New books by Peace Corps writers — September & October 2019

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 now include a one-sentence description — provided by the author — for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  1) to order the book and 2) to volunteer to review it. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at peacecorpsworldwide@gmail.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions.

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As We Think . . . So We Age: Exploring Pathways to Meaningful Aging

Geri Marr Burdman, Ph.D. (Bolivia 1962–64)
GeroWise Books
July 2015
136 pages
$14.99 (paperback)

Drawing on her professional background as well as years of cross-cultural and global experiences, Geri Marr Burdman emphasizes the vital importance of seeking purpose and meaning regardless of age, geography, or circumstances.

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Face to Face with the Global Economy
Leo  Cecchini (Ethiopia 1962–64)
Self-published
September 2019
137 pages
$5.00 (Kindle): $8.00 (Paperback)

The global economy, a phrase that conjures up an image of a one world, albeit in economic terms. We all are intrigued by this structure that touches every person on the planet. What is it and how does it work? 

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I Had Servants Once: Peace Corps Volunteer Tell All
by Kristina Engstrom (Philippines 1962-64)
Levellers Press
219 pages
October 2019
$25.00 (paperback) Order from the publisher.

Body builders. Municipal government leaders. Malarial mosquitoes. Lions. A sleeping bag in the mountains of Afghanistan. A boutique hotel in Switzerland. Maid in a Taos household.Consultant to international institutions. Even law school

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Boyhood In Bayfield
by Andrew Oerke (PC staff: Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Jamaica 1966-71)
Poets’ Choice Publishing
71 pages
2019
email Marathonfilm@gmail.com for price and ordering instructions

An ancient Norse elf lives in Andrew Oerke and in these poems, which respond to the northern forests and lakes of Wisconsin.

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Bill Owens: Altamont 1969
Bill  Owens (Jamaica 1964–66), photographer; Sasha Frere-Jones (Author); Claudia Zanfi (Editor)
Damiani May 2019
96 pages
$40.00 (hardcover)

A new and previously unpublished series of photographs of the Rolling Stones’ infamous concert at the Altamont Speedway in California.

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Welcome to the Writer’s Life
by Paulette Perhach (Paraguay 2008–10)
Sasquatch Books Publisher
2018
320 pages
$ 18.95 (paperback)

With warmth and humor, the author welcomes you into the writer’s life as someone who has been there on the other side looking in.

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Two Years Behind the Plow: Bringing the Green Revolution to Nepal
by Jonathan Stewart (Nepal 1969-72)
Self-Published
254 pages
October 2019
$20.00 (paperback) order from the author at:
20116 Cumulus Land, Bend OR 97702

In August of 1969, Peace Corps Nepal’s Group 19 landed in Kathmandu. Fifty years later, one of the group’s agriculture volunteers, Jon Stewart, finished writing a memoir of his time as a PCV.

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On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey
Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publisher
448 pages
October 2019
$30.00 (hardback), $15.99 (Kindle)

Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today’s brutal headlines.

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The Honolulu Dragon: The Last Case of Robert Louis Stevenson, Detective
by Joseph Theroux (Samoa 1975-78)
346 pages
Kilauea Publications
August 2019
$12.00 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle)

Following the success of their detective work in the cases of The Devil’s Throat and The White Kahuna, Lloyd Osbourne and his step-father Robert Louis Stevenson find themselves in a world of murder and intrigue in Hawaii.

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Blue Country
by Mark Wentling (Honduras 1967–69, Togo 1970–73; PC Staff: Togo, Gabon, Niger 1973–77)
Page Publishing
204 pages
August 2019
$16.95 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle)

Unexpected twists and turns keep the reader guessing about what will happen next. Throughout this entertaining novel is weaved a one-way dialogue between a dying prisoner who tells repeatedly his sad story to a hungry jailhouse rat, which only lives to eat.

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