Joe Coomer is truly a remarkable author. Kentucky Love is, in my opinion, his masterpiece. The story flows beautifully, and the characters are easy to relate to. If you're lucky enough to find a copy of this book, read it immediately!!

Joe Coomer is one of the finest authors of the twentieth century. Kentucky Love is poetic, funny, touching, and real. Anyone who has ever loved somebody too much will empathize with the main character in this story. And everyone who reads it will want his grandpa for their own.

I found Joe Coomer's story of the acquisition of an old wooden boat, and the things he learns about it, and his life, and his family members, to be a very endearing tale. Maybe it is because I am a frustrated landlubber who has yet to have the courage, or moment of irrationality, to buy my own similar boat. By reading his account, I feel I have experienced many of things I might have expected. From that early uncertainty of the boat's seaworthiness and doubt about his own seamanship skills, to a point four seasons later when he is leaving the dock, "and we caught the outgoing current as if we were swinging onto a moving bus". Coomer is at times factual and analytical in recounting the specifics of his encounter with his motorsailer Yonder. At others, he captures in a phrase or two the beauty and wonder of a special moment at sea. After an unexpected rendesvouz with some gray whales in the fog, "my wife and I silently scanned the ocean, like children looking across the backyard one last time before letting Easter go". I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to vicariously live the adventure of owning their own old wooden boat.

Although this book is humorous, as its title suggests, it also is a story of the passing on of a heritage of boating from generation to generation.The author artfully combines an account of his adventures aboard a less-than-bristol, fifty-year-old wooden motorsailer, with memories about boating from his childhood. In the end, the boat has become so intertwined with his family life that he cannot abandon it even when it requires repairs that cannot be justified by its market value. The book is sentimental, funny, wise and very well written.

I hate baseball. Even with liberal helpings of beer and good company, I can't sit through more than a couple of innings without pining for hardwood with squeaking sneakers, or pads cracking, or a good ol' fashioned foot race. However, I understand its niche in the American culture and in the hearts of so many of us. That must be the reason I am such a sucker for baseball novels and movies. A Flatland Fable by Joe Coomer is truly about the nuances of baseball as cultural diety and moral backdrop.

Horgan is a 40 year old fireman in the smallest and flattest of small, flat towns. In the course of a day he learns his place in the grand scheme of things. He has been waiting for life to happen and, finally, it does. (Or has it been happening all along?) Questions are answered concerning his dying father, his lost mother, his uninsemenated wife and the nearly-mediocre baseball team he coaches.

The spiritual and emotional lift I experienced when first reading this novel left me baffled. This short novel compressed the thoughts of a character's lifetime into a single day and a couple of hundred pages. To experience something with the kind of impact this provided , I've had to read many more pages to appreciate the character's plight. A Flatland Fable is terse, like a poem, short and jammed with meaning.

Joe Coomer's other early works--The Decatur Road, Kentucky Love, and The Loop-- evoke similar emotional responses to a tale of everyday life, while stirring philosophical musings.

Sometimes the story unfolds in a Dickensian fashion with secrets being revealed and new questions arising as the old ones are answered. That is, however, only a vehicle for the larger purpose of animating the main character who is so much like most of us that the reader will adore him for the undiscipined, lifeless Everyman that he is. He's George Baily without the idealism, Andy Taylor without the Wisdom, Huckleberry Finn, old and burdened with pseudo-responsibilities.

Do not pass this monumentally great read even if the undercurrent of an anticipated baseball game makes you squeamish.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm from Portsmouth, NH, where it takes place and I felt like I was seeing the town new, and reading an original, honest, fresh description of it. I loved the characters. I can't believe they weren't based on real people. They truly touch you and keep you thinking. . .A novel with honest impressions, feelings, yet not one that hits you over the head with its theme. Very, very beautifully written. A gifted writer with insight is Joe Coomer.

Since my bookstore's 'must reads' have never let me down before, I started this novel with little knowledge about the subject or the author. I was two-thirds finished before I realized that the author of this emotionally clear, touching, heart-felt novel was written by a man. I was shocked! It's the same jolt I felt after reading Roddy Doyle's "The Woman Who Walked into Doors" and sat for hours, not believing this man could know so much about what it is to be a woman. Some female must have been whispering into his ear at the typewriter, I mused.

"Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God" is a slice of heaven. This is a spiritual, mystical story that takes less than a year chronologically, and although the actual time is short, you walk away feeling you've been friends with these incredible women for years - watching them learn to embrace life. It's an amazing journey.

I picked this book up on a fluke and I am not sorry! This is just a great book, I tell everyone I meet about it. For me, now only was it neat that it was local...I could close me eyes and see where she was walking, but I still can't get over the author being a man. Coomer was able to get into the lives of these women and bring them to such wonderful realness, it's amazing. If you read nothing else this summer, Beachcombing is a Must -- put it on your list!!!

This book is an enjoyable and fast read, but you may find yourself thinking about larger issues as you read it and for a while after.

Coomer touches on some very big topics, but never addresses them directly:

* Man's search for meaning

* The comfort of religion

* The inevitability of death

* How relationships salve wounds

* The role of chance

All of these issues come up indirectly, and are dealt with by the characters in their lives. However the book manages to explore these issues without preaching, and in the end leaves it to the reader to decide what is important.

The book only rated four stars with me for a couple reasons: one, the characters are an odd mix of cluelessness and wisdom. At times I found glaringly out-of-character wisdom and philosophy coming out of their mouths. Two, the book reminded me of "The Shipping News" in that the main characters seem so lost, so unaware, so lacking in goals and direction that at times I wanted to slap them.

But it was an enjoyable ride with memorable characterizations, and I look forward to reading some of Coomer's other interesting-sounding titles.

This book is quirky, sensitive and detailed, in all the best senses. The story of a Fort Worth man who circles the city's loop for a living -- cleaning up debris, dead animals, etc. -- and meets a woman and a bird, who both change his life. A deceptively simple story with various strata of meaning and characterization. One extended scene, in particular -- which involves a physical encounter and then a dead animal -- is one of the most well crafted I've ever read. A brief book that will make a lasting impression.

A friend gave me this book and said she loved the ending...well, the entire book is superb...and she was right....the ending is fabulous! I guess when you get right down to the nitty gritty, we're all alone in this world, orphans of a sort....and we're all looking for life's meaning....just like Lyman as he sat on his front porch drinking coffee at the same time every day trying to capture the present as it turned into the past....or the future. It took an old weather-beaten parrot and an inquisitive librarian with sand in her boots to teach him the true meaning of life. I plan to get copies of this book for all of my friends. It's a keeper!!

I have read dozens of books of boating, mostly books of self discovery through experiences on the water. I haven't always liked the author as a person. I haven't always understood WHY the authors would do something such as sailing an 8 foot boat solo across the ocean. But I always learned something from them. I was challenged. I was amazed. My heart was warmed.

Here I could relate to and appreciate the love Joe felt for the boat, for his family, and for nature, but there seemed to be little depth behind it or a more in-depth reason for sharing it. The people in the story buy waterfront homes and expensive motorsailors without blinking an eye. I appreciate the money Joe spent on keeping his beautiful boat afloat, and he does ponder the money spent, but it is clear it is money he can well afford. There is no crime in being wealthy, but perhaps this all came too easily for them. No crime in that either, except it makes for rather slow reading. I love my children, I love my wife, I love that funny old Model T I have in the basement, but I wouldn't write a book about it.

...

So in the end, this is a book of a simple love of family and a beautiful old boat. There are a few minor challenges, but things basically go well. When it doesn't you can always pay someone to fix it. A pleasant but unchallenging book.

I almost passed this book by, for the simple reason that I'm not a boat person. Having read everything else by Joe Coomer, I gave it a try. It didn't take more than a few pages for me to realize that the author loves this vintage boat and appreciates the history behind it. Read it & you'll find yourself on the boat with him as he manages to master the problems of an old engine. As he sails around the rocky coast & buoy-mined waters of Maine, you can just about feel the dampness & the fog, the waves & the sun. Joe Coomer also introduces us to members of his family throughout the book... colorful characters who will make you laugh, then bring tears to your eyes in the end. Even if you've never been on a sailboat, vintage or "plastic," you will enjoy this vintage Coomer saga.

Having only sailed a few times with friends, I consider myself an armchair sailor. I picked up this book at a friend's house and couldn't put it down. The story about the wooden boat is wonderful, but the stories about friends and family are so interwoven that you feel you are a part of Mr. Coomer's family. I look forward to reading more of his books.

After enjoying the quirky, lurching rhythm of "The Loop" I thought I'd try another Coomer and "Apologizing to Dogs" was an intriguing title.

Alas, it has nothing to do with dogs or apologizing (a bassett was featured prominently in "The Loop") and everything to do with a writer who is very self-conscious. The story takes a back seat to the writing here, in a very mannered, gimmicky and ultimately tedious exposition. It tries so hard to be "quirky" that the unfortunate loser is the story. It reads like a class project, or a community college creative writing assignment (and that isn't good).

Coomer is capable of better. I plan to try some others next, and hope this misstep is an anomaly.

Do you want multifaceted characters? Do you want humor? Do you want tragic characters who somehow have an implacable hope?

Apologizing to dogs is not Shakespeare, but it is the makings of a tragic/comedy. You have divorce, resentment, blackmail. lost dreams, and forlorn hopes all in a single contemporary Southern Setting in this book. Will you be elevated to a new level? No. Will you be brought to a mad-cap place with unbelievable characters that somehow, are resonant? Yes.

Please read this book. If not only to be amused (it would make a wonderful film) but also to be taken away from the doldrums of "real" life. This is a fun novel.

This is a wonderful example of the wit, whimsy & wisdom of Joe Coomer. Read it with an open mind & a gentle heart and you will laugh out loud. The story is set during one full day in the lives of shop-owners who treasure their antiques & their stores--regardless of the absence of paying customers! You will learn their secrets, fears and dreams, and you'll end up shaking your head in wonder when you discover that it is indeed possible to find yourself apologizing to a dog.

I think this is a good book, but it's not what I was looking for. It's sort of a little adventure story of one man's experience building a house. If you're looking for a book that covers the human travails of building a house, you'll probably love it. However, if you're looking for something that goes into some of the technical aspects of contracting and building your own house, you'll probably be disappointed.

A wonderfull book more about life then building. I found as a builder it raing a bell. It took poetry and the process of autobiograpy and nailed it on to a rafter for us to find as we take apart his life by building his house.