I met the author through his podcast, Personal Landscapes: Conversations on Books About Place, which included interviews with some of my favorite authors: Paul Theroux on Orwell and Burma Sahib, Thomas Swick: Life in Cold War Poland, Nicholas Shakespeare on Ian Fleming, Barnaby Rogerson: The making of the Middle East and Jeremy Bassetti: Pilgrims on Bolivia’s Hill of Skulls. Murdock’s latest book, A Sunny Place for Shady People, takes place in Malta and blends travel writing and political reportage to show why a journalist was killed in broad daylight in a tiny European Union member state. But I chose Vagabond […]
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A BookFest Award, Plus Global Threats to Free Press! Million Mile Walker Dispatch November 2024
Dear Colleagues and Friends from Around the World, This month, you can click on the poster above to access an Ad in the Arizona Authors Association Literary Magazine, “Two Arizona Authors Celebrate Their Passion For Guatemala.” Earl de Berge is the other author, and he’s a poet and co-founder of Seeds for a Future, which we highlight as well. I highlighted him and his wife Susanne in The Guatemala Reader, “Allegro to Guatemala: An Expatriate Journey Through the Land of Eternal Spring.” Earl recruited me to their board, and we all lived in Guatemala and are still working to […]
Continue readingThe Perils of Beginnings by Bernadette Inclan, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
The author researched this five-hundred-year family history extensively and took five years to write the book—and it was worth the wait. During a time when our neighbors from the South are often disparaged and misunderstood, this story helps establish the role people from Mexico and Native Americans had in settling the areas on both sides of our southern border. Bernadette Inclan is the ideal person to tell this story: “My family has deep roots in the Americas. I am a descendant of the Conquistadors of New Spain, New Mexico, and Louisiana. In 2016, I received my certificate as an honoree […]
Continue readingSilent Light by Mark Jacobs, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Mark Jacobs is one of my favorite storytellers. A fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, he’s worked in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, always attracted to places that are not tourist havens. I first learned of him reading The Stone Cowboy, in which a burnt-out American doper, fresh from a Bolivian prison, connives with a naive social worker while helping her find her magician brother—and ends up conducting her on a tour of the hell that is the coca trade. This is Jacobs’ first book in thirteen years, and he introduces the reader to a different kind of hell set […]
Continue readingTraveling to Guatemala with Granddaughters, Million Mile Walker Dispatch, August Edition 2024
Dear Colleagues & Friends from Around the World, Putting together my photo album of our three-week sojourn through Guatemala with two granddaughters allowed me to reflect on the pluses and downsides of such a trip. I’ve revised my website based on this experience and the best-selling book. I have some new What Others Are Saying quotes and some new What We’re Reading (and viewing) and Why, topped off with an updated Calendar. And, as a special BONUS, click on the Million Mile Walker poster above for the latest Arizona Authors Association Dispatch. It includes an exceptional segment on the making […]
Continue readingWalking With Evaristo: a Memoir of Celebration and Tragedy in the Land of the Achí Maya by Christian Nill, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Christian Nill has written an engaging story about the impact and consequences of his experience as a volunteer in the highlands of Guatemala. He’s also made a timely contribution to our understanding of the devastating ten-year period of violence there. Although I was a volunteer five years before Nill, the similarities were amazing. I worked on a study for CARE identifying some of the management and conservation practices used for the Food-for-Work program implemented in conjunction with the group Nill worked with, INAFOR (National Forestry Institute). My second site was also in Baja Verapaz, where […]
Continue readingWater Drumming in the Soul: A Novel of Racy Love in the Heart of Africa, by Eric Madeen, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Although Madeen is a fellow Returned Peace Corps writer, I never heard of him until he reviewed my latest book, The Guatemala Reader, and commented on my video about the book’s making. Initially, I thanked him and asked him how he liked living in Texas (his university is listed as TCU—Texas Christian University)—but much to my surprise, he’s an adjunct professor of modern literature at Tokyo City University in Japan. I was impressed with a note from one of the great travel writers and a fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Paul Theroux sent him. He said he was mystified by […]
Continue readingJust Returned From Guatemala With Several Surprises! Million Mile Walker Dispatch, July 2024
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, I returned from a three-week trek through Guatemala with my wife, son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters. The first of many surprises relates to the Indigenous girl on the cover of The Guatemala Reader. I’ll share some of the beauty I saw in The Land of the Eternal Spring. In Culture Watch, I’ll highlight some of the devastating effects of climate degradation, the impact of immigration, and an updated Calendar. During my visit to Guatemala, I planned to visit several friends and contacts. On one of those visits, I hand-carried a copy of The Guatemala […]
Continue readingEveryone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
A most timely book rated #1 for the history of U.S. immigration, public policy immigration, and the history of Central America. About a third of my forthcoming book focuses on immigration from Guatemala, making this a must-read. The immigration problem is growing exponentially around the world, and solutions are ignored for political benefit and expediency. President Biden’s executive order is designed to close the border, at least through elections. The only serious legislative reform created by both parties was abandoned by the Republicans, who blocked both legislation and funding, which could have diminished the crisis, once again, for political […]
Continue readingTheir Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Eighty-seven years after its publication, this book almost disappeared from the American public until it was finally appreciated and republished, becoming one of the enduring books of the twentieth century. The author’s fame reached its zenith in 1943 with a Saturday Review cover story. And yet seven years later, she would be serving as a maid in Rivo Alto, Florida, and ten years later, die in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home of “hypertensive heart disease.” She’d been buried in an unmarked grave in the segregated cemetery, Garden of Heavenly Rest, in Fort Pierce, Florida. Some consider this book a […]
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