If you roll your eyes at another memoir of Irish poverty, you'll be missing an exceptionally poignant and inspiring new book from Bill Cullen: "It's a Long Way from Penny Apples." Born and raised in the notorious Dublin slum of Summerhill, Cullen was one of fourteen children. He started selling anything he could get his hands on from the age of six, and spent years on the street helping to put food on the Cullen family table. Cullen left school at thirteen and in the mid-1950s, got a job as a messenger boy for a pound a week at Walden's Ford Dealer in Dublin.

By 1986, Cullen, already a celebrated executive, was taking over a troubled Renault car company from Waterford Crystal, kicking off a turnaround which would result in the formation of the Glencullen Group, one of Ireland's and the world's great business success stories.

"It's a Long Way from Penny Apples" is a twist on the Irish experience of poverty, one which does not result in emigration, but instead produces an unlikely success story in Ireland itself.

Managing to find humor and kinship amidst terrible poverty, maybe it is now finally acceptable for some people to become slightly perturbed by Bill Cullen. After all, not only has he overcome adversity to find fame and fortune, he can also write a heck of a story. ($24.95 / Forge / 367 pages)