There’s never a bad time for book club. Whether your book club is more of a wine club or a snacks club or a fun and friendship club, the camaraderie that comes with a group of people reading the same book and talking it out is unmatched. We’ve rounded up some of our Forge book club favorites that all have reading group guides. They’re perfect for getting the conversation going and offering ways to go deeper into these meaty books.
opens in a new window opens in a new windowRemembrance by Rita Woods Remembrance is one of those books it’s impossible NOT to talk about. It takes you on a journey throughout the country and the ages telling the story of an elderly woman in the present, a slave in 1791 Haiti and an escaped slave in New Orleans in 1857. There are elements of magic that make this a rich book experience like no other. opens in a new windowFind the reading group guide here!
opens in a new windowFather of Lions by Louise Callaghan
Animal lovers and people interested in Middle East politics will be equally captivated by Father of Lions. Louise Callaghan is Middle East Correspondent for the Sunday Times and her take on this incredible story of a zookeeper and the measures he takes to save his animals in the wake of the Iraq War is a truly thrilling read. opens in a new windowFind the reading group guide here!
opens in a new window opens in a new windowThe Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch
Fans of thrillers and historical fiction should look no further than this book, set in 1799 New York City. Dealing with the fallout of a financial crisis, racial tensions and corrupt financiers, The Devil’s Half Mile feels almost contemporary. Young lawyer Justy Flanagan is on the hunt for his father’s killer and the twists and turns he faces will keep you on the edge of your seat. opens in a new windowFind the reading group guide here!
opens in a new window opens in a new windowA Dog’s Promise by W. Bruce Cameron
Dog lovers and book lovers alike know Bruce Cameron is the best choice for an uplifting canine read. This third book in the Dog’s Purpose series continues the story of Bailey and introduces us to Lacey, another very good dog. No one can write the soul of a dog quite like Bruce. And the way these two pups unite a fractured family gives readers plenty to howl about. opens in a new windowFind the reading group guide here!
The ebook edition of The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch is on sale now for only $2.99! Get your copy today!
About The Devil’s Half Mile:
Seven years after a financial crisis nearly toppled America, traders chafe at government regulations, racial tensions are rising, gangs roam the streets and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians… 1799 was a hell of a year.
Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, America has recovered from the panic on the Devil’s Half Mile (aka Wall Street), but the young country is still finding its way. When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to solve his father’s murder, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.
Seven years after a financial crisis nearly toppled America, traders chafe at government regulations, racial tensions are rising, gangs roam the streets and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians… 1799 was a hell of a year.
Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, America recovered from the panic on the Devil’s Half Mile (aka Wall Street), but the young country is still finding its way. When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to solve his father’s murder, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one of the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.
Explore downtown New York in 1799 as seen in Paddy Hirsch’s new historical novel The Devil’s Half Mile with this interactive map, including photos and clips from the audio book.
New York in 1799 wasn’t exactly a civilized haven: murder, corruption, gangs, and general chaos were just a part of daily life. The constitution was only twenty years old, and the Bill of Rights, including the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, was only ratified in 1791. So what happened if you got caught committing a crime? Some of that depended on how much money you had, or if you were unlucky enough to end up in Bridewell Prison. Of course, there was always the chance of escape…
Paddy Hirsch provides some information on what life might look like for a criminal at the end of the eighteenth century in New York City.
The city had three prisons. The New Gaol was reserved as a debtors’ prison, and stood just north of the Common, on the south eastern edge of what is now City Hall Park. The Bridewell Prison was located on the north west edge of the same piece of ground, along Broadway. A new State Prison, known as the Newgate, was situated up the Hudson, in Greenwich.
The Bridewell Prison was notorious for having no windows. Imprisonment in the Bridewell was considered tantamount to a death sentence, which is why Aaron Burr fled New York after his duel with Alexander Hamilton, fearing he might be incarcerated there.
The debtors’ prison was essentially self-governed. The inmates lived in wildly different conditions, depending on how much support they could expect from family and friends. Some lived in the cellars in filth and misery, while others had comfortable rooms on the upper floors, and even servants.
On the afternoon Thursday June 13, New York was shaken by reports of a prison break from Newgate. A group of 50 or 60 convicts employed as shoemakers “seized upon their keepers” and made “a most daring attempt” to escape from the state prison. The attempt started well, but “they were soon discovered by the guards and fired upon, wounding several, and the rest gave up.” The would-be escapees were locked up, but three or four days later, seven of them managed to get out “under the cover off the darkness and storm.” The Gazette reported, “They were naked when they left the prison walls behind them.”
When I was a lad, growing up in the Republic and the North of Ireland during the 80s, St. Patrick’s Day was almost a non-event. It was a saint’s day, which meant you went to church if that was your thing, and if not, you just went about your business as usual. There were no parades, no all-day drinking, no corned beef and cabbage, no wearin’ o’ the green or any of that malarkey.
So you can imagine my surprise when I moved to New York City. I worked in a building on Madison Avenue, in an office that overlooked St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I remember one clear, cold day in March being surprised by the sound of bagpipes. When I peered out of the window at Fifth Avenue, I saw a phalanx of police horses. Back then, mounted cops were firmly associated in my mind with soccer match crowd control, so it wasn’t until I saw a cluster of pompous-looking men in green bowler hats that I realized what day it was.
An Irish American thriller by Paddy Hirsch
I hurried downstairs with a friend to get a proper look at this curious American ritual, and as we rounded the corner onto 52nd street, I saw two apparently naked men, both painted from head to toe in green body paint, obviously drunk and trading punches on the sidewalk.
“Plastic Oirish,” I told my companion. “Pissed as a pair of Galway priests. They’ll be down on the train from Poughkeepsie or wherever, no doubt, telling everyone how their great grandfathers were off the boat from Kerry.”
We closed in on the pair, who had preserved their modesty with a pair of New York Jets workout towels and some bits of string. They had stopped fighting and were now abusing each other, loudly. They were impossible to comprehend. At first I thought this was because they were so drunk. Then I realized it was because their accents were so thick. Irish accents. North Dublin accents, to be precise. We got talking, and it was with a very red face that I learned that these lads weren’t even immigrants. They were students, come across on a cheap Aer Lingus special to sample the delights of a real St. Patrick’s celebration, the like of which was not available in Ireland at the time. Needless to say I had to cover my embarrassment by taking us all for a pint.
That was then, and this is now, and today there’s no need for Dublin students to fly across the Atlantic for a proper saint’s day session because St. Patrick’s celebrations in Ireland knock those in America into a cocked hat. Chicago has its green river, New York has its huge parade, but in Dublin St. Patrick’s is no longer a day. It’s an entire festival, as many as five days long, with dancing, singing, art displays, hurling contests, rugby matches, road races, food stalls, cooking competitions, live music and literature.
On St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, it can feel as though the entire population of the city is wearing green. The streets of the center of town throng with people clutching pints and clad in risqué and/or ridiculous costumes in various shades of emerald. You’ll probably find entire battalions of young lads covered in green body paint and wearing Jets towels. In 1994, though, you’d have seen nothing of the kind. Back then, the North of Ireland was still in the grip of the Troubles, the Republic was in the doldrums and Dublin wasn’t much of a place to party. Still, a few enterprising city officials who had visited America were glancing over the Atlantic and wondering whether it might be possible to replicate the massive (and massively profitable) New York or Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parades in the saint’s adoptive land (he was born in Scotland).
A campaign began and a festival was born. It was an immediate success, spurred by the end of the Troubles and a growth spurt in the Celtic Tiger economy. Today the Dublin St. Patrick’s Festival attracts more than a million people and has spawned a whole brood of mini-events throughout Ireland, with each individual town offering its own kind of saint’s day craic.
Observing the enthusiasm with which the Irish turn out (and turn up) for their saint’s day today, it’s hard to believe that they didn’t celebrate it much before 1994. The truth is that there have been St. Patrick’s Day parades and such in the past in Ireland, but they started late and were muted by religion, the law and sectarian tensions. The city of Waterford held Ireland’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1903, after the 17th of March was designated a national holiday. Dublin didn’t follow suit until it held its first parade in 1931. And these were generally short, sober affairs. The church preferred people to celebrate their patron saint on their knees at mass, and lawmakers appeared to concur: pubs were closed by law on March 17th until the 1970s, and stores were banned from selling alcohol of any kind on the day between 1927 and 1961.
America is often unfairly thought of as a young country without much history, that borrows its traditions from its forebears. In the case of St. Patrick’s Day, the reverse is true. The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland but in America, 300 years before the burghers of Waterford got their act together. The year was 1601, and the marchers were Irish members of the Spanish colony in St. Augustine, Florida. The man who organized the celebration and the march was the Irish vicar of the colony. It was the start of a tradition that has lasted more than four centuries: Irish immigrants to America, rallying on their saint’s day as a way to build community.
Unlike in Ireland, these observances have not been spoiled by tension between Catholics and protestants over the years. New York’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration was held in 1762 in the home of John Marshall, an Irish protestant. The first recorded parade in New York was a British Army affair, held in 1766 by Irish soldiers who would have been both protestant and Catholic. The men and women who came over from Ireland in the mid-to-late 1800s were overwhelmingly Catholic, but they were happy enough to march alongside their protestant countryfolk – in reassuringly large numbers, of course.
St. Patrick’s Day parades started as a way for the Irish-Americans to build community, but they eventually became a way for them to show their political muscle. When the Irish first started coming across the Atlantic after the Revolutionary war, they were vilified and spurned. But demographics worked in their favour, and within a century, the Irish had come to dominate the big industrial cities of Boston, New York and Chicago. The size of the parades in those cities reflected the extent of Irish political and economic power, culminating in the decision in 1961 – unimaginable a century before – to dye the Chicago River emerald green.
Small wonder that these great St. Patrick’s Day parades inspired those Dublin City officials in 1994. All of which goes to say that if you’re an American in Ireland on the day itself, you’re well within your rights to suggest that the fella at the bar there stand you a pint. After all, were it not for you Yanks Ireland wouldn’t have a St. Patrick’s Festival in the first place: it was your lot showed the rest of us the way.
Order a Copy of The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch:
Whether you’re enjoying the summer heat or hiding indoors with the air conditioning on, it’s the perfect season to catch up on your reading. We love both historical fiction and pulse-pounding thrillers – so here are some books that perfectly combine the two, from the end of the 18th century to the tumultuous days of World War II.
opens in a new windowRare-book dealer Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington, are headed to California in search of a lost journal. The journal follows young James Spencer, of the Sagamore Mining Company, on a spectacular journey from staid Boston, up the Sacramento River to the Mother Lode, searching for a “lost river of gold.”
Peter and Evangeline quickly discover that there’s something much bigger and more dangerous going on, and Peter’s son is in the middle of it. Turns out, that lost river of gold may be more than a myth.
opens in a new windowIn 1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America’s first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to unveil Dante’s remarkable visions to the New World.
The members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell’s punishments from Dante’s Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante’s literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.
opens in a new windowSeven years after a financial crisis nearly toppled America, traders chafe at government regulations, racial tensions are rising, gangs roam the streets and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians… 1799 was a hell of a year.
Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, America has recovered from the panic on the Devil’s Half Mile (aka Wall Street), but the young country is still finding its way. When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to solve his father’s murder, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.
opens in a new windowBursting with compelling characters and tense story lines, this historical thriller is a deeply affecting, unputdownable series of twists and turns through a landscape at times horrifyingly familiar but still completely new and compelling.
Poland. 1944. Alfred Mendl and his family are brought on a crowded train to a Nazi concentration camp after being caught trying to flee Paris with forged papers. His family is torn away from him on arrival, his life’s work burned before his eyes. To the guards, he is just another prisoner, but in fact Mendl—a renowned physicist—holds knowledge that only two people in the world possess.
opens in a new windowThirty-year-old Lena Stillman is living a perfectly respectable life when a shocking newspaper headline calls up her past: it concerns her former lover, charismatic bank robber Bill Bagley. A romantic and charming figure, Lena had tried to forget him by resuming her linguistic studies, which led to her recruitment as a Navy code-breaker intercepting Japanese messages during World War II.
But can Lena keep her own secrets? Threatening notes and the appearance of an old diary that recalls her gangster days are poised to upset her new life.
opens in a new window The Laundry is the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry’s existence has become public, and Bob Howard is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob nor his managers have foreseen is that their organization has earned the attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a British government looking for public services to privatize.
opens in a new window Seven years after a financial crisis nearly toppled America, traders chafe at government regulations, racial tensions are rising, gangs roam the streets and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians… 1799 was a hell of a year.
When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to solve his father’s murder, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.
opens in a new window Legend says that Aurora Pavan’s ancestors first gained their magic by facing a storm and stealing part of its essence. Aurora has been groomed to be the perfect queen…but she’s yet to show any trace of the magic she’ll need to protect her people. But when a handsome young storm hunter reveals he was born without magic, but possesses it now, Aurora realizes there’s a third option for her future besides ruin or marriage…
opens in a new window Texas: 1931. It’s the height of the Great Depression, and Bonnie is miles from Clyde. He’s locked up, and she’s left waiting, their dreams of a life together dwindling every day.
When Clyde returns from prison damaged and distant, unable to keep a job, and dogged by the cops, Bonnie knows the law will soon come for him. But there’s only one road forward for her.
If the world won’t give them their American Dream, they’ll just have to take it.
opens in a new window The Chicago field office of the Bureau of Preternatural Investigation is facing its deadliest challenge, yet—internal investigation! Alex and Lindy are on the hook, and on the run.
But when all of the BPI’s captive vampires are broken free from their maximum security prison, and Hector finally steps out of the shadows, Alex must use every trick to stay ahead of both the BPI and the world’s most dangerous shade.
Wednesday, June 13th opens in a new windowSouthshore Center
Excelsior, MN
7:00 PM
Literature Lovers’ Night Out – also with Liam Callahan, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Sarah Healy, hosted by Excelsior Bay Books.
Thursday, June 14th opens in a new windowThe Grand Banquet Center
Stillwater, MN
7:00 PM
Literature Lovers’ Night Out – also with Liam Callahan, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Sarah Healy, hosted by Valley Bookseller.
opens in a new windowIt’s 1799 – welcome to the greatest city in the world. New York at the turn of the 18th century looked just a bit different than it does today, though. Sections of Manhattan were still underwater, revolutionary legends like Alexander Hamilton still roamed the streets, and plumbing for the city’s growing population remained an unaddressed problem. Paddy Hirsch, author of The Devil’s Half Mile(May 2018), gives us just a glimpse of what life was like in the Big Apple in a time before the Statue of Liberty, the subway, fire departments, and the stock exchange.
The population was exploding. 60,000 people lived in the city, and that number doubled in just 20 years, to 123,000, then doubled again to 202,000 in 1830. New York’s population hit a million just after 1870.
A view of Collect Pond and its vicinity in the City of New York.
Canal Street was a muddy tidal stream, surrounded by marshland. The area south of Canal Street and east of Broadway was a large freshwater pond, called the Collect. A few hundred yards north, where Mott and Grand Streets meet today, was a small hill named Bayard’s Mount. You can guess the rest: as New York began to expand, starting around 1802, Bayard’s Mount was leveled, and much of the hill ended up filling in the pond. The stream was dug out and extended into a canal that helped drain the water, which by this time had been horribly polluted by the abattoirs and breweries around the shores of the Collect.
People did their grocery shopping in five markets around the city: the Fly, Catherine, Exchange and Oswego. And the Bear Market, which got its name in 1771, when a young butcher named Jacob Fincke trapped, killed and dressed a bear that had swum across the Hudson from New Jersey. People came from all over the town to see the bear’s pelt—and buy its meat—and the name stuck.
A painting of the Tontine Coffee House by Francis Guy.
Coffee was every bit as popular a drink as it is today. Business was conducted in coffee houses all around the city, and stalls lined the streets down by the waterfronts, slaking the thirst and staunching the hunger of market traders and stevedores. “Four cents a pint for coffee and two for a muffin” was the going rate for “the salutary beverage so much appreciated for its vivifying efficacy.”
Most of the buildings in the city were made of wood, and fire was a constant threat. The city had a handful of fire engines “of a very inferior quality” and the onus was on citizens to take care of themselves in the event of a blaze. There were wooden stand-pumps at every street corner, and every household was required by the City Corporation to keep fire-buckets on the premises, one “for every fire-place in the house, or back kitchen; these buckets held three gallons, made of sole leather; they were hung in the passage near the front door. When the bell rang for fire, the watchmen firemen and boys, while running to the fire, sung out, ‘Throw out your buckets.’ The citizens would form lines, fill buckets and do their best to put out the fire themselves.
Fresh water was had to come by. Most of the water pumped out of the ground was not clean enough to drink or wash clothes in, so every house had a cistern in its back yard to catch rainwater. Hawkers went door to door selling casks of ‘tea-water’, for brewing tea and coffee and mixing with liquor. But the year before, the Manhattan Company had connected a steam-powered pump to extract water from the Collect pond, and had made a start on the construction of a system of wooden water pipes to carry fresh water around the city.
opens in a new windowRemembrance by Rita Woods
opens in a new windowFather of Lions by Louise Callaghan
opens in a new windowThe Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch
opens in a new windowMidnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber
opens in a new windowA Dog’s Promise by W. Bruce Cameron
