Articles
New Mainers: Portraits of Our Immigrant Neighbors
Tilbury House, 2009 Paperback, $20 For immigrants, a rebirth in Maine Echoing Hippocrates and Aretaeus (ancient Greek physicians) about the importance of a positive environment on one’s thoughts, emotions and actions, Winifred Gallagher, in her provocative book, The Power of Place, writes: “Burdened with increasingly complex social roles, we need places that support rather than
Maine Street: Faces and Stories From a Small Town
Down East Books, 2009 Hardcover, 112 pages ($24.95) Hidden lives are everywhere “Some subjects come to me as gifts,” said Patrisha McLean. Moving to Camden 18 years ago, after always living in big cities, she began a newspaper column “Patrisha’s People,” brief bios and photo portraits “to celebrate the extraordinary people I feel privileged to
North By Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne, Mohawk, and Tuscarora Traditional Arts
Tilbury House, 2008 Softcover, 120 pages, $20 Native American artists continue their culture through crafts “Traditional teachings, stories, songs, symbols, language-all these shared understandings-tell us who we are as Haudenosaunee (People Building a House),” writes Folklorist Kathleen Mundell in her new book. Mundell has been gathering material for this book for 15 years. Native American
A Maine Summer Island: The Story of Bustins
Islandport Press, 2008 Softcover, 171 pages, $16.95 A summer idyll Once upon a time, many years ago, I visited an island, a small rise of sand and palm trees off the east coast of Panama. At high tide the island barely measured two acres. I had not known how small it was before we got
Maine books to give (or receive) during the holidays
Somebody not terribly famous once said: “After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.” I ponder this old adage wistfully glancing around my small house. What I need are more walls. I suffer from an incurable disease – bibliomania. About 5,000 books of all sizes, shapes and subjects rise up the walls
A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America
Bloomsbury USA, 2007 Hardcover, 304 pages, $24.95. Art on the half shell MFK Fisher, in her delectable book Consider the Oyster, begins with, “An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life…” The poor thing beginning as a mere wisp in a vast sea, suffers sexual confusion as it reverts from a he to a she
What’s in a picture? Uncovering the hidden stories in Vintage Maine photographs
Down East Books, 2008 Softcover, 112 pages, 50 photos, $14.95 Unlocking the secrets hidden in historic photos I was 19, watching them for the umpteenth-early-Sunday morning, this time with camera in hand. Two longtime friends sitting in our shore-to-ship dinghy (The Tender Behind, as all our dinghies were named) in obvious debating attitude, smiling, each
Otherworldly Maine
Don’t turn out the lights Otherworldliness writing is not my usual choice of genre, and yet I found myself unable to put Noreen Doyle’s collected stories aside, or go to sleep, reading it through one entire night. “Turn off the light,” a friend said, calling at some very late hour. She forgot. I never turn
Richard Russo recruits fellow-writers to tell stories of hospice
He was gone in an instant, slipping away quickly, slumping to the floor, releasing life…perhaps sensing in that last swift-ebbing consciousness, a distant ringing. I was calling my father back, telephoning to apologize for arbitrary nastiness, unwarranted temper, directed at him an hour before. He wanted to see his grandchild…”come with Laura for lunch…” he
Love On the Rocks: Stories of rustications and romance on Mount Desert Island
Pack your bags for Mount Desert’s gilded age Such remote alternate social world is revealed in the utterly charming anthology, a revisit to the romance of old Bar Harbor which spawned an avalanche of short stories and writings called Bar Harbor novels about Mount Desert Island in the 19th century. The water that surrounds the