS. ROBERTS DOES THIS AND MUCHMORE IN "ALLAYNE."

DUE TO SPACE LIMIATATIONS, I WOULD LIKE TO CONCKUDE BY SIMPLY SAYING THAT THIS IS THE BEST POETRY COLLECTION I HAVE READ FROM A POET WRITING AFTER 1909. IF YOU LIKE THE CONTEMPORARY, UNRHYMING, EXPERIMENTAL POETRY, YOU MAY NOT AGREE WITH MY FEELING THAT THIS WORK IS EXCEPTIONALLY MOVING AND IMPOSSIBLE TO READ ONLY ONCE. I'VE HAD THE COLLECTION FOR 2 YEARS, AND I STILL READ IT ALMOT EVERY NIGHT BEFORE BED. IT GIVES ME NEAUTIFUL, WONDERFULLY ROMANTIC DREAMS WHEREIN I AM THE HEROINE, THE POET MY DARK KNIGHT, CARRYING ME AWAY TO A FAIRYLAND BEYOND MOST CONTEMPORARY IMAGINATIONS. OH! AND HE EVEN "COMPLETED" SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE'S POEM FRAGMENT "KUBLA KHAN!" AND IT'S BRILLIANT, WRITTEN PRECISELT 200 YEARS AFTER THE ORIGINAL AND SUSTAINING EXACTLY THE ORIGINAL POEM'S LANGUAGE, MOOD AND GENIUS. GET THIS BOOK, OR GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO MELTS UNDER THE OTUCH OF THE ROMANTICS. YOU WILL NEVER WANT TO PART WITH IT. AND IT EVEN LOOKS BEAUTIFUL--VERY HIGH-QUALITY PRODUCTION WITH J. WTERHOUSE'S GLORIOUS "OPHELIA" PAINTING ON THE FRONT AND BACK COVERS. GET IT, READ IT, CRY AND SIGH OVER IT, AND LET IT CARRY YOU INTO DREAMLAND. I COULD LOVE THIS MAN. :)

I highly recommend this book by poet Kevin Roberts. He has an eloquent way with words. From the beginning to the end of the book I found myself transported into the poems. This book is so beautifully written. This author is a master poet!

I just got this book yesterday and I have already read it through about 1ten times. How could this poetry collection exist since 2000 and I never heard of it. I love Romantic poetry, and NOBODY TOLD ME!!!!

The reviewer on the back cover describes Kevin N. Roberts as "Easily one of the ten greatest poets of past and present centuries." He is, without doubt, exactly correct.

The book focuses on the femme fatales of history and, apparently, of the poet's own life and experience. My faves are: OPHELIA, ALLAYNE (breathless!!!), HYACINTHE, MORTICHE AND, THE INCONSTANT CLAYRE.

ALLAYNE seems like an impossible poem to write. How did he do it? Poe says it could not be done, to sustain perfection beyond 40 stanzas. But this man did, and did it better than Poe or any of his contemporaries. Unbelieveable!

If he ever comes out with another poetry collection, SOMEONE BETTER TELL ME. I WANT IT!

I got Kevin Roberts's name and book title--FATAL WOMEN--from a well-respected amazon reviewer. I tried it, and I cannot beli9eve that this man is not the biggest poet working in America and Europe today! He needs advertising.

Oh, and Kevin, if you read this: I LOVE YOU! Will you marry me?

FATAL WOMEN is like an antibiotic for the sickly and weakened body of modern English poetry! Finally we can see that the emperors of what poetry is and is supposed to be, have no clothes, they, in fact, are naked, for FATAL WOMEN has made us see! The last sixty years have seen an amazing outpouring of the most banal and insipid poetry imaginable. A small army of professors, armed with cartloads of advanced degrees in various subgenres of literature, especially the notorious MFA, have reduced poetry to a troglodytic science devoid of all feeling. This handful of folks have written reams of poetry for each other which has been widely published but read only by a very few outside of the cloistered walls of academe. So it is with the greatest brilliance that Kevin Roberts' FATAL WOMEN has arrived in the nick of time to save poetry from total irrelevance in the current age. FATAL WOMEN is full of poetry of the profoundest human feelings elucidated in the most lapidary of styles. His poetry is beautiful! Each poem is like a bright, or dark, willowy sorceress with powers supernaturally benignant or malign. Have you read the great Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne? If you have had the pleasure you will discover something marvelous. Mr. Roberts seems to have, and this most incredibly, fetched the poetic baton from the late Swinburne. Reading FATAL WOMEN is the rarest of treats. The poetry of Mr. Roberts soars on beautiful wings both angelic and demonian. Here is poetry to make the reader cry with joy!

I truly enjoyed this book. It was an excellent read. I highly recommend

this book.

This book was great reading. I bought the book after hearing his sermon at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove where he was a guest speaker a couple of years ago.
The author is not only a great speaker but an excellent writer also. I could not put the book down until I finished the entire book! It was very encouraging! The message I got was to not grow weary of doing the right things and to do it all of the time. Highly recommended.

Barry Black in this book show a man that practice what he preach. As I finished the book immediately I want to review the chapter on leadership for I could become a better leader. This is an excellent book for teens to read also.

Barry Black, the first African-American and Seventh-day Adventist chaplain of the U.S. Senate, has written a very inspirational work that's not only autobiographical, but just as much motivational. "From the Hood to the Hill" can sometimes even overwhelm the average reader with Chaplain Black's personna of almost near perfection. For myself, when I go to pickup a work that I expect to be strictly an autobiography, I'd rather have that than the many self-help tips along the way. Motivation has its place, but I would have liked to have read more of the man's real life experiences outside of his chaplain/military adventures. And at only a mere 223 pages, our appetites are left wanting more. The motivational book should have fellowed as a second release. Still very much worth reading though.

A very inspirational book!! Well written! I don't have words to give enough accolades to Dr. Black's writing. It is an easy read, written as though he is standing before you having a conversation. The reason i said this is a "must read for men" is that my son (who normally only reads books/article related to his career field) actually loaned me his copy. I found it so inspiring that I strongly recommend it for ALL but especially for young men who feel the pressures of "how to make a successful" life in America today.
I have never written a review before but I feel so strongly about the uplifting benefits of this book that I felt compelled to write this one.

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.

If you ever found Cooper handsome, this book certain has many photos to entertain and foster this thought.

The hardcover is a must! The narrative inside is perhaps average but if you supplement the book with a bio novel on Cooper you'll certainly feel its well worth the expense. Buy, buy, buy

Well, let me start with what beautiful tribute this book is to her father. Maria Cooper's book is beautiful, but too many of the pictures look posed (Hollywood style). And the pictures that are actually not posed say more in body language about a family that clearly protects the Cooper family image. These people are beautiful, but they are too perfect: clothes, hair, makeup, you know it's all there. One picture I found fascinating, is of the three of them on a beach facing the ocean. Maria and her mom on the left, and further away is Gary Cooper and his body language is quite clear. Hmmm, that definitely was a candid shot. And if anyone is really looking, the beautiful Maria seems to be the glue that kept that family together. There is a gorgeous shot of the three of them in their ski clothes in an old house. Rocky with little makeup is quite beautiful, but Maria and her Dad are the ones in sync in this picture. I don't know, but these pictures show a definite strain in the family relationship far more than I ever realized. With friends, the pictures are happier. I am a fan of Gary Cooper's and always will be. And the fact, that he adored his beloved daughter and she adored him is clearly seen in this book. Maria Cooper shows us a Gary Cooper I have already seen in other pictures other people have taken of him. There really isn't a lot of hugging, and touching, and birthday parties, water fights, and family occasions, events, like most people and other stars have of their lives while children are growing up. I would love to have seen a picture of Mr. Cooper in his overalls in his garden (he was an avid gardener), teaching Maria to do things, showing her how to ride a horse, acting goofy.. Maria Cooper is quite lovely, and this book is wonderful to look at, but I don't really feel anything but a little sadness that she didn't show us more candid and "real" photographs about of her Dad and the family. There was a great deal more to this man than meets the eye. I didn't get too much of a glimpse into that.

The cover photograph, of Gary Cooper spoon-feeding ice-cream to his daughter on the streets of "Hadleyville," is a poignant clue to what follows. Maria Cooper was a girl who lived a very rarified life, and she lets us take a delicious peek at it.

This is a great book for initial insight into Gary Cooper by his daughter. It is very obvious she adored her father. The book is very informative about the personal life of "Coope" with many wonderful pictures, however, the book is more images than writing. The details are only touched on. If you are a Gary Cooper & you want many unseen pictures, this is the book for you...

In a day and age when the children of "the stars" write the most deplorable books about their parents, this book is a wonderfully tender tribute to a true hero. Absolutely refreshing.