thank GOD the Vatican isn't run by book reviewers...

...or we'd never have any Saints and Martyrs.

The book reviewers' world - amateur and professional - seems a material one , consumed by the almighty dollar figure on the cover of any book they choose to review.

Or so it seems : but there is actually a more acceptable reason for their surface shallowness.

Simply overwhelmed by all the books offered up for review, they share among themselves one simple - brutal - rule of thumb : if a book is really, really good a big canny commercial publisher would be offering it up for sale, at a hefty price.

If it is merely good, it would be at least published by some sort of commercial publisher or , if self-published, at least offered for sale at a hefty price on Amazon.

But a book researched, written and offered up for free on its own website, in an act of charity, merely because the subject of the book after all offered up his life in an act of charity ?

Interesting concept - worthy even - but we don't have time to review it.

Sorry.

So dear blog viewer, if you want to read all of "Life's Manhattan Project" for free - with colourful illustrations by the author to boot - cling to this blog site like a shipwrecked sailor clings to a log.

Otherwise, be prepared to pony up $9.99 and taxes to get the e-book version from Amazon Kindle : black and white text without the illustrations.

Or patiently wait for the off chance it might published in hardcover by one of the Big Six/ Five/ Four  publishers at $39.95 a pop.

On that lachyrmose day, it might be expensive enough to be dissected by even the very overwhelmed book reviewers at the New York Times....