Purchased August 5th, 2005 at the Thrift Store on 3rd Avenue between 28th and 29th Streets in New York, NY for $1 for the purpose of bookcrossing.

I've already read this one (in a bookring!) and enjoyed it thoroughly. In addition to buying my own copy, I've also purchased this one to share!

This was one of Amazon.com's Best of 2001.

There is also a TV-movie (out on DVD in September) based on the book starring Ed Harris and Paul Newman.

Publisher's Weekly says: From Publishers Weekly
In his biggest, boldest novel yet, the much-acclaimed author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man subjects a full cross-section of a crumbling Maine mill town to piercing, compassionate scrutiny, capturing misfits, malefactors and misguided honest citizens alike in the steady beam of his prose. Wealthy, controlling matriarch Francine Whiting lives in an incongruous Spanish-style mansion across the river from smalltown Empire Falls, dominated by a long-vacant textile mill and shirt factory, once the center of her husband's family's thriving manufacturing dominion. In his early 40s, passive good guy Miles Roby, the son of Francine's husband's long-dead mistress, seems helpless to escape his virtual enslavement as longtime proprietor of the Whiting-owned Empire Grill, the town's most popular eatery, which Francine has promised to leave him when she dies. Miles's wife, Janine, is divorcing him and has taken up with an aging health club entrepreneur. In her senior year in high school, their creative but lonely daughter, Tick, is preoccupied by her parents' foibles and harassed by the bullying son of the town's sleazy cop who, like everyone else, is a puppet of the domineering Francine. Struggling to make some sense of her life, Tick tries to befriend a boy with a history of parental abuse. To further complicate things, Miles's brother, David, is suspected of dealing marijuana, and their rascally, alcoholic father is a constant annoyance. Miles and David's secret plan to open a competing restaurant runs afoul of Francine just as tragedy erupts at the high school. Even the minor members of Russo's large cast are fully fleshed, and forays into the past lend the narrative an extra depth and resonance. When it comes to evoking the cherished hopes and dreams of ordinary people, Russo is unsurpassed. (May)Forecast: A 100,000-copy first printing of this impressive effort would probably fly off shelves even without the support of a 16-city author tour, national advertising and promotion, national media appearances, bookmarks, posters and a reading group guide. Returning with a flourish to familiar smalltown territory after his foray into academia with Straight Man, Russo could make a splash on big-city bestseller lists.

I am making this a bookray! Here are the participants so far:

twinkpuddin (NY - prefers US)
deadsteen (NY, prefers US)
amymaew (PA)
LittleCatZ72 (NH)
moraelyn (CA - prefers US)
cisco (CA, prefers US)
Busybeesfamily (TX, can ship international)
athomegoddess (CA, can ship surface)
gothamgal (OH, prefers US)
atnaturesmercy (NJ, prefers US but can ship int'l)
rebeccaljames (prefers to ship US)
cisco (CA, prefers US)
omly (MA, can ship int'l)
butterfly-noir (Portugal, prefers EU)
Nell-Lu (prefers UK or EU)
ariuca (Spain, prefers EU)

Please journal the book once you have received it (so we all know where it currently is) and again when you have read it (so we know what you thought of it!).

Starting today!

RELEASE NOTES:

Handed off to twinkpuddin!

Finished last nite. I had seen the TV movie before I read the book. Since I enjoyed that I was really looking forward to reading it. I really liked the book a lot; I hardly wanted to set it down. The movie and book are alike, but I enjoyed all the extra details in the book.

Will send along as soon as I have deadsteen's address. Thanks for including me KarenZero!

RELEASE NOTES:

Dropped in the mail today! Enjoy!

Arrived yesterday... Will dig in as soon as I (find and) finish my current read.
Sept 20--Found and finished my missing book, started this one, and then left it at the doctor's office!! Hopefully this problem with misplacing/forgetting books will stop-- I'm not usually this forgetful. Will recover it this afternoon and get back into it.

I enjoyed this book very much. I know it was recently made into a TV movie and I would like to see it. The characters are very vivid and very real (although somewhat exaggerated). This is a fun book.
On its way to amymaew tomorrow

received today! I'll be starting it in the next day or so! Thanks :)

I really liked this book! It isn't one that I think I would have picked up if I was browsing in a bookstore, so I'm glad I joined the bookring! Thanks for sharing KarenZero! I'm sending it off to LittleCatZ72 today. Enjoy!

I actually got this a couple of weeks ago, and started reading it right away. I'll post again when I'm done and have sent it on its way.

I really like the story up until the end. I don't want to give it away for anyone, but it was a bit "deus ex machina" for me - a little too easy. It will be in the mail on Monday and on its way to moraelyn.

Sorry I wasn't able to journal it earlier, I just got back from vaca and it was waiting for me!

Finished last night! I couldn't wait to get to the end, and then I was disappointed. I loved the characters, and the emotions, and the way the book was written. I kept wondering how the book could ever end? I really didn't want it to. I wanted to follow them through the rest of their lives, I cared for them that much. And as I was reading the last 50 pages, it seemed to me that the author felt the same way, and so he threw a hasty ending on it.

Wonderful book overall, and I don't see how they could turn it into a decent series/movie.

Will get this on to Cisco this week!

Received in the mail.
Looking forward to lots of reading next week, with the President's Day holiday!

SEnt to the next reader on April 20 - never was able to carve out the time to read this book. Hope to try again later in the ring!






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