Selecting a book to commemorate our one year anniversary was a big task, one that weighed heavily on my mind.  Last year's inaugural selection set the tone that created "Year of the Memoir".  I wanted to be sure that we picked a good one - one that was engaging, epic, well written, and didn't include the phrase "don't get me started".  There is only one person who can accept this task without blinking an eye - Nora.  Born a Midwesterner, Nora is now a New Yorker, living the single-girl-in-the-big-city/Sex in the City kind of life that none of the rest of us are living [Note to Mrs. McInerny: I'm not saying that Nora is having SEX in the city, I'm sure she's not, she spent her entire education in Catholic school for God's sake].  For her selection, she turned to her beloved new city and chose a book that takes place on now familiar streets.  Please join Nora and me in reading Forever by Pete Hamill


Described as an epic tale of a man who is granted immortality as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan.  Starting in 1740, Manhattan grows from an untamed wilderness to the metropolis of today, shaped by greed, race, waves of immigrations, and hope.  Sounds fascinating, doesn't it?

Strangers say:
"I couldn't put this down. I read and read with hair standing on end... wondering what was going to happen. It's so good that you fall in love with Cormac and the book. Pete Hamill is probably one of the best writers on Irish immigrants and NYC. It's an amazing book!!"
- Elizabeth

"What a sad existence. To live for almost 300 years. I absolutely loved learning about the evolution of New York City. Pete Hamill has obviously done his research well. But, I had a hard time identifying with the personal and religious convictions that drove Cormac O'Connor [to his actions]. This smacks far too much of the type of fanaticism that caused Hamill's beloved New York such horrific catastrophe in September 2001. A point he fails to grasp as he uses the World Trade Towers as a centerpiece [in the story]. "
- Blackville

"If September 11th was a terrible warning of New York's mortality, Hamill's entertaining panhistorical fantasy is a paean to its immortality. In 1740, an Irish Jew named Cormac O'Connor heads to New York in pursuit of the man who killed his father and gets tangled up in a rebellion against the English. Through a series of events involving an African slave with shamanistic powers, he is granted eternal life, provided that he never leaves Manhattan. There follows a tour of the city's history through Cormac's eyes: the political corruption and the poverty, but also the majestic growth of the metropolis through its culture, its buildings, and its people. The book's central conceit could almost have come from the pages of Twain or Bellamy, but Hamill pulls his story fiercely into the present by centering the final phase of Cormac's narrative on the World Trade Center attacks themselves."
- The New Yorker (hardly qualifying as a stranger)

When I asked Nora if there was a wine she'd like to pair with this month's selection, suggesting that maybe she choose something she'd discovered since her arrival in New York, she laughed in my face.  It was then that I remembered that when I was Nora's same age, I lived next to her sister, Meghan, and it was at this point in our lives when the Box of Wine was our beverage of choice/necessity.  A step above wine in a box, this month's pairing is Brooklyn Lager which of course, is actually a beer.  Sure, it's not technically a wine pairing, or from Manhattan like the setting of the book, but it's New York-ish and it came highly recommended by our girl on the New York Street - Nora.