For the 15th annual edition, the Advisory Board of Reading Group Choices selected Julia Older's award-winning seventeenth century saga This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals as a featured novel in both its 2009 print catalog and online website for book clubs.

The guidebook is distributed to 16,000 libraries and bookstores across the country as well as to an additional 6,000 reading group subscribers and festival participants.

Entries for book recommendations include summaries of each novel and nonfiction book, biographies of the authors and a series of starter questions that reader groups can use to prompt discussions.

The print catalog is scheduled for distribution in September. The online entry for This Desired Place is already available by title through a search box on the website at www.ReadingGroupChoices.com.

Mary Russell, director of the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library, featured Highboy as "Book of the Week" earlier this August. The village mystery novel is part of the Hugh Quint series of New England cozies by Steve Sherman.

Bowker, publisher of bibliographic management and its comprehensive Books in Print catalog, reports that the number of novels published in this country increased 17% in 2007 over the previous year to a total of 50,071 new fiction titles. Adult fiction remains one of the dominant categories in publishing.

Total number of books increased to 276,649 new titles and editions published in the U.S. last year. The greatest increase came from on-demand and short-print run books — 134,773 titles. With the new ingenious print-and-bind machines, independent publishers and, increasingly, bookstores can turn manuscripts into finished books in a single pass through one of these all-in-one machines.

Now publishers can produce a single copy or thousands of copies at a time according to customer requests "on demand." This saves warehouse inventory and accompanying costs, not to mention grinding up overprinted, unsold, returned copies.

Boris Vian, the lovable French Surrealist of post-World War II exotica, wrote "A Priest in Swim Trunks" in 1946 during the Existentialist years. Vian's short story, recently translated by Julia Older, is featured in the Spring issue of Natural Bridge; A Journal of Contemporary Literature published by the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Mary Troy was guest editor.

Vian had many creative friends, including Jean Paul Sartre, Miles Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, Queneau, Ionesco, Alfred Jarry and other Pataphysicians of The College of Imaginary Solutions. Vian was an extraordinarily talented poet, writer, actor, recording artist, subversive, singer and trickster.

Julia Older also translated Vian's collection of short stories Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories, published in the French Modernist Series of the University of Nebraska Press, with a Foreword by Louis Malle.

Louis Malle, director of the movies "Atlantic City," "My Dinner with André," "Au revoir, les enfants" and many other films, was a colleague of Vian. The coming of age film "Murmur of the Heart" is thought to be about Boris Vian. In his Foreword, Malle writes of Vian, "He was my friend, and I admired him passionately for his eclecticism, devastating irony, and taste for provocation."

Retail sales in bookstores nationwide increased in May this year by 2.6 percent compared to May 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which tallies sales month-by-month for bookstores and other retail categories.

This translates in revenue to an increase of $29 million for bookstores for a total of $1.154 billion last May.

The novel-in-verse Tahirih Unveiled by Julia Older received the Bronze Medal for poetry at the 2008 international Independent Publisher Book Awards ceremony in Los Angeles May 30.

Tahirih of Persia (1818-1854) was courageous as Joan of Arc, determined as Elizabeth Stanton, and beautiful as the legendary Scheherazade. She often lectured (behind a curtain) at her father's Mosque in Qazvin. A religious prodigy, Tahirih prophesied the coming of a 1000-year Prophet, Bab. Denounced as a heretic by her Mullah father, uncle and husband, she was sent into exile. Tahirih composed spiritual poems on horseback in the Mazanderin forests above Tehran and on an 800-mile desert caravan to teach at Karbala.

Bab made her his disciple, and at the First Babi Conference, Tahirih led the women in their fight for equality. Older's moving sequence of poems opens new perspectives on the Persian culture then and now.

Julia Older will be reading and discussing her novel-in-verse Tahirih Unveiled and her award-winning historical novel This Desired Place, second novel in the Isles of Shoals Trilogy, on:

• July 8 Tuesday 7:00 p.m. Amherst NH Town Library.
• July 12 Saturday 1:00 p.m. Kennebunk Book Port, Shopper's Village, Kennebunk, Maine.

On June 29, 1835, Celia Thaxter was born at 50 Daniel Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and four years later moved with her family to The Isles of Shoals 10 miles off the Maine and New Hampshire coastlines. Her major contribution to the social and cultural life of the beloved Shoals and New England exceeded her work as poet and writer. An honorary plaque at her birthplace was dedicated in 1999.

As hostess to the American luminaries of the mid-1800s, Celia Thaxter gathered together her friends John Greenleaf Whittier, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, Annie Fields, William Morris Hunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Childe Hassam, and very many other writers and artists. At her invitation, they spent the summer months at the Shoals working at their chosen fields with like-minded colleagues and artists.

The biographical novel The Island Queen; Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals by Julia Older, and Celia Thaxter; Selected Writings, edited by Older, bring forward Thaxter's extraordinary life and writing.

In fact, among visitors to Celia's island cottage were Marian MacDowell and her husband composer Edward MacDowell. In part, Thaxter's influence inspired Marian MacDowell to establish in Peterborough, NH, The MacDowell Colony, which provided a writing refuge for Older early in her writing life.

The panel discussion on "Women Writing About Women" at the Newburyport Literary Festival in Massachusetts April 25-27 prompted discussions of women as property, women as siblings and women as social and political footnotes to history.

Participating authors included Patricia O'Brien (Harriet and Isabella), Anne Easter Smith (Daughter of York), Martha Hodes (Sea Captain's Wife) and Julia Older (This Desired Place). They spoke of their research and creating narratives that transport readers to authentic historical times and places. An audience question-and-answer session followed.

Forty-six events, involving more than 70 writers (including Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts) ranged from poetry readings and children's literature to graphic novels and multimedia performances. The events were held in bookstores, churches, auditoriums, classrooms, the public library and other venues throughout Newburyport.

Julia Older, author of This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, was invited to read, discuss and sign her award-winning historical novel at three venues this month:
• May 14. In a program of "Pirates and Poets," Julia presented a reading and discussion of the historical novel This Desired Place, her biographical novel The Island Queen; Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals, the anthology she edited Celia Thaxter: Selected Writings plus Tahirih Unveiled (a verse-novel about Tahirih of Persia) for a large gathering at the Old Homestead Garden Club in Swanzey NH.
• May 17. At the annual Festival of the Book held at Monument Square in downtown Portland, Maine, Julia participated in the "Signing Tent" co-sponsored by independent booksellers Longfellow Books and Books Etc. The Festival of panels, discussion groups and readings was also sponsored by Maine Reads, a statewide program designed to encourage literacy and raise funds for library reading programs.
• May 30. Older will share the noon presentation with author Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box) at the 25^th annual Book and Author Luncheon sponsored by the Wolfeboro Public Library and The Country Bookseller in Wolfeboro. The event will be held at the Bald Peak Colony Club in nearby Moultonborough NH.

At several venues during April — National Poetry Month — Julia Older will be reading and discussing both her 10^th book of poetry Tahirih Unveiled and This Desired Place: The Isles of Shoals, second historical novel of her Shoals Trilogy. The dates include:

April 19: Julia will be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Monadnock Writers Group in the Peterborough NH Town Library at 9:45 AM. She will talk about Tahirih of Persia (1818-1854), a mullah's daughter whose life mission was the emancipation of women, and 17^th century life in northern New England — “Writing Truth in Historical Fiction.” The event is free and open to the public.

Organized in 1984, Monadnock Writers Group conducts workshops, publishes a newsletter and holds monthly meetings with featured guests addressing the concerns of writers. The group meets in the 175-year-old Peterborough Town Library, the first free, tax-supported library in America.

April 24: In an evening of “Pirates and Poets,” Julia will read, discuss and sign her award-winning novel This Desired Place and her novel-in-verse Tahirih Unveiled at Borders Books & Music in Concord NH at 7:00 PM. For more information, please get in touch with D Elswick at (603) 224-1255.

April 25-27: At the Third Annual Newburyport Literary Festival in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Julia joins three other novelists at 2:30 PM April 26 on a panel discussion of “Women Writing About Women.”

The three-day Festival is open to the public and features very many writers and poets. Further information is found at:
http://www.newburyportliteraryfestival.org.

At the annual Newburyport (Mass.) Literary Festival April 25-27, novelist and poet Julia Older will be on a panel discussing "Women Writing About Women."

Older is the author of This Desired Place, an award-winning New World swashbuckler of fish wives and witches, pirates and Puritans, and The Island Queen, based on the life of writer Celia Thaxter. Both novels are set on the Isles of Shoals about ten miles northeast of Newburyport — as the cormorant flies.

Other participants in the many events scheduled during the Festival include NEA chairman Dana Gioia, poets X.J. Kennedy and Rhina Espaillat, and novelists Joe Hurka (Before) and Anne Easter Smith (A Rose for the Crown).

For more information about this lively literary event, check the Festival website at www.newburyportliteraryfestival.org.

The First Tuesday Book Club invited Julia Older to their February 5 gathering for a discussion of her award-winning novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, second novel of her Isles of Shoals Trilogy. The group gathers monthly in the Hancock NH Town Library.

The lively, deeply researched historical novel is set on the fabled Isles of Shoals off the Maine and New Hampshire coastlines. This is the saga of fishing folk settlers, pirates and Puritans during the 17th century when young, raucous America was coming of age.

The book club members, very interested in history, turned their curiosity into questions for the author:

• One reader asked if it was difficult to mix fictional and real-life characters. It wasn’t, Older answered, because Thom Taylor, the protagonist, is the only fictional character in the novel. All the other characters are real-life historical people involved in historically documented events.
• Quakers fled England for the New World in the 1600s. Were they as against war as they are today?
• Why weren’t women’s special knowledge about herbal medicines accepted more during the 17th century?
• Women were accused as “witches” and thrown into prison so that husbands and selectmen could take their property. One reader warned, “We’d better watch out for town meeting!”
• Readers asked Older about the great amount of time that researching primary historical sources takes; whether the Indian massacre in Dover was as difficult to write as to read; why Thom and Pru didn’t have more time together.
• Others wanted to know whether 17th century Mary Babb died of so many child births or just plain exhaustion; why Thom was more educated than the people he dealt with; whether the research Older did for The Island Queen about 19th century Shoals writer Celia Thaxter led to This Desired Place.
• One book club member lamented that she overlooked the glossary at the back of the book — and when is the third book of the Isles of Shoals Trilogy coming out!

Julia Older’s next visit to a reading group is scheduled for March 5 when she discusses This Desired Place with the Book & Breakfast Club at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, NH. Everyone is invited to attend. For further information, please get in touch with coordinator Michele Wensman at 603 436-8043.

The colorful, bawdy butcher Phillip Babb is one of the real-life Isles of Shoals characters in This Desired Place, Julia Older's lively, deeply researched historical novel of Puritan life and piratical times in the 17th century.

Babb is only one of the many family lines that readers are reporting about Older's second novel of The Isles of Shoals Trilogy. In fact, a Midwest member of the Babb Family Association said that even today "it is never dull living with a Babb!"

Then in New Hampshire, not far from the offshore Isles of Shoals themselves, another reader, describing herself as "an amateur genealogist," wrote to say that her ancestry is related to many of the famous surnames of Colonial New England she saw in This Desired Place. Some of these include the Taylors of Hampton, the Tuttles of Dover, the Leightons, the Husseys and others. She is also a direct descendent of Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet and poet Ann Dudley Bradstreet (1612-72), the first important woman author in America.

This Desired Place turns out to be a bigger family reunion than anyone anticipated.

For the first time, a revealing interview about Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals with her granddaughter Rosamond Thaxter of Kittery Point, Maine, has been published.

Celia Thaxter (1835-1894) was the beloved poet, writer and literary friend and hostess to John Greenleaf Whittier, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Childe Hassam, and many other creative luminaries of the 19th century. They visited and worked at Celia's cottage salon on the Isles of Shoals.

Julia Older visited Rosamond Thaxter in 1978 as part of her research in writing the biographical novel The Island Queen; Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals.

Rosamond spoke with Older about Celia's son Karl (the first child born on the Shoals in a century) and how the abolitionist poet Whittier was the love of Celia's life.

Last month the personalized, eight-page interview in a partial Q&A format was published in the Number 5 2007 issue of Entelechy International; A Journal of Contemporary Ideas. The handsome annual of poetry, short stories, memoirs and photographic essays is published at New England College in Henniker, N.H.

Sylva Boyadjian-Haddad is editor-in-chief, Maura MacNeil, editor, Farid Haddad, production director.

Copies of the Number 5 issue are available for $12.00 each at New England College, 98 Bridge Street, Henniker, NH 03242. E-mail: entelechy@nec.edu

The NH Writers' Project annual BookSampler, distributed to bookstores in New Hampshire during the holiday season, includes a detailed description of Julia Older's booklength poem Tahirih Unveiled about the Persian religious prodigy who fought for the emancipation of women.

Tahirih of Persia (1818-1854), a rare and too little known religious leader of her time, has become an inspiration for our time.

The cover of Tahirih Unveiled shows Older wearing one of her poems in gold and silver thread stitched in Farsi by a member of an Afghan women's handwork collective.

Tahirih Unveiled is published by Turning Point Books and available online here also.

Since 1991, Appledore Books has joined the Annual Monadnock Music Holiday Fair, one of the finest artisan exhibitor shows in northern New England.

This year the post-Thanksgiving Day fair is open to the public on both Friday November 23 and Saturday November 24 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

More than 50 juried artisans will show their wares at the South Meadow School on Route 202 in Peterborough NH.

Booth displays range from exquisite hand-blown glass to choice hand-knitted sweaters, leather belts made-to-order, specialized farm-based jellies and many other holiday gifts.

As always, Appledore Books will display its new books and backlist titles. In addition, Julia Older, author of the 2007 award-winning historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, will give a mini-reading at 2:00 p.m. Friday Nov. 23.

Proceeds from the Fair support the more than 30 Monadnock Music concerts in southwestern New Hampshire towns and schools.

More information about Monadnock Music and its Holiday Fair is located online at www.monadnockmusic.org.

Michael Herrmann, owner and operator of the only independent bookstore in Concord, N.H., hosts Julia Older for a reading Thursday November 29 at 7:00 p.m. at 27 South Main Street. Older will discuss and sign both her second novel in the Isles of Shoals Trilogy This Desired Place and her tenth book of poetry Tahirih Unveiled about Tahirih of Persia.

This premier bookshop (603 224-0562) with adjacent bakery café is located online at www.gibsonsbookstore.com.

The Gibson’s events page says: "This is the second novel in Julia Older’s historical series on the Isles of Shoals, and like all great historical novels, it is epic in sweep, full of bawdy characters, complex action, dangers, battles, and love. Come hear all about it! Julia will also read from her recent collection of poetry, Tahirih Unveiled. She is a dramatic and impressive presence on stage, not to be missed."

Julia Older’s 10th book of poetry Tahirih Unveiled, published by Turning Point Books, now is also available through Appledore Books.

A strong, narrative poem about the life of Tahirih of Persia, this novel in verse, as it’s been called, tells the true story of a courageous Mullah’s daughter known as the first woman who fought for the emancipation of women.

A detailed description of Tahirih Unveiled and the fascinating story behind the book cover is located at the Tahirih Unveiled book page

Founded in 1959 and named a National Literary Landmark by Friends of Libraries USA, Maine Women Writers Collection continues to expand as a pre-eminent literary resource for the country.

Prized book editions, manuscripts, letters, photographs, artifacts, audio recordings and other works by women writers who have significant connection to Maine are collected here at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. Authors whose works are stored for public research include May Sarton, Rachel Carson, Celia Thaxter, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Helen Nearing, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Josephine Peary, Sarah Orne Jewett, Louise Bogan and many others.

Recent book additions to the Collection include This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, The Island Queen; Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals, Hermaphroditus in America, Tahirih Unveiled, and others by Julia Older.

Older was guest speaker at Maine Women Writers Collection Oct. 4, 2007.

On Thursday November 29, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. in Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, NH, Julia Older will read prose and poetry from her two new books this year — This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, a lively, deeply researched historical novel of 17th century life on the Shoals and northern New England, plus Tahirih Unveiled, a compact booklength poem about the life and death of Tahirih of Persia.

On October 4 at the University of New England in Portland, Maine, writer Julia Older will speak about “No Woman Is An Island - Celia Thaxter, The Isles of Shoals, and Tahirih of Persia.”

Older's historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals, is her second book of the Shoals Trilogy. She is also the author of Tahirih Unveiled, a "novel" in verse about Tahirih of Persia (1818-1854).

This Desired Place is the 2007 gold medalist for Best Northeast Regional Fiction (New England and New York) selected by Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Tahirih Unveiled is Older's tenth book of poetry, published this year by Turning Point Books.

Julia discusses her novel, poetry and other works from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. in the Sarton Room of the Maine Women Writers Collection at the University of New England, Westbrook College Campus, Portland, Maine. This event is free and open to the public.

J. Dennis Robinson, owner and operator of the broad-based and highly informative website SeacoastNH.com, recently added an extensive listing of This Desired Place: The Isles of Shoals by Julia Older.

Visit http://seacoastnh.com/The_Arts/Book_of_the_Week/ and scroll down to the title to see the entry.

Robinson is the author of Wentworth by the Sea; The Life and Times of a Grand Hotel. His comprehensive book traces and illustrates the first 130 years of this important, genteelly updated hotel in shoreline New Castle, NH, south of Portsmouth.

Every four years, big-state politicians mumble and grumble about powerful little New Hampshire as the first Presidential primary in the nation. Primary Crime by Steve Sherman has a different take. In New Hampshire, Presidential wannabees have to get out and about with real people hand to hand and face to face. New Hampshire voters don’t ask until they see the whites of their eyes. Then they keep on asking. That’s the difference between TV politicking in California et. al. and village NH. Primary Crime, set in New Hampshire and part of the Hugh Quint mystery novel series, tells it all with a smile.

The national daily radio program Marketplace, produced by American Public Media, recently added Julia Older’s award-winning historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals to its online list of "Best Business Beach Books." Joining the ranks of books about corporate dealings and CEO shenanigans, This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals tells many tales in its sweeping drama of pirates and Puritans. One of the rarely told stories is about how raw, free enterprise was seeded in this country at the lawless 17th century Isles of Shoals off Maine and New Hampshire. This Desired Place received the gold medal award for Best Northeast Regional Fiction (New England and New York) from the 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

The woman behind the lens of the exquisite book Fleur Weymouth Photographs is also the woman who initiated the statewide movement leading to the unprecedented 1971 Scenic Roads Law in New Hampshire.

Massachusetts adopted the identical law two years later, the same law that today is a model of protection for designated roads of beauty across the country.

She used her former married name Florence Block to get the Scenic Roads bill through the New Hampshire Legislature committees and ultimately signed into law.

Known now 36 years later as Fleur Weymouth, her lush book of gentle portraits, abstracted landscapes, flowers in eternal flush and other powerful lives of the Earth tell of Weymouth’s persistent effort to honor and continue the beauty.

While Helicon Nine photography editor, Weymouth wrote of her camera as a fish net to catch the world in: "You never know what you come up with."

She tries to find the essence of her subjects: "It’s the thing inside the thing, and how do you get there? If it’s at all possible to leave behind even a fragment of your perceptions of the world — it should be done."

Rich and Ellen Chasse, writer-friendly owners and operators of Kennebunk Book Port in Kennebunkport, Maine, know a good year when they rent it. The dockside building housing their must-visit bookstore was built the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Julia Older signed her historical novel This Desired Place at Kennebunk Book Port on July 7 — and all was up-to-date and appropriate. This Desired Place, second book of her Isles of Shoals Trilogy, received the 2007 gold medal for Best Northeast Regional Fiction (New England and New York) from Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Julia Older's novel THIS DESIRED PLACE; The Isles of Shoals is gold medal finalist for Best Regional Fiction in the six New England states and New York.

Older was presented the medal for her saga of New World settlers, pirates and Puritans at the June 1st ceremony in New York. "Independent authors and publishers are the conscience of our culture," said Director Jim Barnes.

The 2007 Independent Publisher Book Award spotlights regional books judged on "quality and regional significance." Overall, 688 fiction and nonfiction regional books were submitted from across the U.S. and Canada.

A total 1,510 independent and university publishers in the U.S., Canada and 18 countries overseas submitted 3,378 book entries in a range of categories to the Michigan-based Independent Publisher group.

THIS DESIRED PLACE is available at bookstores, through Baker & Taylor Book Distributor and directly from www.AppledoreBooks.com.

In 1907, Marian MacDowell planted the seed of the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H., where thousands of writers, poets, artists, composers, playwrights, filmmakers and others have produced creative works of astounding impact on the American culture.

Think of Thornton Wilder (Our Town), DeBose and Dorothy Heyward and George Gershwin (Porgy and Bess), Leonard Bernstein (Mass), Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop), Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), Aaron Copland (Billy the Kid) and very many more — all working artists in temporary residence at the Colony.

The goal of MacDowell Colony is to provide artists two weeks or two months in isolated studios-in-the-woods with unlimited, uninterrupted, precious time to focus on their work.

Appledore Books congratulates the MacDowell Colony for its persistent zeal and respect of artists.

Appledore has some books and creators associated with the Colony — Taylor Morris (Message from the Sparrows, All the Clouds’ll Roll Away); artist Paul Polaro and composer Laura Clayton who are portrayed in Fleur Weymouth Photographs; Julia Older and Steve Sherman who include pages about the MacDowell Colony in Grand Monadnock.

The centennial celebration continues throughout 2007 with many events in New Hampshire and New York.
See www.macdowellcolony.org/centennial/.

Julia Older is the invited poet for National Poetry Month on the NH Arts Council Poet Showcase from April 4-17.

Two poems are featured from her new book Tahirih Unveiled, published by Turning Point, an imprint dedicated to the art of story in poetry.

In Older's moving booklength poem, the intimate yet resonant voice of poet/martyr Tahirih (1818-54) opens new perspectives on the Persian culture — yesterday and today.

Check out the poet wearing one of her poems or click here for the NH Arts Council Poet Showcase. Past Showcase entries also are accessible.

For her second novel This Desired Place in The Isles of Shoals Trilogy, Julia Older is introducing the limited hardcover edition at RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, N.H., November 21 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. She'll also be signing and discussing her 17th century saga at Toadstool Bookshop in Keene, N.H., Saturday December 2 at 11:00 a.m. and the same Saturday at Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough at 2:00 p.m. Then on December 16 during the annual Candlelight Stroll at Strawbery Banke living history museum in Portsmouth, N.H., she'll be at the gift shop from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Here's a list of upcoming Julia Older events:

• RiverRun Bookstore
  Portsmouth, N.H.,
  November 21, 2006
  from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
• Toadstool Bookshop
  Keene, N.H.
  Saturday, December 2, 2006
  11:00 a.m.
• Toadstool Bookshop
  Peterborough, N.H.
  Saturday, December 2, 2006
  2:00 p.m.
• Strawbery Banke Living History Museum
  In the museum gift shop
  Portsmouth, N.H.
  Saturday, December 16, 2006
  6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Julia Older's second historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals is now available. This is a deeply-researched saga of 17th century life on the intriguing Isles of Shoals off the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire - a small gathering of strategic islands that became one of the most important ports of entry to the New World. Older follows young Thom Taylor to manhood as he weaves his life among pirates and Puritans, Native Indians and warring British, judges and scalawags - all of them real-life characters involved in documented events. Says David Watters, Director of Center for New England Culture, "An exciting blend of fact and fiction." Says Cally Gurley, Curator of Maine Women Writers Collection, Older could be "living in the 1600s!"

Julia Older's new historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals will be published soon in limited hardcover edition as the second entry in her Isles of Shoals Trilogy. The Island Queen, first in the trilogy, focused on the life of Celia Thaxter, beloved poet, writer and hostess to her many literary and artist friends visiting her salon cottage on the Isles of Shoals during the 19th century. Older's prequel This Desired Place The Isles of Shoals, set in the late 17th century, follows Thom Taylor from shipwrecked youth to prosperous manhood. He is the only fictive character in her deeply researched tale of real-life Puritans and pirates, judges and witches, Abenakis and adventurers.

From a sixth generation family that traces its roots to the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Taylor Morris brings us valuable memories of his life and loves in classic New Orleans. In his recently released CD, Morris reads major excerpts from his forthcoming novel ALL THE CLOUDS'LL ROLL AWAY, a hilarious, wonderfully written story of New Orleans at its prime before Morris, a fighter pilot, left for World War II and beyond. "The New Orleans I write about is gone," he says of Hurricane Katrina and the waves of time. "Only our stories remain – and our duty to remember."

Now readers interested in buying some of our most popular books at www.AppledoreBooks.com can ask for the author to customize the books with the author's signature. Simple to do—and free. You can add a brief message, too. Great for giving personalized book gifts for birthdays or holidays. Here's how: On the Book List page, look for the titles with the red-link "Autographed Copies Available." Click the link to find the easy instructions. At the time of purchase, simply email AppledoreBooks@aol.com with your instructions for the authors to sign the books and we'll do the rest.

Julia Older will be reading from ROLLING THE SUN, her recently published eighth book of poetry, at Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Manchester NH July 24, Barnes & Noble in Nashua NH August 11 and RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth NH August 18. She also is expected to read from her forthcoming novel This Desired Place, the second in her Isles of Shoals Trilogy.

As of January 2005, Appledore Books offers the most updated way to buy books from its web site - PayPal. Readers now can pay for their purchases through the popular PayPal credit card system. See Questions About Orders for an explanation of this fast and easy way to buy books online. Each Book Page describing a title now has a PayPal "Add to Cart" button for purchasing books and a PayPal "View Cart" button to see the titles you ordered.

If you don't use a credit card, you still have the option of printing your order and mailing a check or money order through the US Postal Service.

English-readers in India interested in French authors can pick up Julia Older's translations BLUES FOR A BLACK CAT And Other Stories by Boris Vian. Published by University of Nebraska Press for its French Modernist Library series, BLUES is fresh off the press in New Delhi. It's also available from Appledore Books (see Book List on this site.).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit "Childe Hassam: American Impressionist" offers a roomful of 24 seascapes painted while Hassam was a guest at Celia Thaxter's artist colony on the Isles of Shoals. Thaxter, one of the most published writers in America, championed the young Boston-based artist. Hassam's watercolor illustration of Celia knee-deep in her flower garden from AN ISLAND GARDEN (his first book and her last) is also on the cover of the anthology Julia Older edited (see Book List on this site). Both books are featured at the Museum Gift Shop in tandem with the exhibit in New York from June 10-September 12, 2004.
Click here for more information on the exhibition.

GRAND MONADNOCK: Exploring the Most Popular Mountain in America is back in print. The mountain in southwestern New Hampshire was climbed by Thoreau, Emerson and other luminaries of the 19th century. Today more than 100,000 people a year still find this bare-rock summit an inspiring granite lookout on New England. The book contains 45 full-color photographs and many historical prints.

Taylor Morris, author of MESSAGE FROM THE SPARROWS (see Book List page on this site), will have his wise and wacky novel ALL THE CLOUDS'LL ROLL AWAY coming out soon. It's about New Orleans life as you always thought it would and should be.
Book One of Morris' triology.

At the great Kennebunk Book Port shop in September, Julia Older signed copies of her biographical novel
THE ISLAND QUEEN about Celia Thaxter of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. During the week, Paul Newman and others of the Hollywood ilk were filming "Empire Falls." Downtown Kennebunkport, Maine, became a Cape Cod, Massachusetts, town for the shooting.

PRIMARY CRIME, Steve Sherman's New England Cozy mystery set against the New Hampshire Presidential primary election, turned up an unsolved real-life puzzler. One of his fictional candidates for the White House climbed Grand Monadnock as a campaign spin scheme. Then in August real-life rumor spread from a Walpole, N.H., Presidential campaign stop that Gov. Howard Dean was going to climb Grand Monadnock on Columbus Day. Was Dean's campaign manager reading PRIMARY CRIME on or off hours?