But this book is not just a glimpse into Driscoll's family life. It is a collection of stories designed to educate. Told simply, each short story makes a point to the reader in a non-insulting way, the way one would teach a child by example but with much greater subtlety. Each lesson ends with a prayer that is simple and not designed to preach but to sum up the author's attitude about the lesson he is discussing. They enhance without offending and are totally appropriate.

I chose not to read the book in a single session, and I encourage any reader to consider breaking it up over a week or so -- three or four pages at a time if you can manage to limit yourself. In this way, you can absorb the storytelling without losing the detail and the purpose of the lessons.

This book is for new fathers and for anyone wanting to reground their relationship with their family. It is also for anyone who wants to peer in a window to dream about how functional a family can be.

Absolutely delightful and lovely illustrations.

Sure to amuse the younger dino afficianados.

So why read this book? I read it because a critic named Gardner named it one of the best dectective books of the 20th Century. I'm not sure if I'd go that far but it's a solid read. There are plenty of red herrings and a curve ball ending. It's also a bit of a time capsule. Readers with ties to the East Bay will enjoy the jaunts into cities rarely seen in fiction (Castro Valley and Concord).

The biggest problem with reviewing this book is that there is no others to compare it too. Civil War military historians tend to run in packs, writing and rewriting the same themes such as Lee, Grant, Gettysburg, Lincoln, etc. but leaving other fields as bare as a Georgia field after Sherman marched through it. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland are good examples of worthy but nearly ignored subjects.

The book views Rosecrans entire life, with the lion's share of it on his Civil War generalship. Lamer's view of Rosecrans is that he was a brilliant but flawed general who combined great successes with an amazing ability to irritate superiors (such as Stanton), fellow generals (like Grant) and subordinates (future President Garfield) alike. Rosecrans also has the distinction of winning all of his battles from West Virginia to Murfreesboro and brilliantly outmaneuvering Bragg at Tullahoma and Chattanooga, losing only once at Chickamauga, but it was an important loss and cost him his job and his reputation. Lamers takes the viewpoint that Ole' Rosey was partly but not wholly responsible for the fatal order to Wood telling him to move out of the line just as Longstreet was attacking with half of the Army of the Tennessee. As a comparison, Cozzens' This Terrible Sound, the most authorative account of the battle, placed much more of the fault at Rosecrans' feet. His later service in Missouri was anticlimactic but important.

The book has a few flaws, aside from not being long enough. The maps are inadequate. His conversion to Catholicism, one of the more interesting aspects of Rosecrans' personality, isn't covered in nearly enough detail. Neither was his post-war career, aside from a final chapter which basically said he was something of a failure as a businessman. Finally, his own writings are not nearly quoted enough. I didn't get the feeling I was meeting the man, only that I was hearing somebody else write about him. His personal life is all but ignored, despite the wealth of material available to Lamers, who was an excellent researcher. These quibbles aside, Lamer's book is a very good start, although a more detailed and up to date study is badly needed.

Benet wrote this a while back, but it's worth reading, particularly in view of some of the shenangians going on in the Monica affair. Stone sold his soul and lived a long and fruitful life, the devil not bothering him at all due to the promised eventual payoff.

Came time for the payoff, Jabez Stone hired the F. Lee Bailey of the time, silver toungued orator Daniel Webster. The jury was picked by the Devil, no voir dire there. And Webster started his talk. It's good reading today if you can find it.

I have searched hard for a Complete Works of Benet, prose and poetry. His ouevre is not so great that it should be difficult to do. There are many other good stories in there, Johnny Pye and the Fool Killer, By the Waters of Babylon, and poems, too, John Brown's Body of course, but How Hillbilly Jim Won The Georgia Fiddler's Contest, too, and a host of others. Benet is not an author to shove away on the back shelves and forget. He deserves to be read.