As the season's first snowstorm hits Minnesota, I'm wishing I'd already collected a pile of new books for winter reading. Today, John Grenham's 'Irish Roots' column gives a strong recommendation to Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923. Written by Irish scholar R. F. Foster, the book takes its title from the opening lines of William Butler Yeats' poem "Easter 1916": I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses... Foster's book focuses on ordinary men and women, the 'vivid faces' of Irish rebels. He draws on personal letters and diaries to bring his characters to life and present a detailed social and cultural history. According to Grenham's review, the early chapters present the roots of the 1916 Rising as a conflict between generations. He points out how "Foster has to reconstruct networks of marriage and schools and business, the second cousins, the in-laws , the family rows - all the stuff of family history, in other words." Colm Toibin, another Irish author, praises the book in his review: "Vivid Faces is an ingenious and original account of the generation of men and women who created the conditions for revolution in Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century. By looking at social and sexual life, at private diaries, at marriages and friendships, by examining literary as well as military activity, using his brilliant historian's intelligence, Foster has reinterpreted the 1916 Rebellion in Dublin. The result is the study of a generation who sought not only political but personal freedom, and in doing so, set about reimagining an entire nation." Amazon editors have picked Vivid Faces as one of the 'Best Books of 2014'. They call it "a masterful history of Ireland's Easter Rising told through the lives of ordinary people who forged a revolutionary generation." I'm putting Vivid Faces on my Christmas list.