In talking about our growing-up years, many of us probably remember our parents pinching pennies. We couldn't (or wouldn't) say, "We were rich and didn't know it." 

But that's the message in Tom Phelan's memoir about growing up poor and working hard on a County Laois farm in the 1940s and 1950s.

Book reviewer Tom Zelman describes the book and its 42 brief chapters as "exceptional...with rich detail and sensitivity."  Zelman's positive comments can be read in this StarTribune article.

I will add the book to my reading list, both for the stories and for the example of how to write a memoir.