To order books published by Peace Corps Writers from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that helps support our awards.
2011
Eritrea Remembered
Recollections & Photos by Peace Corps Volunteers
Edited by Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962–64)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$10.00 (paperback); $2.99 (Kindle)
184 pages
December 2011
EIGHTEEN PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS who served in Eritrea share their fond experiences in this Horn of Africa country: Marianne Arieux, Mike Bannister, Leo Cecchini, Tom Cutler, Harold Freeman, Walt Galloway, Tom Gallagher, Cathie Hulder, Paul Huntsberger, Wayne Kessler, Cynthia Tse Kimberlin, Neil Kottler, Kurt Peterson, Joann Feldman Richards, Mary Gratiot Schultz, Lois Shoemaker, Judy Smith and Kate Yocum.
No Senator’s Son
by R J Huddy
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$17.50 (paperback); $2.99 (Kindle)
380 pages
October 2011
POLITICO COLE GIBSION SAYS of Congressman Hatling: “Yes, well . . . I’ve heard of him.” There could hardly be a more obscure member of Congress than the representative from Kentucky’s Fifth District. When his name arises as a potential presidential candidate, no one is more surprised — or horrified — than Hatling himself, for Hatling lives a secret life. With the reappearance of his old college sweetheart, a French-Palestinian woman in Beirut, he has even more to hide. And if his ideas regarding the State of Israel become known, the result will not be a simple election defeat. It will be a battle for peace or war, for life or death. No Senator’s Son is a story of families under strain, of failures and redemption in love, of our passage through history, and the passage of history through us.
“I’ve heard of him,” Cole Gibson says. He’s about to hear a lot more.
Read Larry Lihosit’s review of No Senator’s Son
One for the Road
by David J. Mather (Chile 1968–70)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$14.95 (paperback), $7.50 (Kindle)
412 pages
September 2011
TOM YOUNG WANTS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the world. He joins the Peace Corps and is sent to an impoverished farm community in remote southern Chile where a reforestation project is the campesinos’ only hope for a better future.
Tom finds himself in a breathtakingly beautiful land from a bygone era. Horses and oxen provide transportation, light is from kerosene lamps, and water is fetched with buckets from springs. He is drawn to the closeness of Chilean family life, and desperately wants to fit in as he struggles with the language and customs. Fighting depression and loneliness, he slowly adapts, but is shocked when brutal acts of violence rock the community.
Tom’s bonds are truly forged with this forgotten world when he embarks on the seemingly impossible task of building a new road into the campo. What he doesn’t anticipate is the relationship that develops with a beautiful young woman, a relationship that will provide the key to Tom’s heartwarming — and heartbreaking — acceptance into the community.
Read Reilly Ridgell’s review of One for the Road
Read about One for the Road in the Vermont Valley News
Visit OnefortheRoad-Mather.com
Running in Flip-flops
by Abigail Fay (Senegal 2007–09)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$12.75 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle)
306 pages
September 2011
FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE, Shannon Wheaton signs up for two years in the Peace Corps and gets exactly what she expects: a mud hut, a boisterous host family, no running water or electricity, and endless days of shelling peanuts. What she didn’t expect was to clash so intensely with Wolof culture. In her rural village in Senegal, West Africa, Shannon is challenged in ways she never could have imagined. She finds herself riding an emotional roller coaster. Moments of wonder and of frustration, tiny successes and multiple failures, American friends and village neighbors, all shape Shannon’s new world – and her with it. Her story is an earnest chronicle of Peace Corps service, with the enduring question familiar to all volunteers: What does it mean to make a difference?
Read Leita Kaldi’s review of Running in Flip-Flops
Adventures in Gabon
Peace Corps Stories from the African Rainforest
edited by Darcy Munson Meijer (Gabon 1982–1984)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$15.95 (paperback)
232 pages
September 2011
“ADVENTURES IN GABON IS A MUST READ for every returned — or prospective — Peace Corps Volunteer. It manages to cover all the important facets of life in the Peace Corps: the camaraderie and isolation, the laughter and loneliness, the rewards and frustrations, and above all the sense of being hyper-alive.”
— R J Huddy (author of Verse of the Sword and Learn Thai with Me)
Read John Coyne’s interview with Darcy Munson Meijer
Read Larry Lihosit’s review of Adventures in Gabon
The Orange Tree
by Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$14.95
424 pages
May 2011
A STORY OF THE UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP between an elderly Jewish lady and the young Somali nurse who cares for her. Helen and Amina develop a special bond as they confront their troubled pasts and the realities of life in a divided post 9-11 world. A touching meditation on displacement and cultural difference, The Orange Tree paints an insightful portrait of two friends and the shared humanity that binds them together.
Read John Coyne’s interview with Marty Ganzglass
The Gambling Master of Shanghai and Other Tales of Suspense
by Joan Richter (staff spouse Kenya 1965–67)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$15.00
256 pages
March 2011
$15.00 (paperback), $15.00 (Kindle)
THE GAMBLING MASTER OF SHANGHAI and Other Tales of Suspense is a collection of seventeen stories that will take the reader on a suspenseful journey to places near and far — to Shanghai and Prague, Africa, Cambodia, and the United States.
Read Tony D’Souza’s review of The Gambling Master
Read John Coyne’s interview with Joan Richter
The Caddie Who Won The Masters
A Novel
by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$13.50 (paperback), $4.95 (Kindle)
316 pages
March 2011
BOBBY JONES ALWAYS HOPED that someday an amateur would win the Masters. In this novel, bestselling author John Coyne—The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan and The Caddie Who Played With Hickory—tells the story of Tim Alexander, an amateur from the public links courses in Southern Illinois, who qualifies for the Masters and has a chance to fulfill Jones’ dream. In The Caddie Who Won The Masters, Coyne blends his skill at the supernatural (he’s a bestselling author of novels of the occult) with his vast knowledge of golf and its history.
Read Roland Merullo’s review of The Caddie Who Won The Masters
Read Karen Croke’s Here are 10 thing you might not know about John Coyne!
Visit JohnCoyneBooks.com
Answering Kennedy’s Call
Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines
Edited by Parker W. Borg, Maureen J. Carroll, Patricia MacDermot Kasdan, Stephen W. Wells (all Philippines (1961–63)
A Peace Corps Writers Book
$25.00
498 pages
March 2011
FIFTY YEARS AFTER President Kennedy signed the 1961 Executive Order creating the Peace Corps, nearly 100 former volunteers who joined the new organization in the first year for service in the Philippines recall why they joined, what they experienced, and how this service in the Philippines affected their lives. In addition a half dozen members of the Peace Corps staff in the Philippines and a similar number of Filipinos have contributed their recollections from the period. The book includes photos of individuals from both the 1960s and more recently as well as maps showing communities of service.
Read John Coyne’s “PCVs from Philipines publish book”
Read John Coyne’s “More about Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines”
Read Marian Haley Beil’s Talking with the Editors of Answering Kennedy’s Call
Read David Searles’ review of Answering Kennedy’s Call
By year
2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011 • 2010