New books by Peace Corps writers | May — June 2024

Jul 01 2024

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 include a brief description for each of the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers to order a book and maybe 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 free copy along with a few instructions.

PLEASE, PLEASE join in our Third Goal effort and volunteer to review a book or books!!!

Medicine

When Coronavirus Unmapped The Peace Corps Journey
by Jeffrey W. Aubuchon (Morocco 2007-08) & Peace Corps Response Nepal
92252 Press
142 pages
$2.99 (Kindle).$7.00 (Paperback)

This book details the unprecedented global evacuation of Volunteers from national headlines as well as village stories of abandoned projects and suspended friendships. Yet, the book also describes the ensuing advocacy of legislators and the National Peace Corps Association, as well as private citizens — from high school students to adults — who rallied behind the Corps.

The environment

Understanding Imperiled Earth
by Todd J. Braje (Tonga 1998-20)
Smithsonian Books

208 pages
April 2024
$17.99 (Kindle); $22.87 (Hardcover)

This book is a unique introduction to how understanding archaeology can support modern-day sustainability efforts, from restoring forested land to developing fire management strategies, and is an essential and hopeful book for climate-conscious readers.

Peace Corps memoir

Mission to Malawi — Memoir of an African American Peace Corps Volunteer
by John Fleming (Malawi 1967-69)
McFarland Publisher
May 2024
227 pages
$19.99 (Kindle); $29.99 (Paperback)

This memoir is a moving story of coming “home” to Africa, where the author developed deep friendships with his Malawian neighbors and colleagues. The author relates his first Christmas spent with a Malawian family, where he was served termites; the ordeal of climbing the highest mountain in Malawi; and his battle with thousands of soldier ants. He also describes his experiences in the neighboring countries of Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.

Memoir

Leap
A Memoir
by Brent Love (Armenia 2009-11)
Manuscripts Press
June 2024
452 pages
$14.99 (paperback); 14.99 (Kindle); $37.99 (Hardcover)

In a small Texas town, Brent comes out to his parents, and on that night his place in the world cracks wide open. Unmoored from his family but unwilling to give up on his dream, Brent enters the Peace Corps with the incredible task of navigating an unfamiliar land, a new language, and a new identity as a gay man in post-Soviet Armenia.

Fiction

Silent Light
by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80)
OB Books
June 2024
340 pages
$18.95 (paperback)

Thirty-seven-year-old Smith wins a “stash” of diamonds in a poker game. The only catch: he has to find them.

Peace Corps memoir

Walking with Evaristo: A Memoir of Celebration and Tragedy in the Land of the AchÍ Maya
Christian Nill (Guatemala 1978–82)
Peace Corps Writers
May 2024
383 pages
$17.99 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle)

In WALKING WITH EVARISTOChristian Nill provides a thoroughly engaging account of the time he spent in Guatemala during the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this period Nill served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rabinal, a predominantly Mayan community situated squarely in the middle of the country. The story begins, however, with a handful of vignettes from the author’s youth, as these help shed more light on the fractured nature of that tall gringo standing in the middle of Rabinal’s plaza in 1981.

While the author worked as an agroforestry extensionist in the mountainous countryside, Guatemala’s armed forces were engaged in an escalating couterinsurgency campaign which came to be identified for what it was: genocide. WALKING WITH EVARISTO is more than just a personal memoir; it is a sympathetic portrait of the Guatemalan people, many of them heroes, who suffered and died and prevailed—and then suffered again.

Peace Corps memoir

Don’t Run Over a Snake’s Tail, Slowly: A Journal of My Two Years in Benin, West Africa with the Peace Corps
Dennis Perry (Benin 1972-74)
April 2024
iUniverse
232 pages
#2o.99 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle)

During my first year of Peace Corps service in Benin I survived a revolution, participated in a land-grab, and ethnic cleansing. In my second year of service, I accepted an invitation to experience life as the old, old Africans lived it.

Besides my duties as an Animal Traction Volunteer to train and provide health care for thirty-five pairs of bulls I helped the villagers of Kolokonde, I obtained a grant of $5,000.00 to rebuild their market place. Finally, in 1973, I sat in on a meeting between Benin agricultural officials and the Red Chinese.

Peace Corps memoir

The Lands of the Free: A Peace Corps Thailand Memoir

Lewis E. Ruffing (Thailand 1971-72)
May 2024
Peace Corps Writers
396 pages
$12.99 (paperback),$5.00 (Kindle)

Altruism, adventure, and self-discovery in the Peace Corps in 1970s Thailand lead a young man to achieve freedom from his false-self.

memoir

Three Caminos: Thoughts on the Road to Santiago
Giles Ryan (Korea 1970–72)
April 2023
Independently published
237 pages
$16.00 (paperback), $3.00 (Kindle)

These essays were written while walking three times to Santiago, all along reflecting on history and literature, love and friendship and children and the raising of children.

Peace Corps Memoir

Peace Corps Victim: A Peace Corps Volunteer Story of Trauma and Betrayal
Patrick Shea (Georgia 2016-17 — Medically Separated)
Friesen Press
258 pages
$21.99 (Paperback); $ 9.99 (Kindle); $35.99 (Hardcover)

Witness the harrowing true story of an idealistic American Volunteer who ventured into the heart of Eastern Europe with the honorable intention of serving in the United States Peace Corps. What awaited him in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia was a nightmare difficult to comprehend.

about Guatemala

The Guatemala Reader: Extraordinary Lives and Amazing Stories
Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971–73)
May 2024
Million Mile Walker
192 pages
(Reading age:‎ 16 – 18 years)
$9.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle)

“Join me on an epic journey through the fascinating, yet often misunderstood Central American neighbor. I’ve studied and written about Guatemala for fifty years, and in this book, I’ve focused on some of the extraordinary people of Guatemala and their amazing stories.”

Memoir

A Jew in Gaza: Humanitarian Heartbreak, Hubris and Horror
Allan “Alonzo” J. Wind (Ecuador 1980–82)
Enable & Ennoble
June 2024
296 pages
$24.88 (hardcover), $9.99 (Kindle), 1 credit (Audiobook)

This is the unique story of how A.J. “Alonzo” Wind, retired Foreign Service Officer and international development executive, assumed the position of Mission Director for International Medical Corps in the occupied Palestinian territories, living in Gaza and East Jerusalem during 2022 and 2023.

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