Glenna Johnson Smith writes with eloquence and humor about the complexities, absurdities, and pleasures of the everyday, from her nostalgic looks at her childhood on the Maine coast in the 1920s and 1930s, to her observations of life under the big sky and among the rolling potato fields of her beloved Aroostook County, where she has lived for nearly seven decades. The book also includes some of her best fiction pieces.

My Life in the Maine Woods recounts Annette Jackson’s North Woods experiences during the 1930s when she, her husband and their children lived in a small cabin on the shore of Umsaskis Lake. Jackson, an avid sportswoman and nature lover, writes of hunting, fishing, campfire cooking, and the sounds of the wilderness through the seasons. She visits trappers and woodsmen, and tells what it’s like to sleep on a bed of pine boughs under the stars that shine on the legendary Allagash.

A beautifully told and intriguing mystery about two generations of Scottish women united by blood, an obsession with the past, and a long-hidden body, from the author of The House Between Tides. Libby Snow has always felt the pull of Ullaness, a headland on Scotland’s sea-lashed western coast where a legend has taken root. At its center is Ulla, an eighth-century Norsewoman whose uncertain fate was entangled with two warring brothers and a man who sought to save her. Libby first heard the stories from her grandmother, who had learned it from her own forebear, Ellen, a maid at Sturrock House. The Sturrocks have owned the land where Ulla dwelled for generations, and now Libby, an archaeologist, has their permission to excavate a mysterious mound, which she hopes will cast light on the legend’s truth. But before she can begin, storms reveal the unexpected: the century-old bones of an unidentified man. The discovery triggers Libby’s memories of family stories about Ellen, of her strange obsession with Ulla, and of her violent past at Sturrock House. As Libby digs deeper, she unravels a recurring story of love, tragedy, and threads that bind the past to the present. And as she learns more of Rodri Sturrock, the landowner’s brother, she realizes these forces are still at work, and that she has her own role to play in Ulla’s dark legend.

From the cars we drive to the instant messages we receive, from debate about genetically modified foods to astonishing strides in cloning, robotics, and nanotechnology, it would be hard to deny technology's powerful grip on our lives. To stop and ask whether this digitized, implanted reality is quite what we had in mind when we opted for progress, or to ask if we might not be creating more problems than we solve, is likely to peg us as hopelessly backward or suspiciously eccentric. Yet not only questioning, but challenging technology turns out to have a long and noble history. In this timely and incisive work, Nicols Fox examines contemporary resistance to technology and places it in a surprising historical context. She brilliantly illuminates the rich but oftentimes unrecognized literary and philosophical tradition that has existed for nearly two centuries, since the first Luddites—the ""machine breaking"" followers of the mythical Ned Ludd—lifted their sledgehammers in protest against the Industrial Revolution. Tracing that current of thought through some of the great minds of the 19th and 20th centuries—William Blake, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Graves, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and many others—Fox demonstrates that modern protests against consumptive lifestyles and misgivings about the relentless march of mechanization are part of a fascinating hidden history. She shows as well that the Luddite tradition can yield important insights into how we might reshape both technology and modern life so that human, community, and environmental values take precedence over the demands of the machine. In Against the Machine, Nicols Fox writes with compelling immediacy—bringing a new dimension and depth to the debate over what technology means, both now and for our future.

Maine's Remarkable Women tells the stories of fifteen strong and determined women who broke through social, cultural, or political barriers. Through their passions for art, exploration, literature, politics, music, and nature, these women made contributions to society that still resonate today. Meet Marguerite "Tante Blanche" Thibodeau Cyr, "The Mother of Madawaska," whose bravery and kindness during one brutal winter saved her frontier settlement; botanist-artist Kate Furbish, who explored Maine's wilderness, collecting, classifying, and painting all of its flowering plants; and Florence Nicolar Shay, a Native-American basketmaker who demanded and succeeded in gaining rights for her tribe, the Penobscots. Each of these women demonstrated courage, compassion, and an independence of spirit that is as inspiring now as it was then. Read about their extraordinary lives in this collection of brief and absorbing biographies.

In her early thirties, Louise Dickinson Rich took to the woods of Maine with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote backcountry settlement of Middle Dam, in the Rangeley area. Louise made time after morning chores to write about their lives.

What does it mean to grow old in America today? Is 'successful aging' our responsibility? What will happen if we fail to 'grow old gracefully'? Especially for women, the onus on the aging population in the United States is growing rather than diminishing. Gender, race, and sexual orientation have been reinterpreted as socially constructed phenomena, yet aging is still seen through physically constructed lenses. The second edition of Margaret Cruikshank's Learning to Be Old helps put aging in a new light, neither romanticizing nor demonizing it. Featuring new research and analysis, expanded sections on gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender aging and critical gerontology, and an updated chapter on feminist gerontology, the second edition even more thoroughly than the first looks at the variety of different forces affecting the progress of aging. Cruikshank pays special attention to the fears and taboos, multicultural traditions, and the medicalization and politicization of natural processes that inform our understanding of age. Through it all, we learn a better way to inhabit our age whatever it is.

Cornelia Thurza Crosby (1854-1946) stood six feet tall, was the first woman to legally shoot a caribou in Maine, held the first Maine Guide license issued, caught 200 trout in one day (she was an early advocate of catch-and-release), did not believe women should have the vote, was friends with Annie Oakley, and worked tirelessly to promote the sporting life in Maine. Over a hundred turn-of-the-century photographs create a fascinating picture of the Maine woods and one of Maine's most unusual women.

This novel begins in 1969, and as Peter, Paul and Mary croon on the radio and poster paints are splashing the latest anti-war slogans. Suzanne, a poet, lives in a Maine beach house awaiting the birth of a love child she will name Sparrow. Claudia, who weds a farmer during college, plans to raise three strong sons. And Elizabeth and Howard marry, organize protest marches, and try to raise their two children with their own earthy, hippie values. By 1985, things have changed. Suzanne, now with a M.B.A., has taken to calling Sparrow "Susan." After personal tragedy, Claudia spirals backward into her sixties world—and into madness. And Elizabeth, fatally ill, watches despairingly as her children yearn for a split-level house and a gleaming station wagon. In this beloved, critically acclaimed first novel, Hood's clear, brave, and penetrating voice captures the spirit of three friends struggling to resolve their lives in a complicated time warp called lost youth.