Search Results For -2009 books

The Peace Corps at 50 By Steven V. Roberts WHEN THE WORLD CALLS The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years By Stanley Meisler Beacon. 272 pp. $26.95 In 2008 Christiane Amanpour illustrated America’s declining role in the world by telling a foreign policy conference, “There wasa Peace Corps.” After the session a former volunteer named Jon Keeton angrily corrected CNN’s chief foreign correspondent: “There still is a Peace Corps.” As author Stanley Meisler recalls, “Amanpour blushed but pointed out that there must be something wrong if someone like herself did not realize the Peace Corps still existed.” The Peace Corps is a forgotten player today, riding the far end of the government’s bench and seldom getting into a game. Some years ago a State Department document referred to it as the “Peach Corps” and no one caught the error. But the Corps still sent 7,671 . . .

YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN Shelton Johnson prominently featured in the Ken Burns documentary film on our National Parks. What you might not have known is that Shelton Johnson served with the Peace Corps in Liberia in 1982–83, and that he is the author of Gloryland, a novel that is quietly gaining a lot of attention. Dick Joyce (Philippines 1962–64) who coordinates the RPCV group in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is a former graduate school classmate of mine, brought it to my attention. The novel was published by Sierra Club Books in 2009 and we’ll be reviewing it shortly on our site. Shelton Johnson is from Detroit, Michigan and has worked for the National Park Service since 1987. Currently he is a ranger in Yosemite, and lives with his wife and son just outside the Park. He has presented his original living-history program about a buffalo soldier as venues around the country. Shelton is also a helluva writer. . . .

A Year on the Bus by Dan Close (Ethiopia 1966-68) Warren, VT: Tamarac Press $15.00 131 pages 2010 Reviewed by Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) THIS IS A SMALL BOOK THAT DESERVES  a short, but positive review. In the space of 131 small pages, with a slightly larger than usual font, the author convinced me that this is a good book for a lot of folks. Have you ever been “caught” behind a school bus when you have to get somewhere fast? he asks. Are you, or  have you ever been, a school bus driver? Are you the parent of a kid on a school bus? Were you ever a kid on a bus? If any of these questions are you, then, this book is for you. And, I’ll add, if you know a school bus driver, give him or her a copy. If only for laughs, because this is a . . .

The Isthmus: Stories from Mexico’s Past, 1495–1995 by Bruce Stores (Guatemala 1963–65) iUniverse 2009 392 pages $21.95 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) IN BRUCE STORES’ SECOND BOOK, he tackled fiction — a tricky craft for anyone since its aim is to entertain. In fact, many who attempt fiction forget this simple rule, Mr. Stores among them. A serious book about a serious topic, the author attempted to present a five-hundred-year panoramic historical view of an isolated portion of Oaxacan Mexico, an area known for poverty, cruelty and rebellion. This is historical fiction about “natives who have been in continuous struggle for local control.” The book includes eleven vignettes about moments in history, culminating in political activities during the last twenty-five years of the twentieth century: one piece about pre-Colombian history, two about colonial history, two about nineteenth century independence and six about the twentieth century. It is reported . . .

Here’s a match up. Norman Rush (Botswana CD 1978-83) reviewed V.S. Naipaul’s new book: The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief that Knopf  just published. The book covers Naipaul’s 2008-2009 trip to Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and South Africa. Rush’s review is in The New York Review of Books (November 11, 2010) issue and opens with this line: It’s hard to be fair to V.S. Naipaul. You know the review is only going to get better. Norm goes onto write, “Hanging over the varying approaches to Naipaul’s work is the bad air released by Patrick French’s biography.” That book, The World Is What It is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul came out in 2008.) Rush, and his absolutely charming and beautiful wife, Elsa, were co-directors in Botswana where, from all accounts, Norm handled the paperwork and Elsa handled the PCVs. From all accounts they were great directors and why . . .

Never Push an Elephant by William V. Timmons (Niger 1965–67) CreateSpace (BookSurge) $15.95 310 pages 2009 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64; PC/DC Staff 1964–67) I WISH William V. Timmons were a more adroit writer, for he plainly knows his way around Southeast Asia. His greatest gifts apparently are non-literary, however. For their achievements as child welfare workers, Timmons and his wife Rachel were decorated by the King of Thailand. In Bangkok, some of the worst suck-ups in the indolent Thai upper classes receive these honors, but I am guessing that farangs recognized by the old monarch have actually done something useful. The deficiencies of this “thriller” about some CIA and U.S. missionary old boys rescuing a young American woman from a Burmese opium magnate are evident right away, and I almost threw in the towel after about 50 pages. The talky opening chapters are set in hectic, sedate, grim, . . .

Cockeyed by Richard Stevenson [aka Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64)] MLR Press September 2010 215 pages $14.99 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza  (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) I HAVE TO BEGIN THIS REVIEW of Richard Stevenson’s Cockeyed, the latest installment of his Donald Strachey Mystery series, by saying that I’ve recently discovered Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories, those masterful and disturbing looks at gay life in Weimar Germany just before the rise of the Nazis. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read Isherwood before this summer — my wife’s taking a Brit Lit course and I’ve been snagging her books — but at the same time it’s been sublime to wallow some weeks in great literature that’s been completely new to me. All right, you know the old reviewing trick, mention the author under review, then the “great” author he or she is most similar to: hence Stevenson and Isherwood in the . . .

Jason Boog is an editor at mediabistro.com’s publishing Web site, GalleyCat (www.mediabistro.com/galleycat). His work has appeared in The Believer, Granta, Salon.com, The Revealer, and Peace Corps Writers, and he is a contributor to the Poetry Foundation’s  poetryfoundation.org. This piece appeared in the December 15, 2009, issue of Wabash College’s on-line magazine. Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana is a small and very good liberal arts college for men. This article by Jason is one in a series of ongoing conversations about what it means to be a man in the 21st Century. • A Man’s Life: Sad Men by Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) I lost my job in December 2008, unemployed at the beginning of the longest, coldest winter I can remember in New York City. Up until then, everything had been going swimmingly: I was a staff writer at an investigative reporting publication, taught an undergraduate journalism class, and proposed to my girlfriend . . .

PEACE CORPS WRITERS is pleased to announce that The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America Its Name by Toby Lester (Yemen 1988–90) has won the 2010 Award  for the Outstanding Travel Book published by a Peace Corps writer during 2009. Lester will receive a framed certificate and a prize of $200. Picked as one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post, American Heritage, the Seattle News Tribune, and the Kansas City Star, The Fourth Part of the World also was selected as a Wall Street Journal History Bestseller, received a Barnes & Noble Discover Award, and was selected by Indie Booksellers for its November 2009 Indie Next List. In his review for our site David A. Taylor (Mauritania 1983–85) summed up, Lester’s book is a celebration of the rare instances where curiosity . . .

PEACE CORPS WRITERS is pleased to announce that In An Uncharted Country by Clifford Garstang  (South Korea 1976–78) has won the 2010 Maria Thomas Fiction Award for the outstanding fiction book published by a Peace Corps writer during 2009. Clifford will receive a framed certificate and a prize of $200. In An Uncharted Country showcases ordinary men and women in and around Rugglesville, Virginia, as they struggle to find places and identities in their families and the community. This collection of short stories is Garstang’s first published book, and it has also won the Independent Publisher’s IPPY Gold Medal this year for Best Fiction in the Mid Atlantic. Clifford Garstang grew up in the Midwest and received a BA from Northwestern University. After serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, he earned an MA in English and a JD, both from Indiana University, and practiced international law in Singapore, Chicago, and . . .

Darcy M. Meijer was a Peace Corps EFL teacher in Gabon, and has taught ESL for the past 25 years. She is also the editor of the Gabon Letter, the quarterly newsletter of the Friends of Gabon. Currently she is working in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and spends cool summers in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. Here she reviews RJ Huddy’s first novel, The Verse of the Sword. • The Verse of the Sword R J Huddy (Morocco 1981–83) XPat Fiction September 2009 456 pages $17.50 Reviewed by Darcy M. Meijer (Gabon 1982–84) THE VERSE OF THE SWORD, RJ Huddy’s first novel, is a thoroughly enjoyable read. The book is funny, informative, and engaging on many levels. It’s time someone wrote a literary novel about the Middle East that faces religious extremism in a human, thoughtful way. Verse opens in an Intensive Care Unit in Boston, where . . .

Patrick Chura is associate professor of English at the University of Akron and author of Vital Contact: Downclassing Journeys in American Literature from Melville to Richard Wright. His second book, Thoreau the Land Surveyor, is forthcoming in 2010. He recently returned to Lithuania as a Fulbright lecturer. Here he reviews P.F. Kluge’s new novel that is coming out this September. • A Call from Jersey by P. F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69) Overlook Press 352 pages $25.95 September 2010 Reviewed by Patrick Chura (Lithuania 1992-94) IN A CALL FROM JERSEY, P. F. Kluge isn’t out to write an epic or a blockbuster. He’s trying instead for a quiet, emotionally intelligent book about sentiments real to all of us. The main characters in this thoughtful novel are Hans Greifinger, an aging German immigrant who came to the United States in 1928, and his Americanized son George Griffin, a baby boomer who is . . .