"This beguiling brew of fascinating scientific facts and illuminating, poignant anecdotes makes Five Quarts something like blood itself: vital and pulsing with energy."
-Entertainment Weekly

From ancient Rome, where gladiators drank the blood of vanquished foes to gain strength and courage, to modern-day laboratories, where machines test blood for diseases and scientists search for elusive cures, Bill Hayes takes us on a whirlwind journey through history, literature, mythology, and science by way of the great red river that runs five quarts strong through our bodies. Hayes also...

Through the eyes and ears of a very young Shawn O'Connor, the story of his grandmother, Emily Romain, and her ten children unfolds through the early decades of the twentieth century to the mid-1960's.

Shawn tells how Emily Roemain came to America with just her steamer trunk and hopes and dreams. Though she met the love of her life and began to achieve her American dream, the untimely deaths of a child and her beloved husband almost stopped her in her tracks.

Shawn goes on to describe how Emily and her ten children would not give up. No matter what setback occurred, Emily used humor,...