Maine Books

What a treat this trio of long essays is! Anyone who has an uneasy (or even hostile) relationship with the rush and hustle of the 21st century -- not to mention anyone who loves water in general and Maine in particular -- will find this book refreshing, restful, and comforting. The writing flows along as easily as the water in the pond about which Kimber, McNair, and Roorbach write so lovingly (yet without sentimentality). While my favorite of the three was McNair's offering, they're all lovely -- and your day would be well spent reading through this little book in one sitting. Enjoy!

After reading this book, I immediately bought copies for my whole extended family. Many of them have relocated to the Mt. Agamenticus area over the years, but still hold fond memories of growing up in South Berwick. They were thrilled to learn about the region's rich history in such articulate prose. `Placenames' weaves together many elements of South Berwick's history, compiling it in a way that is accessible to all readers. You'll find it's a truly excellent book to hole up with in the remaining weeks of another cold Maine winter.

This collection is exciting and unique. Each poem, from Albert Einstein playing the violin to Tina Turner "stalking across the stage," has the reader eagerly awaiting the next poetic note. This is an outstanding collection!

Clear, concise and filled with insightful tips, this eminently portable guide is the perfect companion for Acadia-area cyclists.

"The most ignorant and vicious of European populations, including necessarily a vast number of the criminal class; people who come here not to become good citizens, but to prey upon our people and our industries; a class utterly without character and incapable of understanding or appreciating our institutions, and therefore a menace to our commonwealth."

Lisa Bowe has compiled a wonderful anthology of Portland Maine photographers. They evocatively capture many images of this great city, bringing the timbre of our lives effectively to print. This collection is superbly compiled. Additionlly, I have greatly enjoyed seeing these photographs in Portland based art galleries.

I loved this book. It is the best one I have ever read for giving a feeling of what life was like for the average soldier in the Civil War. More than any other book, this one really gave me an understanding of the tremendous sacrifice required and I cried through most of the last sections of the book which is pretty rare for non-fiction reading, for me. Really good history books are hard to find and this one is superb!

Set in the early 1700s, The Prisoner's Wife was a delectable romantic historical filled with action, suspense, and heart-pounding moments. I sat at the edge of my sea as Jack was accused of murder and worked up a sweat wondering how he would get out of the situation. The love that developed between Jack and Lucy was precious, and yet both of them were reluctant to share their true feelings out loud. It was so neat when he wanted to read the Bible with his new wife and pray with her. Lucy's enthusiasm was contagious. I felt her joy! And as the romance developed between them with such sweet longing and increasing fervor, I found myself turning the pages and thinking about the story even when I had to set it down to go to work. I loved it! It's one of the most romantic tales put out by Heartsong that I've ever read. It will take your breath away, I promise!

Jack Hunter is in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Sentenced to die by hanging, he knows he is innocent, but no one will listen. Years ago, Jack fell in love with Lucy Hamblin, but her father didn't think the son of Isaac Hunter was suitable for his daughter. Now her father is dead, but neither Jack nor Lucy have ever married.
In a desparate attempt to keep everything he owns from being confiscated, Jack asks Lucy to marry him so she will inherit his property. The wedding takes place in a cold, dark, prison cell.
Then the charges against Jack are dropped for lack of evidence. He is free, although there are people who still believe he was guilty. And although they are married, the ceremony took place for all the wrong reasons and Jack and Lucy are not sure what to do about this change in their lives.
Susan Page Davis has done a good job of bringing the historical period to life. She's written a suspenseful story of desperation, faith, and a love too strong to die.

In her startling cycle of *marriage* songs, Jehanne Dubrow brilliantly weds epithalamion to elegy to engender epiphany; her delight in the pleasures of love with her need to bear witness; and her awareness that *there*s nothing riskier than joy* with her realization that *The beautiful is often made / from blood* and *destruction hurries from nowhere.* To questions of how post-Holocaust writers can represent what confounds comprehension, how poets can elegize victims of the Shoah illuminating mourning as an effort without closure, this poet*s hybrid bride Shulamith, knowing the *other won*t / be reached,* responds with her own query: *Should I wear ash instead of white*?* Dubrow has earned the transgressive genius of her poems and discourse with her forbears and their kindred concerns through her craft*s attentive wildness, her renewals of received form and content, her erudition and implication of self. Her struggle with the *pornography of pain* asks that we struggle too, while in awe of what she accomplishes here.

--Yerra Sugarman
**
Fresh and searing as a new fire*s first bright flames, these gorgeous poems startle, seduce, and sustain. Jehanne Dubrow*s use of traditional poetic forms counterpoints and enhances the radical approach she takes to the Shoah. In her deep embrace of Shulamith, she marries herself to the darkest and most daunting epoch in world history. Her groom is the Holocaust, and she breaks the glass of form to free the fire of her vision.
--Charels Ad*s Fishman

A fine line keeps poetry that would engage the Holocaust today from edging into banality and worse. Jehanne Dubrow risks writing at that edge, and stays honest not banal. What's more, the formal turn her poems take, *the tight / ring of my hands,* gives us more grasp rather than less *after Auschwitz.* I'm grateful for The Promised Bride, facing the *broken world* as it does.
--John Felstiner has published Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu, Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew, and Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, and co-edited the Norton anthology Jewish American Literature.

This is one of the finest historical reads I have encountered and enjoyed. The personalities and social dynamics of the people of Revolutionary Era Maine are well understood and beautifully presented, in a flowing and artistic manner. The authors have done an incredible amount of research into history, society, and physical nature of the West Indian trade and a major colonial port, and an African snagged by them both; and understand and present them well. The book ranks proudly alongside the classics of Kenneth Roberts, and should receive the attention and praise its fine fine quality warrants.