Recently published regional books cover a variety of interests

A beautifully illustrated edition of a Sarah Orne Jewett classic highlights this month’s minireviews of recently published regional books. Other highlights are a book about weather vanes and a history of Maine Maritime Academy.

THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS (David R. Godine, Publisher, 197 pages, $24.95), marks the first time Sarah Orne Jewett’s beloved essays of 19th century coastal life have been published in illustrated form. Douglas Alvord’s pencil sketches of people and places enrich Jewett’s best-known book.

UPCOUNTRY, by Robert Kimber (Lyons & Burford, 166 pages, $18.95), is a collection of the Maine author’s essays about the foibles of life on the farm. In an unromantic manner that Jewett might not appreciate, he writes of black flies, early frosts, and lopsided Christmas trees.

FAIR WINDS, STORMY SEAS: 50 Years of Maine Maritime Academy, by James M. Aldrich (Penobscot Books, P.O. Box 36, Stonington 04681, 152 pages $18.95), tells in words and more than 50 photographs the diverse story of the Castine school, beginning with its first midshipmen who enrolled just two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

HERITAGE ABOVE: A Tribute to Maine’s Tradition of Weather Vanes (Down East, 84 pages, $29.95), features text and color photographs by Marcia Burnell. Detached and untouchable, weather vanes of cows, roosters and horses are brought up close.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU: An American Landscape (Paragon House, 225 pages, $22.95), contains selected writings from the great writer’s journals, edited and illustrated by Robert L. Rothwell. The collection was selected from Thoreau’s 2 million-word journal that he kept between 1837 and 1861, and features some extraordinary nature writing.

A HISTORY OF MAINE BUILT AUTOMOBILES: 1834-1934, by Richard and Nancy Fraser (292 pages, order from the authors at P.O. Box 39, East Poland 04230, $24.95 softcover, $34.95 hardcover, plus 6 percent Maine sales tax and $4 for shipping), is an unusually ambitious book on the little-known Maine automobile industry. Included are many fine old photographs of daring young men and women in their machines.

SONG FOR A SHADOW, by Bernie McKinnon (Houghton Mifflin, 311 pages, $16.95), is an excellent teen novel about 18-year-old Aaron Webb, a would-be rock ‘n’ roll star who moves to Maine and tries to conceal his colorful past. The novel has been praised as a powerful indictment of racial prejudice.

GHOSTS ON THE COAST OF MAINE, by Carol Olivieri Schulte (Lone Maple Press, Box 159 Port Clyde, 177 pages), is a simply written, self-published book about ghosts, not ghost stories. There is a difference, stresses Schulte, who even indexed her subjects, ranging from rumrunners to witchcraft. Great reading for a dark and stormy night.

KATAHDIN WITH LOVE: An Inspirational Journey, by Madelaine Cornelius (Milton Publishing Co., P.O. Box 6, Lookout Mountain, Tenn. 37350, 164 pages, $17.95), is the personal journal of a couple who discover new meaning in life while they hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.

TOURING NEW ENGLAND BY BICYCLE (Ten Speed Press, P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley, Calif. 94707, 174 pages, $10.95), features three-dimensional topographical maps of picturesque cycling routes in Maine, Vermont, and the Cape Cod islands.

BEST HIKES WITH CHILDREN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, VERMONT, AND MAINE, by Cynthia and Thomas Lewis (Mountaineers Books, 1011 S.W. Klickitat Way, Suite 107, Seattle, Wash. 98134, $12.95), is touted as “a valuable and encouraging guide for parents.”

A CANOEIST’S SKETCHBOOK (Chelsea Green, P.O. Box 130, Post Mills, Vt. 05058, 201 pages, $12.95 paperback, $21.95 hardcover), contains the paddling philosophy of a seasoned canoeist.

Finally, three Maine calendars. The 1992 BANGOR HISTORICAL SOCIETY HERITAGE CALENDAR, a steal for $9 and for sale in bookstores and at the society’s museum, looks better than ever, containing a splendid cover photo of the Bon Ton Ferry and the Boston Boat. The YARMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1992 APPOINTMENT CALENDAR ($5 plus $1 postage and handling, P.O. Box 107, Yarmouth 04096), is fine, too, even featuring a circa 1970 shot of smelt-fishing shacks in Yarmouth harbor. The 1992 MARINER’S BOOKS OF DAYS, by Peter H. Spectre (WoodenBoat Magazine, Brooklin 04616, $12.95), is both a daybook and an information source for the inquisitive mariner.

Richard R. Shaw is the NEWS editorial page assistant.