The photos included in Sklenar's first published collection of his work represent nearly 30 years of output, and what the photographer calls the "the weigh stations" of his life: Prague, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Thompson, Mexico, and Gallup. What the photos show, according to Sklenar, is that "life is the same everywhere, people suffer and are happy in much the same way." His assessment is correct. However, the extraordinary gift he has for revealing the extraordinary cannot go without mention. -- Belinda Acosta, for The Austin Chronicle.

Opening this book you step into the world and life of photographer Milan Sklenar. He shows the viewer the places he has been, and the faces he has seen. The range of faces and emotions - fear, hope, despair, joy, boredom, suspicion - are matched by the diversity of locations - Mexico, New York, Thompson, Los Angeles, Montreal, Prague. Although each viewer will undoubtably bring his own experiences to the book and form his own interpretations, no one will be unmoved by these powerful images.

Over 100 photos of this Czech-American artist are presented for the first time in Milan Sklenar: Photographs, a volume which captures urban and street life in stark black and white photos. The artist lived in the streets - his photos of street life in different cultural settings from Mexico to Montreal provide intriguing contrasts and similarities.

I am a Chinese living in Hong Kong. I was so moved by this book when I read it 7 years ago. Its the extra-ordinary observation of the author that illustrated the ordinary life of Chinese People. It had special meaning during that particular moment of history. China is changing form a close society and are openning to the world. Its like birds flying out of the cage. They may forget to fly but they keep on trying. The author showed the spirit of Chinese People that are strugging to achieve their goals under difficult conditions.

Rosemary Mahoney describes a year teaching English in Hangzhou, China, with an extraordinary gift for language and an eye for detail. While her experiences may not be as sensational as those in Mark Salzman's China memoir Iron and Silk, she is an infinitely more talented and entertaining writer. Salzman's book can be consumed once or simply foregone for the film adaptation of Iron and Silk, but I find myself returning again and again to Ms Mahoney's book, more for how she describes situations and people than for what actually happened. It's sad (but alas, not surprising) to see that such a quiet masterpiece has gone out of print while Salzman's journalistic anecdotes keep flying out of bookstores...Find the Early Arrival of Dreams anyway!

There are all sorts of pilgrims making their tours. Chaucer knew this, of course, and his crew is composed of all from the reverent to the venal. Some of his pilgrims, like the Wife of Bath, were journeying just for the fun of it, but none of his pilgrims were confessed skeptics, out to see what they could see and write a book about the experience. That is what Rosemary Mahoney has done in _The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground_ (Houghton Mifflin), not just once but within six of the most celebrated pilgrimages, and not just Christian pilgrimages, but a Hindu one, too. She has a fine eye for detail, an attraction to odd people, and a smooth way of telling a story, so that the armchair pilgrim gets to go vicariously on these jaunts with little risk except perhaps laughing at people who ought to be solemn, and questioning the purpose of pilgrimages and of worship itself.

Every year in May, there is an Anglican National Pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Walsingham, an English village. The procession is attended not only by pilgrims, but by protesters. Methodists, Presbyterians, and others who think that the procession is too close to Catholicism shout down the parade and put up signs like "This procession & mass denies the Word of God which forbids it." Lourdes is very Catholic and very kitschy. Mahoney's first physically demanding pilgrimage was to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Spain via walking El Camino de Santiago, hundreds of miles across northern Spain. Mahoney's view of the pilgrims here, as she hobbles with crippling tendonitis, is the most cynical; as befits a "new" ancient route, the pilgrims on it are New-Agey secular seekers, taking the hike during some free months in between jobs, to find a spouse, to heal a karma, or to lose weight. Mahoney's Hindu pilgrimage was to Varanasi, the ancient city on the Ganges where the very best cremations happen and where reverent Hindus go to bathe in the fetid waters. In the Holy Land, she is amused by how different churches insist that they own, say, the authentic place where the water-into-wine miracle. The struggle for authenticity has manifested itself in different religions or different branches of one religion trying to claim possession of particular sacred sites, and Mahoney notes, "Everyone was fighting to own a piece of the man who lived for peace and said, _Own nothing_." The final pilgrimage is to Saint Patrick's Purgatory on Station Island in the middle of Lough Derg, a rigorous pilgrimage including sleep deprivation, cold, midges, and mind-numbing recitations of rigid prayers, perhaps in anticipation of purgatory's entertainments.

Mahoney is a wonderful guide to these strange locales, practices, and people. She examines her own beliefs throughout, and contrasts them with those of her mother, a staunch Catholic. Conversations with her mother are remembered frequently throughout the book. There is serious introspection here, and serious inquiry into a form of human activity that has many participants, but she has conducted the research with irrepressible humor. At the end of the Camino trip, she reflects that although she was still unsure why she had walked all that way, "... I felt I had accomplished something strange and monumental." Yes, and that can be said of her book as well.

This writer has put a voice to all the questions, doubts, and uncertainties of which my belief system is composed. Her honesty about herself, her reactions to the many pilgrims she has met in her travels, her adventurousness and acceptance of differences reflect my own yearnings for what I should have done. I was thrilled by her 0bservations and revelations on each journey, but I was overwhelmed by her journal of her time in Varanesi. Her immersion into the life of this place, without "going native", her ability to not be revolted by the seeming desparation of the life around her,her quiet strength and assurance are excitng and moving and inspiring. The two young boys who become her guides and friends are extremely moving. She and they give what feels to be the truest account of the nature of faith that I have read. The myriad questions that all seekers have are not answered or resolved, but they are illuminated in such a way that those who share them may feel affirmed in the knowledge that it is the search and the questions which are important. Everyone's answers will be different, which is as it should be in the examination of such universal questions. This book is a treasure.

I was afraid this book was going to be very pious and all about religion. But it's one of the most entertaining and exciting things I've read in a long time. Mahoney is a very funny writer, with kind of a deadpan, wry sense of humor and really nice take on life and human relationships. She is very brave and adventurous, rowing a boat across the sea of galilee all by herself, walking 500 miles across spain on the Camino de Santiago, and spending three days on St, Patrick's purgatory in Ireland praying and fasting while barefoot the whole time. I think what I loved most about this book was the way the writer portrays the people she meets. It's very vivid and clear. You almost feel like you're right there beside her. The scene where she takes the holy bath at Lourdes in France is really funny, and a lot of what happens to her in India is a riot. Even though the writer is on a search of pilgrimages, she is always a little bit skeptical, which adds to the humor of the book. But most of all you can tell that she cares about people and wants to find out about their lives and why they are on these pilgrimages just as much as she wants to find out about her own spirituality. I learned a lot about the history of religious places that I didn't know before from reading this book. I really didn't want it to end because it was so fun to read.

This book is a travesty on the author and on Irish women. The author obviously did not get in touch at all with the Irish culture and how she herself was being treated. There is a long tradition in Ireland of making fools of 'outsiders' - Irish literature is full of such pranks. The author obviously fell into the trap. This is not a good description of how Irish women live or feel. I actually laughed out loud at some of the dour parts - the author did not get the satire or the tricks behind some of the women she interviewed. One needs to be very subtle to talk to the Irish - talking everything at face value is a mistake.

I've never been to Ireland, but after reading Rosemary Mahoney's splendidly eclectic tour of Irish women and Irish minds, I feel like I've had the next best experience to an extended stay on the Emerald Isle. Do not be fooled by the title, this book is not a narrowly conceived analysis of gender relations. Pay attention to the words "world of" because that is what Mahoney brings to life on every page of this highly readable work. Wow, does this author ever have the gift for developing sharply focused images that emit raw energy. She speaks with women, about their paradoxical relations with men, but also takes the risk of the literary "side trip," thus creating one of the most vivid sensations of "place" that you will find on the printed page. This is also a book of pubs, of warm and pungent Guiness poured by bartenders whose youth still haunts them, standing on stone floors worn down by storytellers and lovers of ages past. It's about foreboding castles and achingly beautiful landscapes. It's about women, where women can and always should struggle and perhaps prevail -- in the swirling context that bespeaks the joy and sorrow of life, of Ireland. Once reading this book, you may very well feel that you have to make the trip yourself, or even perhaps, that you already HAVE.

I had no idea what to expect of this book when I picked it up, but a friend of mine recommended it, and after about ten pages I was hooked. Written from a first-person perspective by an American writer living in Ireland, it offers a most engaging voice and a vivid view of modern Ireland. The writer spent half a year living in Dublin and another half year living in rural Ireland in a Norman castle in the small village of Corofin. Having lived in Ireland for nearly ten years I was awestruck by the accuracy and intimacy of her portrayal of Irish life, her very engaging sense of humor, and her great talent as a writer. Line for line this book is absolutely beautiful. Her affectionate characterizations and stories of the people she met in Ireland fairly lift off the page. Her ear for dialogue is superb. There is a great deal of information here about Irish society, including interviews with the President of Ireland, and with other prominent Irish people, but the real draw of this wonderful book is the manner in which the writer has chosen to tell the story of this small country entering into the modern world. I laughed out loud at so many descriptions and scenes, conversations in a the pub, mishaps, local oddballs, lifestyle and beliefs of the Irish people. I didn't want the book to end. It's the kind of book you read and wish you knew the person who wrote it. There's a vividness to Mahoney's writing that I have not seen matched in many works of non-fiction. Above all, what distinguishes this work most is the clear respect and love the writer has for the people she has chosen to study and portray in it. There's a deep humaneness and sympathy to her approach to Ireland and its people, even though she offers criticisms and skepticism. I was entertained, moved, and enchanted by the stories she tells and don't know why I hadn't heard of it before now. The truths put forth in this book are sometimes a but upsetting, but they are exactly that: truths. And they are truths that needed to be told. I loved it.

Rosemary Mahoney has definite talents as a writer: she has a good eye, she's well-read, and she has mastered the elements of the English sentence. On the other hand, she has not put her training behind her. This is an account of a summer she spent with Lillan Hellman. It should have been a great story; instead, Mahoney seems to have tried to make it great writing. Too often she abandons the story to show us how well she can capture an image in prose. Too often she gives us minute details that exist of themselves rather than help illuminate the narrative. Even with these faults, I read the book to the end, because Mahoney's training left just enough of the story-teller intact to keep me interested. Kids, if you want to be a writer, don't take graduate courses in writing unless you are sure enough of yourself to sift the useful from the bs. Writing is a means; it is not an end.

If you're interested in Mahoney herself, this must be good-read. You will understand some part of her own life and character. However, the relationship between Mahoney and Hellman was too little to describe well about LH.

If you like to know more about Lillian Hellman, I'd recommend you to read "Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman" written by Peter Feibleman.

First of all, this was a super-entertaining book and very good for a starry-eyed writer to read; bursts a necessary bubble. I've heard such tales before, but I needed another shot of reality, if only to protect my idols from ME!

At the risk of irritating the obviously sensitive author (a mini-Miss-Lily?) my take on her experience is that she couldn't get mad at her wise and loving mother for being an alcoholic and polio victim who Rosemary felt she had to protect and constantly save from disaster. She was needed as a caretaker and her mother was so obviously debilitated and yet trying so hard to do a good, if exhausting job herself. Also, Rosemary had been abandoned by her father and had obviously been lied to about that by her mother. So how could she rebel against such a saintly, sad, charming, hard-working woman, the only true source of love in her life?

O.K. Along comes Lillian Hellman - the perfect Mommie from Hell for a seventeen-year-old in need of someone or something to hate, hate, hate. They were made for each other. I loved them both in this vivid, hilarious, heartbreaking and compulsively readable story. Thanks to the author for many hours of enjoyment - I read half the book aloud to my husband, also a writer.

PS - Opening descriptions of Vineyard locals, especially the grocery crew, are adorable.