Maine Books

I enjoyed this story about the characters at sunset island. It was very interesting about who she thought were parents who hated each other and didn't care about her turned out to love each other and pay more attention to her.The only problem was some inacurracies about God. other than that I LOVED the book and suggest it ot anyone and everyone

Gail Gibbons, popular author of a plethora of books for young readers from "Apples" to "Wolves" is a favorite of both parents and children. He simultaneously educates and entertains as he involves readers in the lives of animals, seasons of the year, holidays, and our solar system.

With "Surrounded By Sea" we're transported to a New England fishing village as spring, a new season begins. Fishermen are busily scraping and cleaning the bottoms of their boats, and lobster men prepare to set their traps. Each lobster man or lobster woman paints his or her buoys a particular color for easy identification.

The general store is open and ready for business, and islanders are planting flower and vegetable gardens while others hunt for mussels during low tide. Ferries arrive daily bringing summer people and supplies.

This is the season when the island really comes alive with the Fourth of July lobsterbake and the Farmer's Market filled with produce, baked goods and handicrafts.

Gibbons closes with vivid paintings of the island in winter when many have sought warmth on the mainland and only a hardy few remain.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

Susan Garrett's story of a year in the life of rural (York, Maine) hospital, sets the daily crises, personality quirks and policy dilemmas against her own evolving quest for the hospital's ultimate survival - a matter of dollars, quality and image.

Administrator of the non-profit hospital for six years, Garrett's approach is philosophical and humane, as into any discussion of cost/benefit come the patients, the doctors, the government, like a wrench into smooth working machinery.

So, when the brilliant surgeon throws a temper tantrum in the operating room (after the operation) because two of his instruments were missing, and then insists the hospital hire a technician responsible solely for his instruments, hire the technician they do. Otherwise the brilliant surgeon will leave, diminishing quality. The fact that the nurse supervisor quit on the spot, caught between two grandstanding doctors, is accorded little more than a shrug.

If Miss Jannsen, not quite "one of our own," stays in the hospital longer than the 11 days Medicare will pay for, the hospital will lose money. If she dies there, having refused treatment for cancer, hers will be cited as an "avoidable" death, harming the hospital's overall rating.

Without resolving this dilemma, Garrett shifts to the genial give and take of the lunchroom where informal advice and consultation among doctors is frequent. She leads the reader with assurance into board meetings where future needs clash with present restraints and individual demands, then pushes on into housekeeping, physical therapy, the emergency room.

Each place gives rise to anecdotes which illuminate the personalities - many heroic - of the people who keep the hospital going. Bev Tracey, the tireless nurse who crops up everywhere. It was she who discovered why Miss Jannsen refused surgery. Or Dr. Talley whose diagnostic ability is uncanny but whose penchant for drug abuse makes him a serious risk.

Garrett progresses through the seasons from Maine's nonexistent (in her opinion) spring, through the overcrowded summer and the long days of winter when quiet may erupt into disaster with a storm.

Forays into history offer just enough to help the reader share the tug-of-war between quality and cost. Garrett outlines the politics of medicaid, medicare, building grants and insurance contracts. The wrangling over new building, cost shifting to fit government requirements, more cost shifting onto the backs of the self-insured, the constant worry over litigation.

One complaint - no index.

But through all the stories - the proud pillar of the community who is forced to sell her house and her china collection to finance her cardiac care; the dirt-poor family who cannot or will not help themselves, the arrogance and uncertainties of doctors - run Garrett's own ruminations on care. What should a small hospital be? What can it be? Does it have a future?

Vivid, thought-provoking, informative, often riveting, Garrett coaxes compassion from her readers, buffeted as we are by strident, one-sided health-care arguments.

--York County Coast Star

This was his last book, I am SAD to say!!

It is TRULY A MUST read for those of you who RESPECT your elderlys.

He wrote this when he & his GREAT wife were in the nursing home. He was
infuriated at the administration, and GOOD ol' JOHN WON his point, not the
administration at the nursing home where RESIDENTS have to pay atrocious
amounts!!

OH, this book EXCEEDS a 5 STAR rating easily!!
JOHN won the case!!

PS: He was a friend of my cousin, and what a dry DOWNEAST sense of humor in this great gentleman!

Tales of Maritime Maine is NOT out of print. It can be ordered directly from: Bruce Clark 565 Highland Road Brunswick ME 04011 207-725-7816

I am instructed by the author to give you this information. Could you please e-mail me that you have received this and what your procedure is if customers want to order this book?

At first glance Tall Tales of the Maine Coast appears to have been written for the younger reader. And, maybe it was. But I have always been intrigued by the stories dealing with pirates, and buried treasure and even weird mysteries. So I continued to read and although most of the one-liners and footnotes are real groaners they have a twist to them which provides a lot of fun reading no matter what your age. If you're the type of person who is looking for some really light reading you should have this book on your shelf. It's staying on mine.

As a third generation Irish-American I have little or no feel for Irish culture. My ancestors left Ireland between 1860 and 1880 and like millions of other American with similar antecedents, I have only modest interest in modern day Ireland. We hope things have gotten better since the days of
"Angela's Ashes." It seems like a country beginning to manage its problems. It is probably, like most of Europe, overly-dependent on the United States.

But I do have questions about what my ancestors encountered when they first came to the United States. This volume of essays, compiled by Professor Michael Connolly of Saint Joseph's College, answers many of those questions. Connolly has assembled a group scholars to write about the Irish-in-Maine experience. Here are some of the experiences described in detail:

* Irish service in the Civil War.
* The experiences of single Irish women who, like the men, worked their way up the occupational ladder in two generations.
* The Fenian Invasion of Canada, a mid-nineteenth century effort to bring pressure on England.
* Irish contributions to the temperance movement in Maine and elsewhere.
* Conflicts with the Ku Klux Klan over parochial education and other matters.
* The role of Scotch-Irish, forbearers of the massive Irish immigration.
* The centrality of the Catholic Church.
* Irish involvement in the union movement.


There is discussion in these essays about the precipitating event in Ireland that led to one of the greatest emigrations in history: the Potato Famine. Also, there is a thoughtful preface by Senator George Mitchell. This book will be of interest to students, scholars and the reading public. It will also be of interest to Irish-Americans: there are over thirty million of us - about seven times the population of Ireland itself.

I am about halfway through reading this book, which is a new purchase for the Wentworth Library in Sandwich, NH. After all the books that have been written about White Mountain history and background, I found this new work intriguing in its depth and excellence. I first came across much of the legend and lore portrayed in here while attending the last UNH Forestry Camp at Passaconaway in 1964. We were too rowdy a bunch for this institution to continue further, but it introduced me to the beauty of these unique mountains and Doc Stevens fascinated me with their stories. I climbed Mt. Trypyramid with Keith Kidder as my first 4,000 footer, clambering up the slide to the Middle Peak as described herein by pioneer trampers. Later, I would work at Mizpah Hut for the AMC and pack to many of the huts in the summer of 1965. I missed the mountains like crazy while in the Army, so convinced my friend Fred Stetson to accompany me on a week long trip in the Pemi following Flight School. He has been visiting and writing about this mountainous area ever since, too. Efforts to describe and paint the experience of the White Mountains continue to produce historic memories of the past, and this book indeed does the job. I especially like the portrayals of Thomas Cole and Hawthorne, and how the region has stimulated considerable aesthetic reflections and deep intelligent regard. There is something truly inspirational here, and I enjoy introducng my friends from afar with why I am stuck on the place. It is grand in its magnificence; nothing compares to it, despite attempts to try. I am too old now to climb all like I used to, but I can still read about these summits and regain the reasons I originally chose to live out my life here. This book will be a keeper to relish this wild region so special to us....

Dan Domench's characters are some of the most "real" characters I have encountered in modern American fiction. In addition to "Three American one-act monologues", do yourself a favor and get Domench's audiobook "Hold Me Fast", which is also available from Amazon in the "audio" section. Professional actors bring Dan's work to life - it's a great listen.

Interviewees speak in their own voices; captures the range of individuals responsible for creating new lives for hundreds of women and children in Maine.