Archive - September 28, 2009

Portrait of a Peace Corps Gringo by Paul Arfin, self-published with BookSurge in August, is reviewed here by Honduras RPCV Barbara E. Joe, author of Triumph & Hope: Golden Years with the Peace Corps in Honduras, selected as Best Peace Corps Memoir of 2008 by Peace Corps Writers and Best New Non-Fiction Finalist, National Indie Excellence Awards. Barbara works as a Spanish interpreter, translator, and freelance writer in Washington, DC. • Portrait of a Peace Corps Gringo by Paul Arfin (Colombia 1963–65) BookSurge August 2009 378 pages $17.99 Reviewed by Barbara Joe (Honduras 2000–03) In Portrait of a Peace Corps Gringo by Paul Arfin, I looked forward to becoming reacquainted with Colombia, where I’d spent two teenage years. This book, however, turned out to be more autobiography than Peace Corps memoir. Peace Corps service is often valuable in shaping young people’s future. For Arfin, this pattern held true. While the author . . .

John Woods is president of CWL Publishing Enterprises. He has worked in book publishing since 1970 and recently worked on Making the Good Life Last: 4 Keys to Sustainable Living by Michael A. Schuler (Berrett-Koehler). He was a Volunteer in Ethiopia from 1965 to 1968. His son Christopher Woods was a PCV in Kazakhstan from 1996 to 1998. Here John reviews Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America by David A. Taylor. • Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America by David A. Taylor (Mauritania 1983–85) Wiley February 2009 272 pages $27.95 Reviewed by John Woods (Ethiopia 1965–68) Imagine in this current economic travail if one of President Obama’s initiatives was to fund a project where out-of-work writers were employed to create travel and cultural guides to every state and several major cities in the United States. I’m pretty sure the right . . .