Category: Book Review

Boothbay Now and Then: New and Historic Images of the Boothbay Peninsula By Kevin Johnson (2026, Penobscot Marine Museum)   Photographer Kevin Johnson’s new book, Boothbay Now and Then, is a selection of photos depicting the Boothbay region. This subject matter is attractive enough for anyone interested in Maine’s coast.… SEE MORE

New and Used Poems and Objects By Mike Silverton // Photographs by Kevin Johnson (2026, Sagging Meniscus Press)   It has now been 109 years since Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was not shown in an art exhibit in New York City. This was because the Society of Independent Artists couldn’t decide… SEE MORE

Clipper ships, splices, knots, cowboys, pyramid-builders, bridge engineers, tightrope walkers, executioners—this book has them all. Like Salt, Cod, and other thoroughly researched books about familiar things and their many lives, Rope considers the bundled and twisted combinations of plants, metals, and synthetics we humans all use to keep our world running—or standing, as may… SEE MORE

Fly For Your Life: A Hawk and Heron Risk Everything for Each Other By Eugene Pool (Ghost Car Press, 2025) From the windswept shores of Maine to warm skies over the Bahamas, Fly For Your Life follows two feathered friends on a perilous journey. While soaring above coastal beauty, osprey… SEE MORE

The Self-Fed Farm and Garden: A Return to the Roots of the Organic Method By Eliot Coleman (2025, Chelsea Green Publishing) Eliot Coleman may be familiar to you because you’ve read other books by him: The New Organic Gardener, Four-Season Harvest, The Winter Harvest Handbook. Each covers aspects of organic… SEE MORE

In a Distant Valley By Shannon Bowring (2025, Europa) Author Shannon Bowring describes her fictitious town of Dalton as in “the county”—a reference to Maine’s northernmost Aroostook County. With its isolation and harsh winters, some readers might assume it’s a place where few would choose to live unless rooted there.… SEE MORE

The View from Here: Reflections on the Deep North, the Wild East By Franklin Burroughs (Down East Books) In his 50-plus years in Maine, the South Carolina-born writer Franklin Burroughs has attained the stature of one of the state’s most beloved and brilliant nature writers. His Confluence: Merrymeeting Bay won… SEE MORE

The Last Navigator: A Young Man, An Ancient Mariner, The Secrets of the Sea By Steve Thomas (Revised Edition, The Abbeville Press, 2023) I’ve never met Steve Thomas, but we’ve shared a lot: time in Micronesia (where his story takes place and I spent two years in the Peace Corps);… SEE MORE