Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a column featuring new books that are either by Maine authors, set in the Pine Tree State or have other local ties.

WENDAMEEN: THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SCHOONER FROM 1912 TO THE PRESENT, by Capt. Neal Parker, Down East Books, Camden, Maine, 2002, $16.95.

A case could be made, and made well, that those among us who are crazy about boats are the most unbalanced of all. Generously illustrated with photographs that span almost a century, this is the story of a 67-foot wooden schooner designed by John Alden. The vessel was launched in the summer of 1912 from the Frank Adams boatyard in East Boothbay. Alden would go on to become one of yachting’s most revered designers and the Wendameen reflected his genius even though it was sailing long before he became famous.

Wendameen is still sailing for charter from Maine harbors under the command of Capt. Neal Parker, the man who all but single-handedly rescued it from a watery grave, the man who is crazy about boats and who wrote this charmingly honest tale of his affliction. Boats, especially graceful wooden sailing boats with lines as smooth as a tuna’s, have a way of becoming myth. They acquire a kind of enchantment, a magic that casts its spell over the lives of those who set foot aboard.

So it was with Neal Parker, who first met Wendameen in 1986 as it lay at what would have been its permanent rest on a Connecticut mud flat. Demented would not be too strong a term for the passion with which young Parker set about restoring this beauty from the Roaring Twenties. What would have been a supreme challenge for someone with money became Herculean for the impecunious Capt. Parker. But, in June 1990, the revived Wendameen was launched, and, what’s more, it’s still sailing! This is the marvelous story.

CAPTAIN ABBY & CAPTAIN JOHN, by Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Blackberry Books, Nobleboro, Maine, 2002, $14.95.

Everyone who reads should thank Maine publisher Gary Lawless for reprinting this joyous classic by Pulitzer Prize-winner R. P. T. Coffin. But those of us in Maine should be especially grateful, not only for this handsome edition of a work first published by MacMillan Co. in 1939, but because this exuberant story takes us back to the days of Maine’s shipbuilding heyday when almost every cove along the long coast rang with the hammer blows of the builders of wooden ships.

You can tell from his writing’s lyrical roll that Rob Coffin was as much a poet as historian. Indeed, it was his poetry that brought him his Pulitzer, but it was his love of the Maine coast and its history that spurred him to write this spirited and romantic history. His access to Capt. John Pennell’s sea chest allowed him to read every meticulous log the captain had kept of his voyages around the world, voyages shared by his wife, Abigail whose words are one more bright thread in this book’s marvelous tapestry.

But this is more than the rich history of a Maine sailing captain and his seagoing bride. It is a book that will enrich your understanding of the Maine coast in the age of sail, a time when the state’s great pine forests were the stuff that splendid ships were made of.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS! DRIVE-INS, DANCE HALLS, FRIED CLAMS, SUMMER AND MAINE, by Will Anderson, Anderson & Sons Publishing Co., Bath, Maine, 2002, $24.95

There’s no mistaking a Will Anderson book. First, there’s the format: Like each of the previous 16, this one is laid out horizontally on glossy, coated stock, pricey stuff in the publishing business. Then there’s the generous use of illustrative material: photographs, cartoons, newspaper advertisements, posters of the period and many more delightful odds and ends. Add the author’s sprightly prose, witty, down-to-earth, and you have a book for which there are no comparisons. Like Popeye, it is what it is, and we are all the better for it.

As you enjoy this unique mix, you’ll learn a lot about this marvelous state of Maine. You’ll discover there were once 47 drive-in movie theaters, and you’ll be well informed about each of them. And, if you read carefully, you’ll know that Anderson is an unabashed romanticist who loves the good old days. He’s enchanted by the dance halls, places such as the Casino at Old Orchard Beach where Louis Armstrong and his orchestra performed from summer dusk to summer dawn.

And then there’s the author’s long hunt (with his loyal wife) for the birthplace of the fried clam, a miraculous event which Will is convinced first took place in Maine. He and Catherine put considerable mileage on the family car, driving across the state and along its coast searching for the finest, absolute best, fried clam. From Auburn to Augusta to Emory Mills and Newport, the brave couple ordered up a serving of fried clams at every spot that offered them.

And what was their number-one choice? It’s here in this lively book.