Whenever a holiday rolls around, publishers leap at the chance to print tie-in titles. This year's batch of books produced for St. Patrick's Day follows the usual pattern. The strongest are fiction and memoirs that were written with care and printed in time for the occasion.
Weaker works seem to have been thrown together with an eye toward marketing.
For anyone who wants to spend St. Patty's Day curled up with a book, we found an anthology and a memoir that offer literary quality and insights into the Irish-American and Irish experience. Irish writer and broadcaster Snell targets young adults with short fiction about the joys and terrors of growing up. He could have envisioned a larger audience for this outstanding work. The inner landscape is as important as the scenery in these selections, but well-drawn Irish settings add atmosphere to some of these tales. Newburyport author Roy links Irish history to his experience renovating a crumbling 16th century tower known as Moyode Castle.