Maine Books

I've known David Solmitz since he was a small boy whose father was a professor at Bowdoin College - but even if I hadn't, his book would still fill me with awe at the blazing honesty and courage of his will to teach humanness, justice and tolerance in a small mid-Maine town whose history is one of the hard, too often violent lives of farming, lumbering and small business.

David makes no bones about his trepidation in tackling the monumental task of weaning his students away from the worst aspects of the region's prevailing culture of knee-jerk class/race/religious prejudice, authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism! This is a town that still tolerated a branch of the KKK at the time of World War II - not against blacks, but against the "niggers" of Maine - French Canadian Catholics!

As a teacher in the high school, David not only taught Social Studies, but lived it as well, defending students from poor working class families against brutal stereotypy and even occasional violence from the dominant class of students and their hangers-on, encouraging them to defend themselves, creating a forum for discussion of home-grown race/class issues - and thereby getting himself in occasional hot water with his supervisory personnel - and in general, practicing what he preached, thus serving as an adult model to his students not solely based on pleasing the local Rotarians or Elks.

I have only two regrets about this splendid book - the print is too small for comfort, and it is too expensive(...) thereby potentially limiting its exposure to college classes in small, elite colleges like Goddard.

David's book is an important, inspiring read that should be required in all teacher education universities. It is comprehensive and comprehenable in looking at the history of education. David's democratic quidelines offer hope for the future of our schools.

With titles such as, "Barge Men's Beds Smell of Lavender Elixir and Red China Silk," this collection awakens the reader to the active sensory life of the poet, whose keen observations reflect life on the Puget Sound.
This writing is a testament to the preciousness and underlying fragility of life when closely observed.

Each of the poems in this book is a journey--the vivid words of Levin's poetry invite movement in thought, journeys to and through the living, laughing and loving of life. Each poem creates a world for me to live in.

I read "Seal Child" years ago, but it has stayed in my memory and will forever. I remember thinking how wonderful it was that Meara would give up her life as a human to save her friend. This book made me cry, even the second and third time reading it. I had forgotten what it was called, so I was delighted to find it only by typing in "Seal." I would recommend this book to any young children, or anyone who is young at heart.

This book tells about Molly Bryson and the friend, Meara, whom she meets on her two vacations to Ambrose Island. They are the best of friends-but Meara has a deep secret that can, and will, separate them forever. . . . I read this book twice and it still holds a powerful message in my mind! I highly reccommend this book!

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the history of building wooden ships. The photographs, drawing, and construction methods that relate to Percy & Small's shipyard in Bath, Maine are extremely complete. The authors give a complete history of every ship built by P&S and with access to the company records are able to trace the "money trail" of each and every ship. Easy to read and very informative.

It isn't all that often that excellent research, great writing, and wonderful illustrations go hand in hand. However A Shipyard in Maine manages to get all those into one book.

I would suggest this book for anyone one with an interest in ships, sailing, Midcoast Maine, or the city of Bath, ME. Also it looks very imposing of coffe tables ;-)

I'm not big on coffee table books, nor am I really big on photo coffee table books, but when we saw this book in Camden, Maine, we had to pick it up. The pictures in this book are stunning, and they reveal Maine in a way that most tourists never get to see.

This book is not a collection of the same 30 pictures you see on postcards and prints whenever you go to Costal Maine. Instead, it reveals seldom-visited islands off the coast, pictures of fishermen and lobstermen doing their daily rounds, and popular tourist destinations (Boothbay, Camden, Rockland) in the dead of winter. The Maine nobody but the locals get to see. This photographer has got quite an eye, and an uncanny way of catching feeling in even the most seemingly benign photos. He beautifully captures the feel of Monhegan in a picture that simply shows dozens of sheets blowing on clotheslines. He even manages to turn what would be seen as grotesque by the average tourist, such as the skull of a cormorant, or the mass of feathers from a dead seagull, into surprisingly beautiful captures of the Maine coast. This is a book of few words, mainly letting the pictures do all the talking (which is good, because what words there are in the book are sort of... Schmaltzy).

This book captures the beauty of the Maine coast with photos of the coast at sunrise, the sea during a storm, and lobster traps submerged underwater, but also carries with it at times a mournful feel, as he also captures the longing for a time long departed from the coast. Abandoned schoolhouses, fallen barns, and desolate tourist attractions in the dead of winter provide a somber glimpse of the life experienced by the locals, but never seen by the average visitor. You get the definite impression that if the real coast of Maine, which reflects the lives of its residents and the true identity of the coast away from heavily walked tourist Mecca, were put into a book, it'd be this book.

I'm truly glad that we plopped down the money to get this book, in spite of its rather high price. This book represents the Maine my husband and I know from our trips, and is a refreshing break from standard tourist takes on an area we personally know and love.

Although the islands off the Maine coast have been photographed many times, no one has captured the islands and their people like Peter Ralston in Sightings: A Maine Coast Odyssey. There is a fundamental honesty and integrity to these photographs unavailable anywhere else. The beauty of the photographs comes from the tension between an unforgiving environment and the rugged individualism of the remaining year-round island residents' struggle to survive a declining fish population and a growing, homogenizing second-home tourist population. Sightings reflects Peter Ralston's unique perspective as both an observer and a participant in attempts to maintain the islander's unique way of life.

Peter's humility and willingness to let the islands and their residents to speak for themselves results in deceptively-simple photographs which gain impact with each repeated viewing. The simplest photographs involve the viewer by inviting speculation about both past and the future. Sightings also chronicles with brief, unobtrusive text Peter Ralston's role as co-founder of the Island Institute and an artistic eye fined-tuned by his personal friendship with the Wyeth family.

Great book with lots of humorous action. The characters are memorable Peter Shandy rocks

Charlotte MacLeod, veteran mystery writer, has released a paperback delight called Something in the Water. This latest entry stars Peter Shandy, professor at a mythical agricultural college in Massachusetts, who has an amazing ability to kick up clods of murder as he traipses through life. Professor Shandy, a reluctant economy-size hero, has temporarily abandoned his wife Helen's side at her request while she entertains childhood chums. The timing appears perfect for Peter to visit Pickwance, Maine and see for himself the "glorious" lupine the scientist in him knows must be more the stuff of legend than fact. To his chagrin the lupine are real and everything else in this picturesque community is not what it seems to be. He discovers paintings (by an artist who refuses to be identified) that evoke distinct pictures in the mind, but are only hazy colors on the canvass. He drinks water from a mysterious spring owned by a woman who must be old, but looks young. Most disconcerting to him, however, is the man who dies within his purview the evening of his arrival. In a community where so much is larger than life (quite literally as even the hens are the size of turkeys and lay enormous eggs), so is the corpse, perhaps not in physical size, but in perfidity. This truly is a man whom none mourn. Time passes, Peter Shandy requests his wife join him in Maine, and the mystery spins itself out. Try this book--if you have never read a MacLeod mystery befoe you will be enchanted, if you have, you will find yourself comfortably back within the company of old friends. Two other selections by the same author featuring Peter Shandy which are very good reading are The Corpse in Oozak's Pond and Vane Pursuit.

This book was a page-turner from the first chapter to the last line. I was sad to see the end of the book because I wanted more. This book was gritty and humorous and I loved this combination in a mystery book.

Thea Kozak is back, and as feisty as ever! In this newest installment of Kate Flora's Thea Kozak Mystery series, Thea is still working on the healing process. With her gentle giant, Andre, close by, she takes aim, literally, at her insecurities and puts the past where it belongs. Great symbolism. Thea might be down, but she's far from out. She's not invincible, so while she falters at times and loses her edge, she is pugnacious to a fault and never concedes defeat. Much like an old Timex timepiece, Thea "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." I absolutely love that about her!

Thea is hoping to enjoy the rest of her weekend with her new hubby, Main State Police Detective Andre Lemieux, when she receives a call from Suzanne, her partner at EDGE Consulting. It seems there is a sticky situation at St. Matthew's, a private New Hampshire boarding school. A female student athlete has accused another student (who just happens to be the grandson of one of the school's most generous benefactors) of stalking - and the school is in dire need of help to defuse the situation. What Thea discovers is that the school really just wants her to rubber stamp her approval of a letter they hope to send out to the parents, basically accusing the female student of fabricating the entire story and thereby holding the school blameless.

A very cursory investigation reveals that the school neglected to follow its own procedures for dealing with accusations, and those who could corroborate the accuser's story were no longer at the school and hadn't even been questioned. Thea smells a coverup and steals herself to sticking around for awhile to sort things out. The school, however, isn't interested in real answers and sends Thea packing. The rejection gnaws a bit on her self-confidence. Has she read the situation correctly or is she completely off base?

When the accused is discovered on campus with the female athlete's older brother standing over his dead body, things at St. Matthew's really heat up, and the school once again calls EDGE Consulting to help avert a crisis. This creates a quandary for Thea. Should she ignore the role those in authority at the school appear to have played in this tragedy, or should she just do her best to cover their behinds no matter what? She is conflicted about just how much useful information she can impart to the police without serving up her clients on a silver platter. She decides that the most ethical course of action is for her to investigate on her own so that she won't be offering up little more than gossip and innuendo.

Thea quickly learns that searching for the truth at St. Matthew's is an unhealthy proposition, and she becomes even more worried about the welfare of Shondra Jones, the 16-year-old accuser. She has no idea that the things she has uncovered thus far are only the tip of the iceberg, and that something far more sinister is festering just below the surface, putting her life, and the lives of those around her, in jeopardy.

Ms. Flora has created palpable suspense and a heart-pounding denouement! The issue of stalking is timely and is handled quite well. I beseech the publisher to bring us the next Thea Kozak Mystery as quickly as possible - her adoring public awaits!

Carol Ann Hopkins 5/24/2008

This book and its illustrations will bring back memories of childhood summer vacations and will make your children excited to go on their own summer trips. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed -- your children will love to read and re-read this book as they try to pick out all of the interesting details.

My boys absolutely loved this book. The illustrations really caught their eyes. They pointed out many things that I didn't even notice at first glance. Although the boys have not personally taken the Downeaster, they have been on a train and related well to the book. Rebecca Harrison Reed is a highly talented children's book artist! I look forward to her next book.

Told me about the times I never lived - about a place, the Bodner Hotel owned by a strong entrepreneur called Lizzie. Very vivid characterization.

Owner of the Albred Hotel, Lizzie, comes from Europe with wonderful cooking skills and fulfills her dream to open a hotel. Bodner has researched carefully all current events at that time. The Westinghouse Corp. is also featured, with many Europeans coming to work for George W. These characters live at the hotel. This is a very entertaining summer read.

Too often, environmental issues are set forth as win-lose propositions. In this thoughtful book, however, the environmentally sympathetic author, an ocean sailor herself, reports with considerable clarity and sensitivity on the world of those whose livelihoods have depended upon fishing in troubled waters off the New England Coast and beyond.

The lessons learned with respect to the New England fishing industry are worth knowing about and understanding, especially for those concerned with environmental issues that abound elsewhere in our world. Indeed, by extension, they are capable of informing sustainability undertakings on the part of governments, corporations and private interest groups just about anywhere.

Vanishing Species chronicles the fate of groundfishing in New England waters since the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA) was enacted in 1996, causing increasingly strict regulations to be placed on the harvesting of fourteen species of edible fish. The SFA mandates that within a ten-year period, the stocks of these fish were to be brought up to levels prescribed by the government. To achieve this goal, strict regulations were put in place to limit net size, how many fish were caught, and the number of days fishermen could spend at sea. The SFA and regulations like it govern how, when, and where fishermen may fish.

Since its inception, the SFA has been a fulcrum for escalating tensions between environmentalists, who argue that the mandates of the SFA are being ignored, and fishermen and their families, whose existence has come to depend on how government employees and a federal judge interpret the SFA. Although some scientists and environmentalists believe the fish stocks remain at levels too low to sustain further harvesting, many fishermen believe that the fish stocks are rising and that the government's means of measuring them is flawed. At the heart of the conflict is the survival of both the fish and the New England fishing communities.

Playfair's compelling narrative brings the reader face-to-face with all aspects of this controversy. She examines the day-to-day business of groundfishing prior to the enactment of regulations, as well as the much-debated issue of farming fish through aquaculture as an alternative to harvesting fish from the sea. She asks how fish stocks fell so low that they became endangered, and she questions whether the fishermen are really at fault or simply are scapegoats for a larger problem. Playfair takes the reader onboard boats with different types of fishing gear; on voyages with scientists and fishermen seeking an equitable way to allow New England fishermen to fish while maintaining the numbers of groundfish needed in order for the populations to spawn and grow; and into seafood restaurants where demand remains high and fresh fish are treated with the respect they deserve. If we lose the fisherman, Playfair reminds us, we lose our access to the fresh fish we now take for granted. The alternative may be a nomadic factory trawler-destructive to the environment, wasteful of the resource, and a sap to the soul of small coastal communities.

Based in large part on interviews with a wide range of people-fishermen and their families, restaurant managers, environmentalists, fisheries scientists, politicians, and government officials-Vanishing Species offers a series of unforgettable portraits of people who are involved in the struggle to find a way to support sustainable fishing and the communities that rely on it.