This month’s Dispatch brings together a collage of art, books, and film—each revealing something essential about how we understand one another across cultures, and how easily injustice takes root when we don’t pay attention. From a Colombian friend who handed me the books he thought I needed, to the young fundraisers who inherited my library and surprised me with their gratitude, to the hard truths embedded in Killers of the Flower Moon—these stories remind us that communication is never neutral. It shapes who is heard, who is ignored, and who gets written into the record. What We’re Reading and Viewing—and […]
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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
David Grann’s book is a masterwork of narrative nonfiction — a meticulously researched, elegantly written, and morally urgent account of the Osage Reign of Terror of the 1920s. It is also a book that forces us to confront a broader truth: the murders of Osage citizens were not an isolated tragedy but part of a larger pattern of racialized violence that shaped Oklahoma’s early history. Although I lived in Oklahoma for four years, I never heard of this tragic story nor the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred in the same period of history, revealing two distinct but parallel eruptions of […]
Continue readingGypsy Journal, Author Spotlight of Mark D. Walker, by Nick Russell July 2026
In an effort to introduce my readers to other authors and their work, every week I run an Author Spotlight, sharing information about an author, their work, and how they go about writing their books. Mark Walker was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala and spent over 40 years helping disadvantaged people in the developing world with organizations such as Make-A-Wish International, MAP International, and Hagar USA, where he was CEO. Walker’s three books are Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond, My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road, and The Guatemala Reader: Extraordinary Lives and Amazing Stories. He’s […]
Continue readingFreedom & Justice for Whom? Our 250 Anniversary Reckoning, Special Edition of the Million Mile Walker Dispatch, July 2026
Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, Which books help us celebrate our 250th anniversary as the fireworks go off, so we can see beyond the spectacle to the shadows behind it, which are rarely spoken or acknowledged? I’ve chosen four books that reveal some of the things we’re not taught at school or that we ignore, and yet they offer insights into often-overlooked phenomena that have made our country what it is. “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,” by James Loewen, is as good a place to begin thinking about the United States […]
Continue readingThe Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I became aware of Wilkerson’s work by reading Caste and purchased the audio version of this book, which took 23 hours, but it was worth the effort. Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is one of the more ambitious works of narrative history I’ve ever read, with a sweeping, intimate chronicle of the Great Migration told through the lives of three ordinary yet emblematic African Americans who left the Jim Crow South in search of dignity, safety, and opportunity. Published in 2010, the book reframes migration not as a demographic shift but as an act of self-liberation. I […]
Continue readingNew Chapters, Old Truths: A Dispatch on Service, Storytelling & Legacy, The Million Mile Walker Dispatch June 2026
This month’s Dispatch opens with a milestone I’ve been eager to share: the latest draft cover for my new book, a visual doorway into the stories and reckonings that shaped it. Culture Watch will highlight Paul White’s powerful SoftPower FulStories interview, where people too often forgotten take center stage; Paul Theroux’s Sir Vidia’s Shadow, a study in literary friendship and fracture, is my book review; and then I’ll highlight the haunting new series House of Spirits. I’ll close with a homily for my friend and fellow staffer Esther, whose passing reminds me why stories — and the people who carry them — matter. And as always, […]
Continue readingLiving the World Cup: Stories, Insights and 50 Tips for 2026 by Steve Kaffen, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Like much of his work, Kaffen’s latest book is far more than a travelogue or a sports chronicle. It is a hybrid creation—part memoir, part cultural anthropology, part practical guide, and part photographic archive—built on nearly four decades of attending the world’s most watched sporting event. What emerges is a book that captures the World Cup not simply as a tournament, but as a global phenomenon that reshapes cities, cultures, and the lives of those who follow it. Kaffen’s perspective is uniquely earned: he attended his first Cup in 1986 and has since experienced the tournament in six countries, each […]
Continue readingThe Human & Financial Costs of War Today, The Million Mile Walker Dispatch, May Edition 2026
Dear Colleagues and Fellow Writers from Around the World, After a quick update on the cover for my next book, My Saddest Pleasures, I’ll provide my take on the growing cost of war and what we can do about it in Culture Watch. What We’re Reading and Why will be a twofer— with a recent article How Scammers Impact Writers as well as the latest book I reviewed and then What Others Are Saying, plus an updated Calendar. While we wait for the Library of Congress Number for Peace Corps Writers to begin publishing my book, here’s the first draft […]
Continue readingSir Vidia’s Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents by Paul Theroux, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
One of the joys of reviewing books is getting to know fellow writers, which is why I selected this book, as I admire both writers. Paul Theroux’s Sir Vidia’s Shadow is one of the most intimate, unsettling, and revealing portraits of a literary friendship. It is a study in mentorship, ambition, ego, and the corrosive effects of genius on human relationships. The book traces Theroux’s thirty‑one‑year relationship with V. S. Naipaul—beginning in a University in Kampala in the mid‑1960s, when Theroux was a young Peace Corps teacher, and Naipaul was already a rising star—and follows its evolution through admiration, dependence, […]
Continue readingThe Village of Waiting by George Packer, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I first came across Packer from his cover story “The Valley,”—the second-longest that The Atlantic published in the past 40 years, in which he provides a kaleidoscopic view of the precarious political and physical ecology of Phoenix regarding climate change, which meant a lot to me in the summer of 2024 as we were suffering record-breaking, triple-digit temperatures. I had no idea he was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer until a fellow PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) serving in Togo gave me a heads-up. When I started reading his memoir, I realized it was ideal for the Million Mile Walker Review. […]
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