Saturday, March 17, 2007

Happy St. Patrick's Day


Life goes slow and life goes fast and here I am again apologizing for gaps in the blog. I sound like the past four years of my journal making apologies for not writing more at the beginning of every entry.

Winter is finally dying down and the great circle of life in the bookstore goes round and round again. Displays of diet books fade to Valentine's displays (essentially books with red covers about relationships, love or sex or better yet, chocolate) which melt like the February snows to the current season of tax guides, Irish related books and the sudden deluge of Easter books.

Right now the current hot titles in the store are:
-In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee Woodruff, Bob Woodruff ISBN 1400066670 ABC News' embedded reporter in Iraq and how an explosive device

-A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah ISBN: 0374105235 Beah's autobiographical story of being forced into soldier-hood at age 13 in Sierra Leone, a fate a lot of African boys suffer.

-The Secret - Rhonda Byrne ISBN: 1582701709 (No I haven't read it so I don't know what "the secret" is. Go ask Oprah; she's responsible for all this hype).

Being rabidly but not fanatically Irish, I usually recommend James Joyce's Ulysses around this time of year. This year I thought I would give you all a break and recommend An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor ISBN 0765316234. A new doctor finds a job in the Northern Irish town of Ballybucklebo (The Town of the Cow-Boys) under Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, the irascible old resident physician. It's light and fun but charming and a good read. A good cozy. Think James Herriot in Northern Ireland.