19 New books by Peace Corps writers — March and April, 2022

 

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards.

We now include a brief description  for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  1) to order a book and 2) to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT.

 See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and she will send you a copy along with a few instructions.

In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf.

Please, please join in our Third Goal effort!!!

 

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Letters from Peace Corps, Honduras
by R. Scott Berg (Honduras 1976-79)
Independently published
198 pages
January 2022
$40.00 (Paperback) [purchase from author at 95174 Cook Road, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034]

Letters from Peace Corps, Honduras is a Peace Corps memoir based on the author’s letters.

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So Far
by Kamaka Dias (Madagascar 2016-19)
Independently Published
202 pages
March 2021
$19.99 (Paperback)

A collection of writings, poems, pictures, and nonsense from Kamakaʻs three years living in Madagascar serving in the Peace Corps.

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Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising
David Lee Dolinger (Korea 1978–80) and Matt VanVolkenburg
Goggas
May 2022
274 pages
$34.00 (paperback)

An American Peace Corps volunteer who walked into modern Koean history. “How did I get here, I asked myself that question many times during the events of May 1980, and I will probably ask it until the end of my life; I never realized where it would all take me, or how it would all fit into a journey of a lifetime.”

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My Two Centuries in Africa: How a Funny-Looking Kid from Indiana Wound Up on an Endless Adventure
Carl Henn (Morocco 1981–83)
Independently published
March 2022
$24.00 (paperback), $5.99 (Kindle)

Could anyone really live to 200? Not likely. The author is not even 100 years old yet. As for why YOU should read a book about Africa, well, it is home to over a billion people, and the cradle of human civilization.

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Angels of Bastogne: A Remembrance of World War II
Glenn H. Ivers (Liberia 1974-1976)
Peace Corps Writers
February 2022
315 pages
$19.95 (paperback)

Angels of Bastogne is a remembrance of World War II that is based on the true story of a U.S. Army doctor, Jack Prior, and two heroic Belgian nurses, Renee Lemaire and Augusta Chiwy, who volunteered in his aid station that was bombed on Christmas Eve, 1944.

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India by Rail and Road
Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994-96)
Independently published
April 2022
Kindle
$0.00 (Read with Kindle Unlimited)

Welcome to a grand journey through vast, geographically diverse, historically and culturally rich, and extremely scenic India.

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Art Teaching & Learning: An Art Advocate’s Journal
Eldon  Katter (Ethiopia 1962–64)
DavisArt
2022
268 pages
$50.95 (paperback) to purchase

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Trial And Error (poetry and photography)
Lawrence E. Licht (Peru 1963–65)
Independently published
April 2022
40 pages
$15 [plus shipping to the USA, $6-10] (paperback), Contact the author

This small book, with selected photos, is the author’s reflection upon the current state of our Earth as it shows the consequences of our negative response to the environment.

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Neighbors: Oral History from Madera, California Volume 3
Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77)
Independently published
February 2022
150 pages
$16.00 (paperback)

Twenty residents of Madera, California tell us about their passions and in so doing, reveal a bit about us all. This is a must read for anyone interested in California Central Valley history. Third in a series.

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The Homecoming Seasons
by James P. MacGuire (Thailand 1976-77)
Hamilton Books
284 pages
March 2022
$23.50 (Kindle); $27.95 (Paperback)

The Homecoming Seasons: An Irish Catholic Returns to a Changing Long Island is a deeply moving memoir of a returning native’s re-experience of his childhood community.

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Lucky: An African Student, An American Dream, and a Long Bike Ride
Brooke P Marshall (Malawi 2013–15)
Atramental Publishing
2021
257 pages
$12.00 (paperback), $5.00 (Kindle)

In 2018, RPCV Brooke Marshall embarked on a solo cross-country bike tour to advocate for a former student with a dream of attending college in America. Along the we se met with admissions counselors from 17 universities to tell them about the potential of African college students. The is a story about her journey, the people she met, what she learned on the way, and the importance of chasing your dreams.

Half the proceeds of Lucky go to the Represent Foundation, a 501(c)(3) exempt organization that connects Malawian students to college opportunities.

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Neuroscience for Organizational Communication: A Guide for Communicators and Leaders
Laura  McHale (Sao Tome & Principe 1992–94)
Palgrave Macmillan
January 2022
126 pages
$49.99 (hardcover), $44.57 (Kindle)

In this acclaimed new book, RPCV Dr. Laura McHale, a leadership psychologist based in Hong Kong, shows how organizational communicators (and other executives interested in communication) can up their game and leverage the power of neuroscience to help transform organizations for the better.

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One Potato
by Tyler McMahon (El Salvador 1999-02)
Keylight Books
April 2022
324 pages
$29.09 (Hardcover); $13.99 (Kindle)

Darkly funny and compassionately rendered, One Potato charts the crooked line between nature and technology and takes a deep look into a future shaped by disasters both natural and devastatingly man-made.

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Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity
by Michael Meyer (China 1995-97)
Mariner Books
April 2022
362 pages
$26.09 (Hardcover); $15.99 (Kindle); $26.99 (audio book)

The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin’s parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia—a deathbed wager that captures the Founder’s American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age.

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Bill Owens Cars: A Completely American Reality
by Bill Owens (Jamaica 1964-66)
True North Editions
2021 Second Edition
139 pages
To purchase, contact Geir Jordahl at geir@jordahlphoto.com

Cars was photographed in the 1970s and comprises rich color work as well as Owen’s signature black and white photographic style. “Cars” complements and supplements Owens’ “Suburbia,” which has been called one of the seminal photographic books of the Twentieth Century.

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Lifting Every Voice: My Journey from Segregated Roanoke to the Corridors of Power
by William Robertson (CD/Kenya 1976-77) with Becky Hatcher Crabtree
University of Virginia Press
February 2022
224 pages
$27.82 (Hardcover)

Bill Robertson was one of our greatest pioneers and a tireless advocate for racial justice. One of his final acts was the completion of his memoirs. Lifting Every Voice reveals how the advances made during his lifetime were no foregone conclusion.

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Back to the Future in Bandipur
by Chij Kumar Shrestha (Staff/Nepal), translated from the Nepali by Mike Gill (Nepal 1967-70), English version edited by John Comings (Nepal 1969-72)
Book Art Nepal
2022
352 pages
$14.00 (paperback)

This autobiography by a Nepali Peace Corps staff member provides all RPCVs a window into the impact they had on the people who trained them, worked with them and were their friends.

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The Plot to Kill Lenin: With Somerset Maugham in Russia
by Joseph Theroux (Western Samoa 1975-78)
Kilauea Publishing
293 pages
April 2022
$ 4.00 (Kindle); $10.00 (Paperback)

In this novel, Somerset Maugham and Lloyd Osbourne have been tasked with locating the Great Orlov, the stolen Imperial jewel, whose value could fund the war effort against Germany.

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A Life Unimagined: The Rewards of Mission-Driven Service in the Peace Corps and Beyond
by Aaron Williams (Dominican Republic 1968-71)
UW/Madison, International Division
February 2022
258 pages
$9.99 (Kindle); $30.00 (Hardback)

An autobiography from Peace Corps Volunteer to Peace Corps Director and plenty of international service in between.