A sampling of the latest Irish books on offer. RECOMMENDED Telling an as-yet-untold story about the heroic FDNY mission of September 11, Terry Golway writes: "Lieutenant Bob Bohack faced the dilemma of his career. He had his orders: He was to help extinguish the fire on the 79th floor. But those orders were given before he heard rumors of missiles, of more airplanes heading … [Read more...] about Book Reviews
Tom Deignan
Out of Albany
William Kennedy, known as the author who captured Albany, New York, talks to Tom Deignan. ℘℘℘ William Kennedy is telling a story about his father that could very well be a haunting moment from any one of his seven "Albany cycle" novels. "My father's father came from Tipperary," the novelist, 74, says over an Irish breakfast in Fitzpatrick's mid-town Manhattan hotel. Kennedy's … [Read more...] about Out of Albany
Book Reviews
RECOMMENDED For decades, one simple question has split the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic into two warring factions: Do you love or loathe The Quiet Man, that 1952 stage Irish classic starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and directed by John Ford? Ford himself was often more Irish than the Irish themselves, making up an ultra-Gaelic name for himself, and playing … [Read more...] about Book Reviews
Book Reviews
FICTION For almost five decades now, legendary newspaperman Jimmy Breslin has dispensed wisdom, wit and justice with his hard-hitting columns. But Breslin has also published a dozen books now, and his novels have inspired a generation of Irish American writers. His 1973 novel World Without End, Amen chronicled the civil rights movements in both America and Northern Ireland, … [Read more...] about Book Reviews
Book Reviews
NON-FICTION A larger-than-life Irish American politician finally gets the treatment he deserves – praise and criticism, that is – in Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, by Boston Globe writer John A. Farrell. The key aspect of this book's title is the second part. Not only is O'Neill's life, growing up working-class in heavily Irish Boston, fascinating, but the … [Read more...] about Book Reviews