Maine Books

Neil Rolde had given us a history book for the regular guy. It is well written and full of interesting illustrations. He gives good history, without making it dry or overdone. For anyone who is interested in the history of Maine, but does not go in for the giant tomes and multi-volume sets, this is the book for you.

All along the Maine Coast people are born with salt in their blood. From Kittery on the Piscatqua to Calais on the St Croix, these twenty five hundred miles of shore line have been the scene of shipbuilding and seafaring for over three hundred years! This book takes you there, in the ship, at the launching of a new "Down-Easter". Even the records of cargo and plans of ships are in this book. A real must read for Tall Ship lovers!

Marty Engstrom is one of those colorful, unforgettable New England characters that always has an interesting story to tell. From the Northeast's highest peak, home to "the worst weather in the world," Marty writes about the countless days and nights he spent at the WMTW-TV transmitter facility located at the summit of Mount Washington, testing the limits of human endurance and the limits of technology. Truly fascinating.

Sarah Orne Jewett lived in Maine from 1849-1909. Noted for her local color writing, she is featured in this book which is based on a film of her life.
The old photos show scenes from Maine, each accompanied by a paragraph relating the photo to Jewett's life or her various books. Readers of Country of the Pointed Firs or other Jewett titles will find this quick intro to her life expands their understanding of her writing.
Jewett never married and lived her whole life in a small village (South Berwick) in Maine in the same house where she was born. Possibly if she'd lived today, she would be considered a feminist, as she was quite independent for a woman in the 1800s.

Carlos Martinez's "Meanwhile Back in Kansas," is a must read. The poems are so engaging and well crafted it is hard to put down. This is one of those books you will continue to go back to, and each time you will see details he's slipped in that you missed in previous readings. His poetry is easy to connect to because of thematic universals, a man's struggles with age and family. His language is beautiful, an auditory delight. These poems are not just for men but for all people of every ethnicity. He most eloquently takes us back to what it means to be human in a contemporary world.

Allie isn't looking forward to her summer: her isolated Maine community offers few friends and her father has injured his back, so the family has to pitch in and start a new business to help out. When she meets a summer girl whose family is staying at an elegant home they inherited, she forms an uncertain friendship with a girl who has everything monetarily, but lacks family support. Their friendship will change both their worlds in this moving story of conflict and discovery.

This book is a wonderful read for not only bottle lovers but for anyone. Heartfelt and amusing observations about family and life. The author shares interesting and entertaining facts about bottles and his own adventures. The book goes deeper than just insights about the world of bottle digging. Makes you step back and think about your own life and how much you appreciate the gifts God has given us. I think this book will be of interest to many people. Highly recommended..Makes you want to go and dig up a bottle!

This is an incredible book. Tremendous photographs documenting old-Maine. And as well terribly interesting text from the artist's granddaughter. The photographer was the wife of a vice-presidential candidate and yet virtually nothing is known of her life. The commentary and deductions are really interesting and moving. Highly recommended. I really enjoyed reading and studying this. I really appreciate Ms Sewall's efforts in saving and disseminating these photos!

I read a review for A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood that called it a "woman's novel", and I bristled instinctively at the use of gender labeling on a work of art. But on reading Atwood's work, I had to admit that it was an accurate assessment. Her imagery sank deeply into that illusive yet definitive part of me that is woman, not man. Jan's poetry affected me in much the same way. There were times when that assessment narrowed even more to that instinctual yet learned essence that is mother. As I read, I felt the tell-tale closing tension of my throat, followed by the creeping heat of societal shame at mid-day tears on a cleaning afternoon. Four words and an image so strong, so clear, so real, that she took me years away from my chair. Jan's poetry needs to be appreciated as much for their line-by-line beauty as for their totality; and while even a man may see the beauty, a woman will feel it. A mother will relive it.

Do you ever go into a shop or library and by sheer chance find the answer to some question you're just putting into words? That happened to me last week, when I found the perfect partner for my love affair with Maine literary experience.

The preface of The Mirror of Maine explains that it is "an annotated and illustrated bibliography [tracing] the State's literary and cultural development..." One hundred books were selected, spanning the period between 1613 and 1999. Among the stated criteria, the most interesting is "books that have endured." The book's launch was heralded by a school reading competition, a library reading and discussion series, and an exhibition. For each book there is a page of text describing its impact.

This grant-funded project involved years of extensive consultation throughout the state. No more than one book was selected from any writer; and anthologies, compilations and encyclopedias were excluded. In the end the selection committee had to make their best informed decisions. They received a lot of advice, some discouraging, some bracing. In the latter category: "Include as many books as possible on this great list, lob it into the culture crowd, and run like h***." In the end, what else could they do but that?

Maine became a state in 1820, having been a part of Massachusetts until that year. The first ten books have to do with the exploration and development of the area that became Maine; many or most of these are not available but reprints are hoped for.

Item 11: in 1825 the state legislature paid for ten thousand copies of the Constitutions of Maine and the U.S., bound together, to be distributed to schoolchildren. Brilliant!

While reading, I marked the books I wanted to mention in my review; photography, children's literature, poetry, fiction, essays, journals, history, biology. Nearly half a hundred! Impossible to mention them all. My own painful selection process led to a very short list of my personal favorites to mention here. While I couldn't find a website for the book, an internet search turned up a city library site listing the 100 selections, so I encourage you to read the entire list that way if you are interested.

Charlotte's Web (1952). E.B. White's children's classic is a lifelong favorite of mine. If I tell one of you that you are "a true friend and a good writer," know that for me the words are nearly sacramental.

An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter, illustrated by Childe Hassam (1894). The beauty and charm of this perfect book say at least as much about the gardener as the garden.

Salem's Lot (1975). I'm not sure that I would have chosen this from Stephen King's long list of titles, but the selectors make the case that it exemplifies the remoteness of so many Maine towns -- in King's words, "so isolated that almost anything could happen there."

Evangeline, the 1847 narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. "Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers / Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the way-side..." My own French/Quebecoise heritage makes this Acadian love story special to me.

Ravens in Winter (1989). Biologist Bernd Heinrich's book about ravens in the woods of Maine (just a mountain or two away from my home) is filled with the beauty and challenge of the natural world. I'd have been seriously tempted to choose his A YEAR IN THE MAINE WOODS instead, though RAVENS does have the advantage of a scientific study threading through it.

And last, a book I treasure: The House by the Sea: A Journal. Poet, novelist and essayist May Sarton, Belgian-born, moved to the Maine coast at the age of sixty and spent the rest of her life writing, using solitude to find truth within herself. In her "journals of self-discovery" Sarton records "the insights that come with age and solitude."

There, I did it! Six out of a hundred, forcing me to leave out Thoreau and Rachel Carson, among others; how excruciating. My appreciation for this exquisite bibliography grew as I went through my own selection. Kudos to The Baxter Society, the Maine Historical Society, and editor Laura Fecych Sprague, along with everyone else involved.

Yes, I could name some books I'd like to have included -- but that's for another day. The Mirror of Maine deserves absolutely no second-guessing.

Linda Bulger, 2008