“An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser --- For several years, “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser has been on my bucket list of books to read. But at almost 900 pages and with a beginning that depicts a family of intolerant religious mission workers, I started and stopped ...
When I first learned about publication of Sally Svenson’s book “Blacks in the Adirondacks” (Syracuse University Press), I found myself a bit surprised no one had tackled this important subject before. Now that I’ve read this extensively researched volume, I realize others will follow ...
Two new books of verse by area writers came to our attention recently: Yvona Fast’s “Different” and Caperton Tissot’s “The Beat Within.” Yvona Fast’s slim volume “Different” was published by FootHills Publishing, which has been since 1986 a resource for upstate New York ...
“What to know about pain is how little we do to deserve it, how simple it is to give, how hard to lose. I’m a plumber. I dig for what’s wrong. And what I think of now as I remember pain is the fat young man and his child, their staggering house, the basement filled with death and dark ...
John Davis’ “Split Rock Wildway” is described by the author as being a “scout’s report” on wildlife he has encountered in a specific area of the Adirondacks. However, in describing the book as such, the author is not completely honest. Instead of being only a scout’s report, ...
“An Adirondack Portfolio-1902-1935: The Hiking Stories and Photographs of Francis Bayle” --- Many of us may be fortunate enough to own photos taken by earlier generations; a few might also have some old letters. Bob Bayle, a former teacher from Glens Falls, had his own collection of ...
“Seeing the Forest: Reviews, Musings, and Opinions from an Adirondack Historian,” by Philip Terrie” ---Philip Terrie has been wandering the Adirondacks for 50 years and writing about it for more than 30. His books “Contested Terrain” and “Forever Wild” were instant classics when ...
“Maia — A Cold War Novel,” by Richard Manichello --- Richard Manichello’s consistently entertaining “Maia” is a bit like a seven-part Netflix series. “Maia” is a Cold War thriller; a new take on the star-crossed lovers’ story; a story of redemption; a coming of age story ...
“Buried Secrets” by T.J. Brearton is a book that you shouldn’t read late at night. One of the latest books by the Lake Placid author is an intense thriller that keeps the reader on edge until the last chapter. The protagonist, Brett Larson, is a failed journalist turned construction ...
“Views From On High,” by John Freeman and Jim Schneider --- Almost as if on schedule, I received a copy of the newly published book, Views From On High: Fire Tower Trials in the Adirondacks and Catskills, by John Freeman and Jim Schneider, in time for consideration as a holiday gift. ...
“Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray,” by Adam Federman --- As sprightly October settled at last into true autumn with its iron gray skies and rain, I enjoyed returning day after day to the extraordinary life of Patience Gray and her many years living ...
By JERRY McGOVERN Special to the Enterprise Public Broadcasting’s film “The Vietnam War,” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, brings that conflict back into America’s living rooms. After so many years, there is context to examine the concepts, events, and consequences of a war that ...
“Relentless Pursuit” by Maj. Charles Guess is a book written from the first-person perspective of the incident commander in charge of recapturing escaped convicts. The major is in charge of coordinating the search efforts during the infamous escape from Dannemora. Two convicted ...
“An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman,” by Susan M. Ouellette --- In an era of Facebook and Twitter, it can be a treat to find someone describing their thoughts and activities during an earlier era in longhand. Is it a love of history that makes discovery of a journal that valuable to us? ...
“Shadow Child” by Randall Stark Beach, 2017 --- In this engrossing memoir, Altona native Randall Stark Beach details an otherwise unremarkable childhood that suddenly becomes utterly changed when his younger brother is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In this sensitively presented ...
“Final Season,” by Richard Frost (who reviews books for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise), is a first-person novel about baseball and dying. When 55-year-old physician Dan Jameson’s cancer progresses, he rejects further therapies and follows his passion: the Baltimore Orioles. The novel ...
“Dark Kills,” by T.J. Brearton, is a page-turning whodunit detective story. Set in Plattsburgh and the surrounding communities, the story follows Detective Gates in a race to solve the mystery behind multiple deaths. But the serial killer has another victim tagged to be next. The ...
“A Guide to Architecture in the Adirondacks,” by Richard Longstreth --- Adirondack Architectural Heritage, the historic preservation entity for our region, has just released its long-awaited guide to the North Country’s man-made environment. Entitled “A Guide to Architecture in the ...
‘Body of Water’ by Madeline Hennessey, Ra Press, 2017 --- Saranac Lake resident Madeline Hennessey’s book of poems takes off from the double-entendre of its title to dive deep into details of the natural world, absorbed and transformed into poems of memory, longing and ripples of sound. ...
The America Civil War has been chronicled and analyzed so extensively (the SUNY Plattsburgh Feinberg Library, for example, has about 9,000 books related to it) that a writer might be foolhardy to think he can bring new light to the subject. But George Bryjak’s “Voices from the Civil ...