By JERRY McGOVERN Special to the Enterprise Elizabethtown author T.J. Brearton continues to write good mysteries set in upstate New York. His latest, “The Husbands,” is about a serial killer murdering women in central New York, including Liverpool and Auburn. The “separate ...
You may remember in grade school or thereabouts learning that the “haiku” form of poetry was three lines of strict syllable counts of 5, 7, then 5 again. And that’s probably about all you remember (if that!). Haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry, dating from about the ...
For this installment, I’ve chosen to review what I deem an unappreciated classic, the autobiography of photographer William Henry Jackson. Entitled “Time Exposure” and published in 1940, it tells the story of a most remarkable yet little known individual from New York’s North ...
Lisa Bellamy’s collection of poems, “The Northway,” is a boisterous, rollicking, often bawdy frolic as she encounters bears, groundhogs, pigeons, and her own self and soul in the world. Desire, memory, fear, addiction and enlightenment are among the big subjects explored in these ...
“Honorable Exit” is another important, and very readable, history from Essex County resident Thurston Clarke, scheduled for publication in April. Clarke begins his examination of the time surrounding the fall of Saigon, marking the end of the war in Vietnam, focusing on a photo, which he ...
Adirondack Life’s “Our Towns” --- Adirondack Life’s “Our Towns” is a must have coffee table book for anyone who loves the Adirondacks. It is a compilation of decades of Our Towns, a featured page in the well knownmagazine. The book contains descriptions of more than 130 ...
“J. S. Wooley: Adirondack Photographer,” edited by Richard Timberlake and Philip Terrie By RICHARD FROST Special to the Enterprise Like many people, I first became immersed in Adirondack history through photography. For me, the portal was Seneca Ray Stoddard. First employed as a ...
“In Praise of Quiet Waters: Finding Solitude and Adventure in the Wild Adirondacks,” By Lorraine M. Duvall --- This book is part memoir of an avid paddler, part informational guide to the history of protecting water and waterways in the Adirondacks, and part guide book to some nice ...
A walk in the woods can be both exercise and metaphor. That was part of the conversation recently among a group of us hiking leisurely in Wilmington. Discussing whether to take the steeper and shorter trail or the gentler, longer one, one of us recited part of Robert Frost’s “The Road ...
Articles and books about White Pine Camp, near Paul Smiths, frequently cite its association with Calvin Coolidge, who used it as his Summer White House in 1926. The complete story is much richer. A new book by Howard Kirschenbaum, “White Pine Camp: The Saga of an Adirondack Great Camp and ...
“Angry Rain” by Maurice Kenny --- My path never crossed that of Maurice Kenny, although certainly I was aware of his extensive writings, knew him to be active in the Native American community, and knew that he was a North Country notable. I did notice that whenever his name came up ...
“Southbound Terror: A Marc LaRose Mystery,” by R. George Clark --- Most of “Southbound Terror” takes place in northern New York and Quebec. But it begins in Salem, Oregon. There a local farmer harvests a crop originating in China: “The seed, originally from the plant ricinus ...
“Twelve Years a Slave,” by Solomon Northup --- A little over 30 years old, in the year 1841, Solomon Northup, born a freeman in Saratoga, New York, is kidnapnapped and sold into slavery in the south. Prior to being enslaved, he is a loving father and husband and son of a former ...
“Graves Of Upstate New York” By Chuck D’imperio --- In my mind, cemeteries are among the great underappreciated sources of local heritage and pride. I frequently wander graveyards when I travel. They help me gain a sense of an area’s history, remind me of the tragic epidemics that ...
Chestertown native David Starbuck traveled far afield in his archeology career — Mexico, Scotland, New England — only to circle back home again to become an expert in uncovering the material history of his own literal and figurative backyard. In this lively and fascinating book he ...
Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau had found his lamp and lit it. To get his fire burning, the new, self-appointed research scientist with a cause bought books and equipment, cleared out a spare room in his house and started up his own laboratory. Failures were frequent, and he knew that was part of ...
Tony Holtzman, who summers in the Adirondacks, continues to write compelling historical fiction about the area. His trilogy “Axton Landing,” “The Railroad” and “Forever Wild” is required reading for those who want to understand the 19th century industries and legislation that ...
‘Kicking Leaves,” by Caperton Tissot, a resident of Saranac Lake, is a time capsule presented to the reader in the shape of a memoir. The book details the life of Caperton, a young socialite destined for debutante balls and ivy league education until in an awakening similar to that of ...
“What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician’s Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities,” by Dar Williams, may not be a specifically Adirondack book, but much of its content proves applicable to the region. One might quickly list Plattsburgh, Saranac Lake, Glens Falls and ...
“The Business of Naming Things” by Michael Coffey --- This is not a new book to the world, published in 2015, but it is new to me and so delightful, in a darkly comic, smart, sometimes darkly poignant way, that I wanted to call some attention to it. Full disclosure: I am acquainted ...