Working Waterfront

The story of Serendipity is the story of wooden boats

Serendipity: The Story of Building a Dream Ship By Peter L. Murray Reviewed by David Platt Harvard Law School must not be as hard as they say. At least Peter Murray had the time and energy, while a student there, to build an entire 30-foot schooner. Before launching he’d even… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Two new cookbooks tied to our Midcoast

Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm by Annemarie Ahearn (Roost Books, 2017) The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine by Erin French (Clarkson Potter, 2017) Two new cookbooks from Midcoast chefs—Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm in Lincolnville by Annemarie Ahearn and The… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

To know, but not possess an island

Where Edges Don’t Hold: A Small Island Miscellany By Christina Marsden Gillis; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 2017 In her introduction to this collection, Christina Gillis notes that in organizing Where Edges Don’t Hold: A Small Island Miscellany, she had in mind readers who identify “with the emerging field of Island… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

More rumination on ‘imperfect love’

Elizabeth Strout has followed her last novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, with a new book that continues the story. Anything is Possible isn’t only about Lucy and her family, but includes characters we were introduced to previously, and hometown Amgash, Illinois, with its fields of corn and soybeans. We… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The natural accuracy of Kristen Lindquist’s poetry

Tourists in the Known World: New and Selected Poems By Kristen Lindquist; Megunticook Press, Camden The ocean is unsayable, like a lot of the natural world. The night sky is unsayable. The energy in a seed. The sacrality of a maple leaf. The full moon. The mind of snow. The… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The tides as one step away from God

Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean By Jonathan White 2017: Trinity University Press Like the tides themselves, this book literally covers the earth. Author Jonathan White gets us started with a dramatic personal story: accidentally grounding his schooner in 1990 in Kalinin Bay, Alaska, in 40-knot winds at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The strange story of the North Pond hermit

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel; Knopf, 2017 For 27 years, Christopher Knight was the “North Pond Hermit.” There had been no grand plan for… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Memoir is a rumination on doing good work

A Winter Apprentice, by John Holt Willey; Polar Bear & Co., Solon, Maine, 2016; 280 pages, trade paperback, $14.95. In the summer of 1977 John Willey returned home to Maine with his wife, Barbara, who had never been that far east. His last permanent address had been San Francisco, where… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The fall and rise of the Great Lakes is a cautionary tale

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan; W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2017; 280 pages, hardcover, $27.95. The federal budget that President Trump proposed to Congress in March of this year reduces funding for practically everything in it except the military. And among federal departments,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Moons, little islands, big names and tragedy

In the Great Green Room The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown By Amy Gary New York: Flatiron Books, 2017 Different things draw us into writing projects. Sometimes it’s a great story or a narrative that instructs or informs in some unique or unusual way. Sometimes it’s a… SEE MORE