Archive - 2014

Thanks to a ‘heads up’ from Murray Frank (CD Nigeria 1961-63  & HQ 1963-65) I read this morning the glowing Sunday New York Times review of Margery Michelmore Heffron’s (Nigeria 1961) book Louise Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams published by Yale University Press. As the reviewer, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, noted, “Heffron, an independent scholar, succumbed to cancer before finishing a project that engaged her imagination for more than 30 years. Readers will nonetheless be grateful for this fascinating, if partial, portrait of an exceptional woman, and regret that its talented author fell silent too soon.” On December 15, 2011, on this site, I published a blog item using the title, “In Some Ways, She is the most famous RPCV of us all.” In it, I summed up Margery early Peace Corps career: As Michelmore, Margery went to Nigeria in 1961 with the first group of PCVs, in the first year of . . .

[As perhaps a companion piece to my blog item on the shift in America towards involvement in the world, I’d like to re-post a brilliant book review of Innocents Abroad: Teacheres in the American Century by David Espey (Morocco 1962-64) who teaches in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Dave has also been a Fulbright Lecturer in Morocco, Turkey, and Japan. The book review was brought to my attention by an email I received from Dick Joyce (Philippines 1962-64) who commented on reading Zimmerman’s book, “I’m prompted to write because I finally got around to reading Innocents Abroad and I really enjoyed it. It is great to see how things one observed and sometimes participated in on a small scale were parts of larger historic trends. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have known of the book if  you hadn’t recommended it on one of your websites several . . .

You have heard of the writer James Patterson. You have, I’m guessing, read at least one of his books. He’s the most popular and prolific writer to come along in the last decade. An estimated one out of every 17 hardcover novels purchased in the United States is his, dwarfing the sales of both Harry Potter and the Twilight vampires. To put it another way, James Patterson’s books account for one out of every 17 hardcover novels purchased in the United States. He is certainly the ‘king’ of summertime beach reading. Recently journalist Joe Berkowitz interviewed Patterson on the website Fast Company Create. In his interview, Berkowitz made the point that what makes Patterson so successful is “his colloquial storytelling style that grabs a hold of readers early on, instilling an insatiable need to know what happens next.” In his interview on the website, Patterson gave 8 points that dictates . . .

In March co-authors Leah Bassoff and Laura DeLuca (Kenya 1987–89) published the young adult novel entitled Lost Girl Found. The story revolves around a young girl — Ponti — whose life in her small village in southern Sudan is simple and complicated at the same time. But when the war comes and there is only one thing for Poni to do. Run. Run for her life. Driven by the sheer will to survive and the hope that she can somehow make it to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Poni sets out on a long, dusty trek across the east African countryside with thousands of refugees. In Kakuma she is almost overwhelmed by the misery that surrounds her. Poni realizes that she must leave the camp at any cost. Her next destination is a refugee compound in Nairobi. There, if she is lucky, she can continue her education and even . . .

Chasing Misery: An Anthology of Essays by Women in Humanitarian Responses Edited by Kelsey Hoppe Includes essays by Miranda Bryant (Kazakhstan 2000–02), Caryl Feldacker (Ecuador 1999–01), Emilie Greenhalgh (Cameroon 2007–09), Carmen Sheehan (Ecuador 2000–03); and photographs by Jenn Warren (Jordan 2002) CreateSpace $10.25 (paperback), $6.99 (Kindle) 318 pages 2014 Reviewed by Susi Wyss (Central African Republic 1990-92) All of the two dozen essays in Chasing Misery are written by women-including four recent RPCVs-who are attempting to describe their experiences working on humanitarian responses of the last decade around the world. While these crises each have their own causes and particular issues, and the people who work on them each have their own motivations and experiences, the world of humanitarian aid and the people dispensing it share enough in common to make this collection a cohesive whole. As any RPCV who has tried to write about their own experience knows, what . . .

The 1929 Bunion Derby: Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America by Charles B. Kastner (Seychelles 1980–82) Syracuse University Press $24.95 (hard cover) 304 pages April 2014 Reviewed by Thomas E. Coyne WOULD YOU RUN across the continental United States? Would you run across the continental United States . . . twice? You will notice that I did not ask if you COULD run across the country twice. In his book, The 1929 Bunion Derby, author Charles Kastner makes it clear there were any number of men quite willing to put on their running shoes and try . . . willing,  just not able. Charles Kastner has written two books about C. C. Pyle’s epic, but almost forgotten, International Trans-continental Foot Races in 1928 and 1929. The first, Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2007 grew out of a 2001 Kastner article in . . .

Confessions of a Secret Latina: How I Fell Out of Love with Castro & in Love with the Cuban People by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000–03) CreateSpace $15.77 (paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) 434 pages 2014 Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964–66) I agree 100% with Barbara Joe, the real criminals are the Castro brothers . . . Fidel and Raul! What they have done to the people of Cuba cannot be tolerated . . . simply said, they have been cruel and inhumane to the very people that brought them to power.  A recently released Afro-Cuban former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Dr. Oscar Biscet, said that 85% of Cuban prisoners are of African descent.  And many prisoners are behind bars not because they committed a crime, but because the Castro brothers feel the individual may perhaps in the future commit a crime against the Peoples Republic of Cuba . . . lock them up before they . . .