"Brotherhood," a stunning, 240-page book of photos, captures the heavily-Irish New York Fire Department in all its rugged, poignant suffering and glory. Pity Frank McCourt, who was drafted to write the introduction. His words are somehow supposed to stand alongside these extraordinary images. Somehow, he pulls it off. "We don't have to go to the movies anymore for our heroes. We don't have to turn on the television. Our heroes are down the street, chatting at the firehouse door." The Pulitzer Prize-winner from Limerick writes of the only interactions many New Yorkers ever have with the FDNY, holding up their kids to wave as they speed to a blaze, or seeing them shopping in a supermarket. "There's something remarkable about these men in helmets and turnout coats discussing the evening meal. You think there's gonna be plain American food on the table that night or that an Italian is seducing Irish palates away from spuds and steaks. But no, [they] are discussing Thai chicken curry, and you'd like to be invited." "Brotherhood" - which also includes short essays by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Fire Commissioner Thomas von Essen - is the brainchild of an ad executive whose midtown-Manhattan office is a block away from a firehouse that lost 15 men on September 11. Believing this was something that needed to be captured, 60 photographers eventually donated their skills, and chronicled the post-9/11 FDNY. The names of the 343 fallen members of the FDNY also run throughout the book, and the endless list of Irish names - including two victims named Tom Kelly - is heartbreaking. To add perspective to the FDNY's death toll, consider what Commissioner Tom von Essen writes: "The total number of those who had given their lives in the line of duty in the entire 136-year history of our department was 752. On September 11, we lost almost half that number in a single terrible morning." All proceeds go to victims' families.

($29.95 / 240 pages /American Express Publishing)