If you're having trouble viewing this email, you can see it online.
Welcome to the Late-November edition of MWPA's Ex Libris Maine.
This edition offers new books by Maine authors in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry, and Children.
For more information on any title below, simply click on the book's cover.
Happy Reading!
Verity & Perpetua
Agnes Bushell
Littoral Books
Verity and Perpetua, two clever, young orphans, escape a nunnery and arrive in Elizabethan London. Here, because of their talent for speaking in rhyme, they are invited to join a group of playwrights engaged in writing satires critical of the government. Devoted to each other and to the task of discovering their parentage, they ignore the dangers and intrigues around them until they find themselves caught up in a conspiracy to put a Pretender on the English throne. A rollicking adventure and a story of love and friendship, Verity & Perpetua is also a new twist on the perennial question of who wrote all those dazzling Elizabethan plays.
Conversations with my Mother: A Novel of Dementia on the Maine Cost
This is the story of an elegant, elderly Francophone succumbing to dementia as her lovely, coastal Maine town is transformed into a vacation and retirement destination for out-of-staters. Focusing on her relationship with her acerbic, care-giver daughter and her peripatetic, businessman son, Conversations examines the pair’s attempts to cope with the ramifications of their mother’s decline—including her potential removal to a nursing home as well as the sale of the family’s property to real estate developers. Rendered in vivid, episodic chapters, this first-person narrative evokes a strong sense of place and tells the family’s story from a variously witty and elegiac perspective, drawing parallels between its beleaguered heroine’s persistent kindness and the enduring beauty of Maine’s embattled coast. Ultimately more about hope than regret, the novel suggests the personality of a dementia victim doesn’t always completely disappear, just as the intrinsic appeal of a place, however ravaged, seldom entirely vanishes.
In this collection of twenty-five essays and features, Michael Burke shines a light on aspects of life in Maine that have caught his attention during 35 years of living in and writing about the state. He seeks out the quirky, the essential, the familiar, and the hidden, then provides the reader the vicarious experience of absorbing a season of county fairs, being a graduation speaker for a tiny high school, sampling the highs and lows of country auctions, sea kayaking along the Maine Island Trail, and fiddleheading with a man named Blood. Vivid and insightful,The Art of the Myth is an introduction to that "Other Maine." One a reader rarely encounters but will enjoy meeting.
Grit & Ghosts: Following the Trail of Eight Tenacious Women across a Century
Author Robin Foster confronts the anxiety of a pandemic-stricken world during early days of the Covid shutdowns and travels the American West to unearth powerful stories of tenacious women who overcame their own hardships. In doing so, she weaves a rich tapestry of grit, resilience, and haunting memories that teach her about survival in these unpredictable times. Kirkus Reviews says this is a book filled with “inspirational stories of women who thought nothing of accepting a good challenge" as well as "undeniable scrappiness…Foster recognizes that history is storytelling.”
John Moore: Portals
Carl Little
Marshall Wilkes
John Moore: Portals features the remarkable collection of paintings, created over the past 25 years, from an artist based in Belfast, Maine. Over the years, Moore’s work has been featured in a number of landmark “new American realism” shows and in solo exhibitions in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. His paintings hang in many prestigious collections, including The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and Colby College Museum of Art. This book is divided into thematic sections: urban, industrial, windows, and elegies. And in their essays, four writers—Suzette McAvoy, Carl Little, John Stomberg, and Rosanna Warren—make art history and literary connections, from Poussin to Wallace Stevens. An afterword by Christina Kee highlights the vision of collector William Louis-Dreyfus (1932-2013) who acquired forty Moore paintings. John Moore: Portals also features poems by Rosanna Warren, John Yau, Vincent Katz, and Geoffrey Young.
Gus is a heartwarming, funny love story about how a psychologist, who initially rejected the 1.4-ounce pet parakeet his wife insisted on adopting, ultimately wanted Gus to live beyond his all-too-brief five years. Learn how Gus's uncanny words of wisdom—though sometimes making the psychologist look bad to others—helped his therapy patients, himself, and his wife in remarkable ways. Send inquiries to Barbara Held: bheld@bowdoin.edu
Farmhouse on the Edge of Town: Stories from a Bed & Breakfast in the Mountains of Western Maine
Lew-Ellyn Hughes dreams of leaving city life and finding a place where she can see her beloved Maine wilderness from her window each morning. Her dreams finally come true when she finds a nineteenth-century farmhouse for sale in Stratton, an idyllic town nestled in between lakes and mountains. She decides to turn it into Diamond Corner—a cozy, five-room bed-and-breakfast, where she can share her love of Maine with visitors from all over the world. Farmhouse on the Edge of Town is a collection of heartwarming and humorous stories from fifteen years of owning this bed-and-breakfast, featuring a cast of hardy Mainers, colorful guests, and lovable family, as Lew-Ellyn juggles their wants and needs with her trademark humor and insight. From opening up a bakery in her kitchen to painting her house, to shoveling snow, her stories will delight anyone who’s ever spent time in a small town.
Blanket of the Night
Carl Little
Deerbrook Editions
Blanket of the Night has earned praises from a chorus of renowned Maine poets. Kristen Lindquist calls this collection “a gorgeous quilt pieced together with such everyday blessings as green snakes, roadside mattresses, pepperidge trees, manicotti, and a sign language interpreter.” Megan Grumbling writes, “Little limns redemption among returnable wine bottles, the avian musicology of a flicker, the spiritual euphoria of eating a grapefruit.” Gibson Fay-LeBlanc notes the author “places us, again and again, at a particular moment in time in the wide universe, asking us…to take note of the minute particulars.” The book offers love poems, homages to kin, and ekphrasm. Poems have appeared in The Café Review, Maine Arts Journal, Hole in the Head Review, Poems from Here, The Maine Sunday Telegram, and several anthologies, including Take Heart (Down East Books, 2013) and 3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England Writers (Resolute Bear Press, 2017). Little lives and writes on Mount Desert Island.
EL Joffe is an illustrated picture book story told through the eyes of a Poodle (Joffe). It's a story about what makes Santa Fe, New Mexico a special city in “The Land of Enchantment." It is about adobe houses, the Opera, farolitos and a host of things, including a striking landscape and history, all of which make Santa Fe unique. In a series of adventures to find a special friend, EL Joffe learns about Santa Fe’s cultural traditions from music to art; about its flora and fauna; and about its dog-centric ethos. A Spanish legacy shaped the City’s cultural heritage and architecture. The unique Native American culture of fine jewelry making, art, and music are ever present. For a Poodle and her parents, exploring Santa Fe and making friends becomes an adventure in itself. The book is primarily targeted to children 6-9, but enjoyable for all ages. It was illustrated by EL Joffe’s mother, Pamela S Pease.
In his new book, Mémé's Famous Crêpes, Theodore A. Perry (a.k.a. Tony Perry) tells the endearing story of his mémé's crêpes and explains how making them with her is one of his fondest childhood memories. "Mémé" (pronounced may-may) and "crêpes" are French Canadian words for "grandmother" and "pancakes," and in these pages, the whole family can delight in an amusing and sweet story, both in English and in French! Cuddle up with your little ones and (re-)learn some French together. And, while you're at it, enjoy the whimsical and fun watercolor-collage illustrations by artist Tone Flavin. You will soon feel inspired to make crêpes. And to help you get going, there's an easy-to-follow recipe included at the end of the book. Bon appétit!
SUBMISSIONS If you are a current Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance member, and you would like to announce your new book in ExLibris Maine, click HERE. If you are not a member, click HERE to learn more about our member benefits.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
