Category: Book Review

Working Waterfront

Meaningful change in small town Maine

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

Working Waterfront

Franklin Burroughs reflects

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

Working Waterfront

Following the stars

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

Working Waterfront

Outside, looking in on Maine coast

Everyone Knows But You: A Tale of Murder on the Maine Coast By Thomas E. Ricks; Pegasus Books (2024) Early in Thomas Ricks’ novel Everyone Knows But You, FBI agent Ryan Tapia goes into the local diner on Liberty Island to begin a murder investigation. The Fisherman’s Pal, as the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A man’s love affair with airplanes

From the Cockpit: Selected Writings by James S. Rockefeller Jr. From Strut & Axle, Owls Head Transportation Museum Journal 1979-2013 (June 2025) James S. Rockefeller Jr. (also known as “Pebble”) who died in January was one of the founders (along with Tom Watson Jr. and Steve Lang) of the Owls… SEE MORE

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Indigenous stories hit hard

This story collection comes with the author’s “trigger warning,” advising readers that they may be disturbed by issues including “racism, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, pregnancy loss, murder, physical abuse and drug abuse.” SEE MORE

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A travel writer’s hippie roots

Steves has been described as the Mr. Rogers of travel programs, and if that’s accurate, On the Hippie Trail creates some clashing images. Steves did indeed have longish hair and a beard in the book jacket photo, taken when he wrote this book in 1978. But then... SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Art appreciation

The striking thing about these poems is their down-to-earth, conversational atmosphere, couched nonetheless in precise diction and tightly made speech rhythms heightened into the music of poetry. SEE MORE