Archive - January 28, 2010

Using the unlikely topic of tombstones, Ghlee Woodworth, who spent some 13 years with the Peace Corps as a PCV in the Comoros Islands, and then as a Peace Corps Trainer for projects in Namibia, Swaziland, Niger, Bulgaria, Moldova, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Bangladesh, traveling to a total of 45 countries before coming home to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she pieced together a picture of 19th-century Newburyport through the stories of 80 people laid to rest in the Oak Hill Cemetery. And this is only her first volume. Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, which is self published, recently was named runner-up in the Biography/Autobiography category for the 2009 Book of the Year at the New England Book Festival (beating out the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s book, True Compass). It tells the stories of some of Newburyport’s 19th-century founders: ship captains, entrepreneurs and political leaders. “It takes many citizens to build a community, and some of the people I’ve written about were . . .

Eternal on the Water is “A touching love story immersed in the beautiful simplicity of nature and life lived in the present moment,” says novelist Lisa Genove about the new book by Joseph Monninger (Burkina Faso 1975-77). Monninger has written fiction and non-fiction, YAs, and memoirs. He had written about boxing matches and sled dogs and Africa. Most recently  he has been writing successful, award winning, Young Adult books, the latest Hippie Chick. Back in 1991 he wrote The Viper Tree set in Ouagodougou, Burkina Faso. Now he has written a big romance about two adults who meet while kayaking on Maine’s Allagash River and fall deeply in love. The two approach life with the same sense of adventure they use to conquer the river’s treacherous rapids. This is a warm love story where two “soul mates” meet by chance, fall perfectly and completely in love, but quickly learn their time together is fated . . .