Maine Books

This book was by far one of the best I have read in years! Charlie is one of the few true coast of Maine storytellers that can quickly take you into the plot and keep you there throughout the entire book.
Though fictional, the Monument itself is a real structure sitting on an island in Maine. For anyone that knows the area, this story sheds a mystical light on a Monument that even many of the locals sometimes ask about...
Charlie gets five stars for well written clean fun that you will enjoy enough to read to your grandchildren!

This book reminds me of Hemingway. Mr. Garnache draws you in and keeps you spellbound without using an overabundance of adjectives which is so common these days. This book is just as delightful to reread as it was to read the first time. The ending, while at first giving you goose bumps, leaves you enraptured. Mr. Garnache posses a true sense of people, which he in turn uses in developing his "characters". This book is a perfect read for anyone who loves to curl up with a book and just enjoy the time they spend as the story comes to life. Enjoy, I did!!!

This is a great story and has a super ending. You would enjoy it if you were 8 or 80.

It was such a pleasure to curl up with a book that didn't force one to have to sleep with the lights on! Using photographs instead of drawings put you on the "inside" where you could smell the saltwater, feel the branches scratch your arms, and you may even feel it necessary to swat at insects that seem to come at you from the underbrush. Best of all is that children will end up wanting to be creative and independent without being rude or hateful. It hasn't been since Aesop's Fables that the reader encounters so many ". . .and the moral of the story is. . ."

An exciting story utterly devoid of vulgarity. A refreshing read that well expressed a sense of morality and fair play without being preachy. I especially liked the way the hero and heroine reasoned things out -- as equals -- through their conversations. It's the sort of relationship I hope my daughter finds in real life!

I loved this book. I laughed and I cried and I wished that the story didn't end.
Understanding thru the eyes of a child, the the hopes and disappointments, which surround the holiday season, lead to the reality for the young adult what in life is really important.
I hope everyone reads and loves this book as much as I did.

A Little Fruitcake: A Childhood in Holidays
Wonderful read for getting in the holiday spirit - warm, vivid, witty and fun!

I would have loved this book even if it wasn't so well written, as the author grew up in Maine and is exactly my age, so it was like a trip down memory lane to read about his childhood--exciting trips to LaVerderies to get Christmas presents, the feeling of going to the big city when you are really going to a small Maine city, the extra sunny day when I too went inside from playing in the Maine summer to see Nixon resign, picking a Christmas tree from the woods and trying so hard to find the perfect one among the imperfect Maine scrubby forest trees, the transition from the huge colored bulbs to smaller ones that gradually took place, the feeling of a Christmas pageant in a small church, Grants Christmas albums---WOW!

This memoir is told all in Christmases, little samples of the author's life growing up fairly poor in Norridgewock, Maine, half Cuban and therefore half an outsider (although the fact that the other half was an old Maine family probably made it easier).

I know too the feeling of leaving home young and never really going home, and how the guilt when you do visit can be quite overwhelming. This book evokes the time and place so well that it brought me to tears several times. A real triumph.

give them A Little Fruitcake. As spirited and hilarious as Sedaris' Holidays on Ice, A Little Fruitcake veers between laugh-out-funny and a warm loving look back at childhood holidays. Valdes Greenwood's voice is fresh, wise, with just the right amount of bite -- the perfect holiday guest (unlike the great aunts you actually have to spend Christmas with!)

A Little Fruitcake is my pick for holiday gift this year. It's a wonderful collection of stories about family and holidays that you can feel comfortable giving to anyone from your traditional Grandma to your quirky and hip college roommate (and it sure beats an actual fruitcake). I'm going to send copies out as early holiday gifts, maybe around Thanksgiving, to help everyone get into the holiday mood.

This book has been sitting around on my shelf since I was a child. I thought it was a child's book when I was young, but couldn't read it. I just pulled it off the shelf again, and have discovered what will become one of my favorite books about hope, determination, the power of positive thinking, and art - its struggles, its blisses, its importance. It is a must read for any writer, or for that matter, any artist who struggles with stealing time to do their art without feeling somehow guilty, or fearful, or terribly isolated. It is about transcendance despite ridiculous odds. It is an amazing, amazing book. I'm so glad I got around to it.

This is a beautiful book on so many levels. The author's voice, the author's spirit, the author's technique of storytelling are awe inspiring. If you have been led to this page, take it as a sign and order this book, reading it is an experience and I can't wait to read it again. If you are looking for a gift to give someone else then this is it, but read it first yourself so that you can trully share it.

My husband gave this book to me and I am truly enjoying it! Katharine sees things from a rare perspective. Her life transformed her into someone that could see deep into even the most mundane subjects. I feel a new appreciation for even the sounds of crickets! She was certainly a person who's cup was always half full! This book is like welcome raindrops, enveloping you and staying with you long after the drops have evaporated!

This book is enchanting, wonderful, and beyond description, except to say it is a testament to the human spirit.

If you read this and loved it, also look at "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," by Jean-Dominique Bauby. If you can't imagine living on your back for ten years, try imagining writing a book using only the ability to blink one eye, to dictate letter by letter. Tis book is another testament to the human spirit.

This book is amazing, I am 15 and I read it, my mother at 39 read it, my grandma read it and my younger sister at 13 read it. Everyone takes away some different, but something wonderful from this book. It is absolutely indescribable, you have to read it; right now, order it, read it, it will change your outlook on life.

The chapters are set up in an easy-to-read manner and the photos and their captions are great! The guide is a wonderful resource for novice and scientist alike. If you appreciate the Atlantic seashore you will enjoy this book.

A great book to bring along on your next trip to the Atlantic seacoast. Plenty of information on both flora and fauna. The scientifically inclined and the layperson alike will enjoy this book. What impressed me most were actually the photographs, they're worth the book's price alone. Dr. Shumway has an eye for composition and color that shines through on almost every page.

This book is so much more than your typical field guide. It not only helps identify different organisms, it explains how they live, interact, and function in the beach community. The photographs are superb, the text easy to read and entertaining, and the book has all the neat seaside critter "stories" that are so engaging: How starfish eat (oops, I mean sea stars - they extrude their stomach into their prey); How shells get those small round holes in them that make them perfect for stringing on necklaces (created by a Moon snail). Lots of ecology, life history and conservation. A must have for anyone who spends time at the shore!

When I get a chance to spend time outdoors in a beautiful place, I'm always drawn to a bookstore or library afterward to find out more. And I'm almost always disappointed. It's hard to find books about nature or place that are not too cute, too literary, or set up like a catalog. (No disrespect to people who like these formats.)

A book that shows the relationships between things, at a reasonable level of detail, with a good but not overwhelming reference list -- that's heaven sent. The photos are nice-looking and informative without being so large that they drive up the price.

It totally hits the "wow, I'd like to know more about that" spot. I wish I could find a way to say the following without criticizing other approaches, so again, no disrespect intended: It's not about the author's feelings -- or about politics -- or about some rigid system imposed by a remote university -- it's about the beach.

Fun. Informative. Awesome.

It's unusual to find a book with this depth of scientific detail that is nonetheless completely accessible to the non-scientist. Our family vacations near the Maine coast every summer, and we make day trips to the Massachusetts and Connecticut shores regularly -- this book gives us the information we need to really understand and enjoy what we're seeing as we explore tide pools and estuaries. Parents whose children are curious about what they find as they explore the beach will find this guide indispensable, as will home schooling families who are looking for an educational guide to the shore. You won't be disappointed!

Thrilled to see that this book is back in print. Lewis Robinson's short stories are on par with those of Richard Ford and Paul Auster. The prose is economical but never terse. It evokes the beauty, the mystery and the humor of Maine and life in general. I re-read these stories with great frequency; the stories and characters are complex enough to merit multiple "visits."

I could write a really long review with a lot of adverbs and literary terms, but hey, those get old. That's what I liked about "Officer Friendly"--nothing excessive, nothing boring. He writes high-quality short stories one can easily read within an eight hour book store shift. I also liked his use of the word "varsity." Watch out for that. Read the book.

First of all, this is clearly the work of an emerging American Master. Show me a short story published in the last five years that can hold up to Puckheads, and I'll give you a wet willy! Where in the Hayseus did this guy come from? None of these stories were ever published before this book came out? This simply astonishes me. the OilCan will go down as saying that this is the greatest book about Maine that ever was published. This includes this year's pullitzer, sorry Russo, but have you read this guy? Someone should ask Jason Fulford if he thought this Robinson would write a book twice as good as Delillo? the OilCan would rather have this hardback than HBO.

Flown past Darrin, and arguably passed Doug Flutie as the most talented Natickian of all time. This man is a biblio-superstar, giving us beautiful glimpses into ourselves through the Vacation State. If the people who give awards for debut fiction really read books, here you go -- Brilliant

I concur wholeheartedly with the previous reviewer. Though all connected by an ever present, and never static, sense of place, each of Robinson's stories stand as individually gripping flashes of storytelling brilliance. This is my favorite kind of short story collection. You know, the kind where after each story, you feel compelled to stop and enjoy the sense of being pleasantly adrift in the momentum of the telling, released at the end to coast and glide through unnameable emotions, delicate and poignant. As much as they are tied together in Point Allison and its surrounding areas, Robinson's characters also share residency in a wonderfully infectious sense of longing and reflection and unease. This reader's current favorites are "The Edge of the Forest..." and "Cuxabexis, Cuxabexis". Ah Cuxabexis!
Robinson's gift for seemingly effortless natural puppetry with his characters (with place and location always acting as a character of the flesh) makes the collection seem at times like a wonderfully non-linear novel. I look forward to future offerings from this splendid new voice in fiction. This is only the beginning. Clearly Robinson comes from a gifted and talented family.

If you prefer to journey off the beaten path, this is the book for you. Beyond the well-drawn characters and engrossing plot, the author draws you into the land so strongly that you can feel the weave of the ancient hills and valleys that knit northern Maine's most remote communities.

I picked up this book and could not put it down. Amy's story, and the parallel and intermingling stories, were funny and poignant, but it was the subflooring of Maine's rural culture that lent this book its solid foundation and its human appeal. Read it if you want a rare and special look into real lives, defined by real communities, that still exist today but are rapidly and sadly evaporating.

Very highly recommended.

I read this book in short bursts so that I could savor the characters. What fun. To really get the most from this book, I recommend reading The Funeral Makers first.

For the unabridged flavor of northern Maine, Cathie Pelletier delivers. I've read three of her books so far, and they've all been good. For a good story, I recommend them strongly.

This is the second book I've read by Cathie Pelletier and the story keeps getting better. The Funeral Maker being the first of the trilogy, I can't wait to read the third. These caracters just won't quit. What a great read when you just want to relax and have a good laugh. I will definitely read every book by this author and I dare say if you read one, you're hooked. Keep them coming.

What a way to spend the evening, sitting in a comfy chair with this book. It was especially good since I'd also read The Funeral Makers. I'm not going to stop until I've read all of Cathie Pelletier's books--it was a New Year's resolution.

This is one of my favorite books ever...I fell in love with the Nodd's Ridge series about 10 years ago and devoured all of the books and still wish there were more! The characters are so well-crafted and inter-twined throughout generations, its compelling. There is also an element of mystery to Tabitha King's books (especially Caretakers and the Trap) that makes the stories of Nodd's Ridge even more interesting. I just picked up "Candles Burning", but I have to admit, I am eager for more from this series. I can never put down her books! I wish she would write more!

Pearl Dickenson inherits the home and land of her great-uncle Joe, who she never had the chance to meet. On the spur of the moment, while taking care of Uncle Joe's funeral arrangements, Pearl decides to live in his house rather than sell it. Even though Pearl is "from away" she fits in with many of the inhabitants of the small Maine town. All of sudden, after three years of having no gentlemen friends, there are two men on the horizon. The two are very different from one another, but both have a lot to offer Pearl--and both have their own troubled pasts.

PEARL is not a fast-paced action-packed read. It is a novel of setting and character, a slice-of-life story that lets the reader live in small town Maine for a while. The characters are funny and real, and Pearl is so likable that one has to keep reading and share her life. Tabitha King doesn't fool around with sex issues, either: she faces them head-on, and most of the love scenes are poetic while retaining their reality. The author has some interesting things to say about sex, love, friendship, family, and caring, but never says them in a preachy, intrusive way. PEARL is a smooth, leisurely, thought-provoking read.

Kimberly Borrowdale Under the Covers Book Reviews

Now here's a writer who knows how to write an engrossing story with real character development. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the prequel, "The Book of Reuben". Tabitha King invited the reader to meet an unusual yet very interesting group of people. Mrs. King's descriptive and clear narrative style is such a welcome change to other interracial romance stories that I've read. She really made the reader feel that they were a part of her characters lives and as a reader one really wanted to know about their lives in Nodd's Ridge, Maine. I think Reuben Styles is one of the most sexiest, sweet, vulnerable and yet strong males I've ever been introduced to and he and Pearl were meant for each other. I fell in love with him myself. Pearl was a woman of purpose and very captivating. No one was larger than life, breathtakingly beautiful or facing horrific or outrageous challenges. Just living life was challenging enough. Simplicity goes a long way and I as a reader appreciate simplicity. I couldn't put it down. It is an interracial love story but, the romance is treated realistically and maturely and the interracial love story is not the only important story being told. Nothing unbelievable, sophomoric or just plain annoying was any where in this book. It's become one of my favorites and I'm so glad it was recommended to me. You really should meet Reuben, Pearl and all the other inhabitants of Nodd's Ridge, Maine.

This book is so rich and engrossing. This is one of my books that I always go back to periodically. It is also the second book I've looked up only to find out that it is out of print or stock. Please look for it, buy it, read and enjoy.

From chapter one, this book hooks you into the life and loves of Pearl, an amazing person, but with human frailties. One can identify with her and you find yourself rooting for her throughout. Which of the men in her life will she choose? Or will she lose them both? The characters are interesting and believable. Pearl is enigmatic, as is the book. It has been, undoubtedly, one of the best books i have read in a long time. It was my first Tabitha King book, but certainly won't be my last. A very satisfying read.

I loved Sauci Churchill's urban child in "Running Down Division Street". Now, thanks to "A Red Fin", I've met the adult, sifting through larger mysteries, a voice rich with lyrical phrasing steeped in ironies and twists, tender, wise and unassuming, tangible as a fresh catch. Here is a life savored despite losses and fears familiar to us all, the "stranglehold (that) could take a wall down". Her poems take us to Guadalupe, Croatia, Jamaica, a Berkeley roommate, a "composite" of husbands ("Lived with a man/ seventeen years/ didn't know till/ the day he left/ he didn't like Sundays"), cancer's "night terrors" after "surgery's unnatural sleep", "Aunt Iris' Wedding", and much more. "The Red Fin" will linger in your mind.

Here we have a second book of poems by Sauci S. Churchill.

Like her first, it is from a small house, and I am troubled by its "Currently Unavailable" status, since it has just been published. If, as has been recently noted, more than 50% of books are sold by giant chains, who have no room for these small books of poetry, how are we to find them, enjoy them? I had thought that Amazon would continue as a supplier of offbeat, non-mainstream books, but perhaps not . . . Too bad.

As to the book itself, it is another volume of the spare but meaningful poems by this author.

The images stay with you:

"My father and mother were linked like the teeth of a zipper"

and

(On cancer): "It is not the ending but an overlong third act...

prey swaddled like babies
awaiting the hungry spider"

and

"Dusk fiils the room
as sand fills a bottle"

The elegance of expression is simply beautiful, and as you ponder it, it will make you return to read again.

I hope for more, and that they REMAIN AVAILBLE.

A Red Fin by Sauci Churchill is in turn moving, illuminating, intriguing, and amusing. One feels the full weight of a bottomless well of raw, inchoate emotion behind poems like "Duct to the Heart." The poet's struggle to invent language capable of rendering that volatile substrata of feeling that underlies her experience and our own is palpable. Sauci Churchill, in her unique, understated way not only refuses to turn away from the dark, perplexing aspects of human experience--individual, cultural, and historical--but she testifies to the imagination's capacity for finding "new ways to enter" the light in poems like "Red Cherries in a Crystal Bowl." This is a book to cherish. Use it as a lantern in a disheartening moment or as a mirror in a moment of joy.

The best thing about "A Red Fin" is the revisitation opportunity it presents for continuing reflection and enjoyment.

These new poems are stunning, and a fitting addition to those in "Running Down Division Street. They are both personal and universally meaningful.

This book blew me away! If ever a book needs to be republished, this is the one. It opens the hurting world of Christian women who are being abused by their husbands unlike any other I have ever read. I ordered as many of them as I could find on the internet and gave them away. The thing I found the most insightful is that it is written in first person and, as such, reveals the innermost thoughts and reasonings of the abused wife and mother. I cried through many pages. The ending, though, is positive and shows the way out of a terrible situation.

This book gives you the perspective of an abused wife who is a very deeply devoted Christian who believes that all the faults in her marriage are related to her own failings, never wanting to admit that they could also be attributed to her husband. Having known women like this, I could easily identify with Sadie as she struggles to placate her husband and still maintain some semblance of a personal identity. The effect of their hidden family life on the children is sad and disturbing, especially when you read about how the husband was abused as a child--the cycle is just continuing on & on. The secondary story about a missing child and Sadie's developing friendship with the mother is interesting a provides an nice counterpoint to the situation at home.

Sadieýs Song is a page-turning, heart wrenching, inspiring book that grabs you from the beginning and doesnýt let go. Thereýs a murder in town and another child is missing. Sadieýs husband has always been controlling and mean, but things are getting worse. Sad, tired and defeated, with five children and no help, how will Sadie survive the tribulations life has tossed at her? And who murdered the children? The book made me sad and it made me cry with happiness at the end. This is a wonderful, book with depth and meaning. Linda Hall is a fantastic writer.

Ms. Hall weaves a tight, exciting, and suspenseful tale from the first page. Written in the first person, Sadie's Song, artfully puts the reader into Sadie's head as she goes about "this little life of mine" as she refers to it. Sadie lives with an abusive husband and five kids and the insurmountable task of looking like the happy, contented wife of a godly husband. The signs of abuse are all around her, from her comments about hoping dinner will come out just the way Troy likes it to a son who sits under furniture and growls. A missing child, mysterious music that only Sadie seems to hear, and a friend with enough secrets of her own, will keep the reader turning pages. I loved reading this book and wondered as I neared the end how everything would be wrapped up in the few remaining pages.

If I thought Bette Nordberg's "Serenity Bay" was a fast-pace suspense, this one is catchy from the go - another one difficult to put down! We need a wider range to rate these books - one to five stars just isn't enough.

The writer, I'm sure, has a real feel of what having five small children would be like - the busy schedule and the constant interruptions, the whining and fighting. Sometimes, it probably would be tempting and easier to just give in to their tantrums. That would take care of the issue for the short term but it would cause a problem in the long run.

Sadie is just such a mother in this story with a grouchy husband who is one way in front of church members but totally different with his family. He's mean-tempered but that's not all. Sadie has a nagging feeling about her husband's involvement in something but she doesn't know if and who to talk to about this - afterall, it's just a feeling - maybe just a coincidence. Then she finds out something else and that "coincidence" is looking more like a reality and less like a "feeling".

I'm 12 years old and I love to read. This book was a great book! I couldn't put it down! I reccomend this book for kids 10 and up. There are some places in the book that would put a child under the age of 10 into confusion. There are a lot of life lessons in this book. But there are also some times where they swear or where something very sad or diffucult to understand will happen. Amazing writing and sentances that will just make you gasp!!! I loved it and i deffiantly reccomend you to read it! Its a real page turner!!

This is one of those books you'll go "ahhhh" to after setting it down. If you model your thinking as you do a read aloud with your kids, this one would be great. It would also be a great lit circle book. My only warning is that an adult says the "s" word twice....so be prepared to have your kids handle that maturely. Loved it!!!

Wow! I never knew that somebody I know would write a novel for kids that is so good! I am 11, but this story is for everyone. I read this in two hours one afternoon, because I couldn't put it down. Buy this book and you'll see!

Seriously, this author writes better than the majority of popular adult fiction writers I have read lately. This is a real pager turner, very believable characters and engrossing. Can't wait for another from the author!

I've read about 40 children's books in the last three months as part of a library-related project. This book stands out as the very best children's book I have read recently and one that I'd highly recommend to all children in grades 5-8. Some of it is predictable, but you won't care since you are enjoying this book so much and you care about the characters. The story is well written and a wonderful debut book for this author. I look forward to reading more of her work.