Donal Donnelly

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and...

"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?" - CANDIDE Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the absurdly melodramatic story of a young man, Candide, living a sheltered life who clings desperately to "the best of all possible worlds," one which is abruptly interrupted by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey....

The story of Peter Pan, a mischievous young boy who refuses to grow up and the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. One night Peter persuades them to fly to Never-Never Land, where children never have to grow up and he tries to convince them to stay. There they meet one of Peter's companions, a fairy named Tinker Bell, and share some exciting adventures with the friendly Lost Boys and the evil pirate, Captain Hook.

In Red riding hood, a little girl meets a hungry wolf in the forest on her way to visit her grandmother. In Cinderella, in her haste to flee the palace before the fairy godmother's magic loses effect, Cinderella leaves behind a glass slipper. In Goldilocks and the three bears, three bears return home from a walk to find a little girl asleep in baby bear's bed. In The three little pigs, one of three brother pigs survives a wolf's attacks by using...

"'Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo ... '" "So begins one of the most significant literary works of the twentieth century, and one of the most innovative. Its originality shocked contemporary readers on its publication in 1916 who found its treating of the minutiae of daily life indecorous, and its...

Frank Bois is 43 years old and 43 inches tall, but his yearnings are as wide and deep as the night sky he contemplates from his rooftop in Cork, Ireland. The Dork of Cork is his story, a fictional autobiography that captures the emotions of the listener from its provocative opening line to its surprising, but touching, ending. With intelligence and vision that rises far above his diminutive size, Frank shares his engaging meditations on beauty: in...