The Books of Furnass were written to stand alone, so you’re welcome to jump in wherever you like. In case you want to read them in order, start with The Building and the Furnass Towers Trilogy.
The Books of Furnass
12 Books. 1 Mill Town. 250 Years.
The Best Literary Series You Haven’t Discovered Yet.
“A literary homage to the kind of locale that forges generations.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“Snodgrass artfully contrives an entirely literary cosmos.”
– Kirkus Reviews
Should I read the Books of Furnass in order?
Video
Here’s a video introduction to the mill town of Furnass
Please note: Since the time this video was made, the Books of Furnass series has grown from eight books to twelve.
Moving the Hat
“Striking multimedia exploration of family, legacy, and self.”
– BookLife Reviews
“A comprehensive and unflinching glimpse at a humble but extraordinary life.”
– IndieReader Seal of Approval
“A stunning piece of personal revelation and humanistic wisdom.”
– Self-Publishing Review
“A meandering but reliably rich memoir of an artist and his maturation.”
– Kirkus Reviews
Torn A Novel
“Deeply human story of a masked soldier’s return to a Depression-era mill town.”
– BookLife Editor’s Pick
“Adding to an already impressive history of this fictional town, this latest intimate and enthralling tale is the best Furnass novel yet…”
– Self-Publishing Review
“Evoking a very specific industrial small-town… aspects of this America are so concretely human as to feel mythic…”
– Indie Reader
“Thoughtful and emotionally complex… displays an impressive sensitivity to the profound ways in which a family’s present is shaped by its past.”
– Kirkus Reviews
Critical Acclaim
For Richard Snodgrass’ Novels
There’s Something in the Back Yard
Observe this mysterious book and be changed.
The Building
The pace is unhurried but inexorable, a relentless march toward a shocking conclusion.
The Building
…artistically unflinching and morally unsentimental.
Some Rise
Richard Snodgrass’ gift for characterization, plotting, and dialogue make Some Rise one of the most engaging family sagas/literary mysteries we’ve read in years.
Some Rise
…An artistically daring examination of the line that separates love from fanatical possession.
All Fall Down
Snodgrass’ writing is unpretentious but poetically evocative, an ambitious attempt to combine a realistic portrayal of a gritty working-class town with literary style.
All Fall Down
An immersive murder mystery wrapped in an emotionally astute look at the burden of a town’s moral history.
Across the River
A beautiful historical novel that proves history is created and changed by individuals, not just events.
Across the River
A vivid and intensely personal story couched within the chaos, madness and sacrifice of the Civil War.
Across the River
The writing is beautiful. The complex characters, faced daily with choices between their deepest desires and their integrity, in the midst of war, make compelling reading. This book stands alone, while stoking the desire for rest of the books in the series.
Richard Snodgrass
Author & Photographer
Richard Snodgrass is the author of the novel, There’s Something in the Back Yard, published by Viking Press 1989, to critical acclaim: “Observe this mysterious book and be changed,” wrote Jack Stephens in the Washington Post Book World. After more than 35 years in development, his series, The Books of Furnass, about a fictitious Western Pennsylvania mill town, was released beginning in 2018. Richard Snodgrass is also the author of two books of photographs and text: An Uncommon Field: The Flight 93 Temporary Memorial, published in September of 2011 by Carnegie Mellon University Press; and, Kitchen Things: An Album of Vintage Utensils, published in 2013 by Skyhorse, named one of the year’s “best books to get you thinking about food” by the Associated Press. In 2022, Carnegie Mellon University Press published a memoir entitled, The House with Round Windows. In 2026, Richard published a second memoir with Calling Crow Press entitled MOVING THE HAT.
Richard Snodgrass’s short stories and essays have appeared in the New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly, South Dakota Review, California Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is also a master photographer who has been artist-in-residence at LightWorks (University of Syracuse) and at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Richard Snodgrass lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife Marty.