If you're looking for the good-timey, not-too-heavy-on-the-lyrics, straight-ahead music Band, you'll enjoy this. But Jericho it's not: if you're looking for more thoughtful lyrics, more complex arrangements, that's the album to get from this period. Overall, this feels most like Rick's album. Fun but not life-changing.

It's very refreshing to read this collection of stories about the Northeast (and a couple in Michigan, North Dakota) because these stories capture this area in a very fresh way. I compare this writer favorably to Richard Russo: Drummy is quirkier and not as neat as Russo, but in the end the stories make me laugh and cry about an area of the country I have a love/hate relationship with. They hit me harder than Russo.

"Dolphin" captures Buffalo/The Falls in a way that very few stories have. "Peretuck" has so many cliched elements, with football, love story, other stuff that would give the story away--but again it's fresh somehow. It's the voice, a funny, honest voice. "Apprentice" is the most extreme story, very funny, very sad, very bizarre, but I never stop believing in it. I've never read a story quite like it.

This is a good buy at 12 bucks, and the freshest read I've had in years. I guess I've said "fresh" about 10 times, and I guess that says it all.

And I do, so this is a Superb Reference Book! Andrews thows everything at the wall about every insect, animal, etc.--from Native American symbolism to Greek symbolism to pagan beliefs and on and on. Sometimes it seems a little too comprehensive and not discriminating enough--as if EVERYTHING is a symbol for water and therefore maybe time to take a look at your feminine energies, therefore create, therefore. . . . But we're grown-ups, we can do our own distinguishing.

He also covers everything from numerology to symbolic qualities of trees and flowers and everything distantly related to the topic. It's truly comprehensive and eminently readable. If you have any belief in this stuff, buy the book!