Search Results for “2009 books” – Page 8

Migrant Caravans and Social Justice by Mark Walker (Guatemala)

Oct 02 2019

Justice & Responsibility The Plight of the Immigrants from Central America By Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) “Migrant Caravans,” made up of large groups of children and adults from the Northern Triangle of Central America, heading to our border to seek safety and a better life is problematic, both for those coming and for those waiting for their arrival in the U.S. The influx of undocumented immigrants has reached a ten-year high, with 66,450 entering recently, according to the Customs and Border Patrol. The existing frenzied political debate and the false narratives it often generates make it difficult, if not impossible, to turn this crisis into an opportunity to better appreciate why so many continue to seek refuge here and to understand our own role, and that of our government, in sorting out the situation, responding in a humanitarian way to those coming and creating some viable solutions to . . .

A Writer Writes — “The Roads Are Closing” by Patricia McArdle (Paraguay)

Aug 20 2019

A Writer Writes THE ROADS ARE CLOSING By Patricia McArdle (Paraguay 1972-74) Winner of the Foreign Service Journal Summer Fiction Contest in 2009 • How did I let her burrow so far into me that twenty years later she still lingers just beyond the daylight, curling around my mind like tendrils of sweet cigar smoke, distracting me with the soft clink of ice cubes in her sweating glass of gin and tonic. The thing is, I never should have spoken to her the first time. She was not my type, not part of my plan. Oh yes, my plan. Finish my masters in International Relations, pass the Foreign Service exam, hustle my way to the top — marry the right girl, which I did, but it didn’t last. I married even better the second time — the daughter of a former ambassador, but that didn’t last either. I even . . .

To Cut a Long Story Short & By The Book–Jia Tolentino (Kyrgyzstan)

Aug 10 2019

Jia Tolentino (Kyrgyzstan 2009-10) dominates the book world this weekend with articles by and about her in the wake of the publication of her new book Trick Mirror. “To Cut a Long Story Short” is an essay by Jai that appears in the Saturday/Sunday issue of The Wall Street Journal and Jia is interviewed in The New York Times Sunday Book Section. JC Note. Writer Jia Tolentino on Her Obsession With ‘Disgusting’ Jean Shorts The author and New Yorker staff writer, whose new book of essays ‘Trick Mirror’ is out this week, describes her lifelong affinity for beat-up denim cutoffs JEAN QUEEN The writer, who has been compared dauntingly to both Susan Sontag and Joan Didion, wearing her beloved shorts in her Brooklyn neighborhood. PHOTO: LEETA HARDING FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Jia Tolentino Aug. 7, 2019 GROWING UP IN Texas, I attended an evangelical private school whose thorough strictness was . . .

Review — OUR MAN: RICHARD HOLBROOKE by George Packer (Togo)

Jun 11 2019

Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and The End of the American Century by George Packer (Togo 1982-83) Knopf Publisher 592 pages May 2019 $30.00 (Hardcover); $20.49 (Paperback); $14.99(Kindle) Review by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963–65) • He had come a long way . . . and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald The Ego Has Landed Introduction The author, George Packer, has a thoroughly beguiling style of writing in which the reader is being told a story rather than reading one, as with the opening line to Moby Dick: “Call me Ishmael;” Packer writes “you have heard that he is a monstrous . . .

Review–George Packer on Richard Holbrooke, the Last Great Freewheeling Diplomat (Togo)

May 10 2019

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962-64) Richard Holbrooke, and the End of the American Century by George Packer (Togo 1982-83) Reviewed by Walter Isaacson The New York Times May 9, 2019 Richard Holbrooke was a large man with gargantuan appetites — for food and women and movies and acclaim and, above all, diplomatic and undiplomatic maneuvering — appetites that struggled to feed an outsize ego that was matched only by his insecurities. As the last great freewheeling diplomat of the American Century, Holbrooke, with his turbocharged zeal and laughable lack of self-awareness, earned fervent admirers and fevered enemies, including a few longstanding colleagues who fell passionately and paradoxically into both camps. In fact, Holbrooke himself was caught in this duality of being his own most fervent admirer and worst enemy (although when someone once commented that he was his own worst enemy, a national security adviser . . .

Peter Hessler (China) Discovers Egypt

Apr 14 2019

Editor John Coyne talks with Peter Hessler (China) Peter Hessler Discovers Egypt Peter Hessler is a 1992 graduate of Princeton University, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China from 1996 to 1998. Since that time he has worked in China as a freelance writer for numerous publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, South China Morning Post, and National Geographic. In 2008, he won the National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and since 2000 he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker. Hessler has written four books on China. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which won the 2001 Kiriyama Book Prize, describes Hessler’s experience as an English teacher in Fuling, a small city on the Yangtze River. Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, explores the intersection . . .

Review — MAR-A-LAGO by Laurence Leamer (Nepal)

Apr 02 2019

Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) Flatiron Books Publisher 304 pages January 29, 2019 $27.99 (hardcover), $14.99 (Kindle). $32.45 (Audiobook) Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) • Mar-a-Lago provides history and insights into President Donald J. Trump that many readers say one must read if one wants to understand the great leader. Leamer’s research includes thirty-six pages of notes, a bibliography and an index, so you know he’s done his homework. Perhaps even more important, Leamer and his wife have lived in Palm Beach since 1994, and have had front row seats for the Donald Trump show since he turned his Mar-a-Lago estate into a club. Leamer never became a member of the club, but he has friends who are members, so he has had access to the tennis courts and dining room, and was able to . . .

EVERYWHERE STORIES: VOLUME III edited by Clifford Garstang (South Korea)

Oct 29 2018

Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, Volume III Edited by Clifford Garstang (South Korea 1976-77) Press 53 Publisher October 2018 196 pages $19.95 (paperback) The third anthology in the series travels to 20 more countries Press 53 announces the publication on October 16, 2018, of Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, Volume III, an anthology of 20 stories by 20 authors set in 20 countries. With a theme of “It’s an Adventurous World,” this exciting addition to the Everywhere Stories series, edited by award-winning author Clifford Garstang, takes readers on a journey around the globe: to a mysterious discovery in Mongolia, to an expedition in the Australian Outback, to revolution in Chile, and to more stories in countries on every continent. Contributors include Ben Berman [Zimbabwe 1998–2000] (Strange Borderlands, Figuring in the Figure), J. Thomas Brown (The Land of Three Houses), E. Shaskan Bumas . . .

Review — INTO THE BACKLANDS by Kenneth E. Dugan Flies (Brazil)

Oct 11 2018

Into the Backlands: A Peace Corps Memoir by Kenneth E. Dugan Fliés (Brazil 1961–63) Lost Lake Folk Art Books June 19, 2018 236 pages $17.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66) • The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit, but we are not apologetic about it! — Sargent Shriver Want to know what Peace Corps was like then and now? Into The Backlands, a Peace Corps Memoir takes you by the hand into the early years of JFK’s Peace Corps and the spirit and challenges of the times, 1961-1963. Ken Flies was 19 years old when he reported to training at the University of Oklahoma as part of Brazil II, one of the first. I doubt if Ken knew what he was getting himself into, and Brazil . . . where’s that? Ken’s memoir shares the beauty and innocence of Kennedy’s “kiddie corps” as the press portrayed . . .

Review — GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR by Paul Theroux (Malawi)

Sep 27 2018

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar By Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 511 pages August 2009 $8.32 (paperback), $10.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971–73) • Follow Theroux as he embarks on a 25,000-mile epic journey through Asia retracing the steps of a trip he’d taken thirty years before. Since then, Theroux records phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India grows, while Burma is mothered by a military dictatorship and, most interestingly, Vietnam flourished despite the havoc the United States had unleashed on it. No one describes the texture, sights, sounds and the flavors of this changing landscape better than Theroux. Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work, The Great Railway Bazaar, the world’s most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central . . .

Summertime Quiz Answers, Number Two

Aug 30 2018

Summertime Quiz Country Author The Measure of a Dream Tunisia Lora Begin (1989-91) Published by Peace Corps Writers, 2012 How to Cook a Crocodile Gabon Bonnie Black (1996-98) Published by Peace Corps Writers, 2010 Dusty Land: Stories of Two Teachers Botswana John Ashford (1990-93) Published by Peace Corps Writers, . . .

Talking with Ambassador Vicki Huddleston (Peru)

May 28 2018

Ambassador Vicki Latham Huddleston (Peru 1964–66) is a retired career Senior Foreign Service Officer who recently published a memoir, Our Woman in Havana: A Diplomat’s Chronicle of America’s Long Struggle with Castro’s Cuba. Over her thirty year career in foreign affairs she has worked for the Department of State, USAID, and the Department of Defense. Her last government assignment was as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from June 2009 through December 2011. Before that she was Chargé d’Affaires ad interim to Ethiopia, United States Ambassador to Mali, Principal Officer of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar. She was Chief of United States Interests Section in Havana from 1999–2002 and was earlier the Deputy and then the Coordinator of the Office of Cuban Affairs. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, she was a visiting scholar . . .

Review — The Peace Corps Experience, 1969-1976 by P. David Searles (staff)

Mar 28 2018

The Peace Corps Experience: Challenge and Change, 1969-1976 By P. David Searles (Philippines Country Director 1971-74; Peace Corps Deputy Director 1974-76) The University Press of Kentucky March 1997 254 pages $21.96 (hard cover) Reviewed by David Elliott (Poland 1991-93; Staff-India 1966-68, Nigeria 1965-66, Sierra Leone 1964-65) • Was the Peace Corps on its deathbed in 1969? Did Director Joe Blatchford revive the patient with his “New Directions” medicine? In his preface, P. Searles is explicit as to his book’s “main message”: In late 1969, President Richard Nixon’s first Peace Corps director, Joseph H. Blatchford, announced a set of policies, which he labeled New Directions, that changed its [Peace Corps’] nature and ensured its survival…Without these changes its tenth anniversary (in 1971) would have been a wake mourning the death of the last of the Kennedy era. Peace Corps history buffs may find this book entertaining, even provocative. Searles was . . .

Talking with P. David Searles (Philippines & Peace Corps/HQ)

Mar 26 2018

David Searles’ career has included periods during which he worked in international business, government service and education. After service in the United States Marine Corps (1955-58) Searles worked in consumer goods marketing and in general management positions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Latin America. His business career was interrupted by a brief stint as a high school teacher (1969-71) and longer periods of service with the Peace Corps (1971-76) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1976-1980). Searles served three years as the country director for the Peace Corps in the Philippines, and two years at Peace Corps headquarters as a Regional Director for North Africa, Near East, Asia, and Pacific (NANEAP) and as Deputy Director under John Dellenback. Following the end of his business career in 1990 Searles earned a Ph. D. from the university of Kentucky (1993), and published two books: A College For Appalachia (1995) . . .

Remembering the murder of PCV Deborah Gardner (Tonga)

Mar 25 2018

In the late Nineties, shortly after I had taken over the job of manager of the New York Recruitment Office for the Peace Corps, I got a call from a reporter at the New York Observer newspaper. I thought he was calling to ask me about the Peace Corps and to write an article about the agency. Well, in a way he was, but he started by asking if I knew anything about the murder of a young woman in Tonga in 1975. The reporter’s name was Philip Weiss and he didn’t realized he had stumbled on an RPCV who was fascinated by the history of the Peace Corps and obsessively collected PCV stories. Phil Weiss was also obsessed, but by the murder of this PCV in Tongo. In 1978, when he was 22 and backpacking around the world, he had crashed with a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa named . . .

Search Results For -2009 books