Q&A | Shannon Butler
Growing up in Aroostook County, Shannon Butler was surrounded by the softly-piled snow, warm, cozy farmhouses, and the towering evergreen...
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Read. Dream. Explore.
Maine.
We Tell Stories.
Welcome
to Islandport
We are a dynamic, award-winning publisher dedicated to stories rooted in the essence and sensibilities of Maine and New England. We strive to capture and explore the grit, heart, beauty, and infectious spirit of the region by telling tales, real and imagined, that can be appreciated in many forms by readers, dreamers, and adventurers everywhere.
Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn won Academy Awards for what 1981 movie filmed on Squam Lake?
New Hampshire
Trivia
by Rebecca Rule
Rebecca “Becky” Rule’s New Hampshire Trivia is a fascinating, educational, and entertaining collection of facts and stories that will test your knowledge and spark your curiosity to learn even more about this great state. Plus, Becky adds in her signature sense of humor to make this book of trivia fun and engaging. There’s something for everyone with more than 500 questions in such categories as History, Arts and Entertainment, Sports, Notables, Natural Wonders, Strange and Unexpected, and much more.
Stories from a Bed & Breakfast on the Edge of Town
Farmhouse
On the Edge of Town
by Lew-Ellyn Hughes
Shipping Nov. 19
Lew-Ellyn Hughes dreams of leaving city life and finding a place where she can see her beloved Maine wilderness from her window each morning. Her dreams finally come true when she finds a nineteenth-century farmhouse for sale in Stratton, an idyllic town nestled in between lakes and mountains. She decides to turn it into Diamond Corner, a cozy, five-room bed-and-breakfast, sharing her love of Maine with visitors from all over the world. Farmhouse on the Edge of Town is a collection of heartwarming and humorous stories from fifteen years of owning the bed-and-breakfast that features a cast of hardy Mainers, colorful guests, and lovable family, as Lew-Ellyn juggles their wants and needs with her trademark humor and insight. From opening up a bakery in her kitchen to painting her house to shoveling snow, her stories will delight anyone who’s ever spent time in a small town.
More than 100 Historic Images!
Shipping Dec. 3
Working the Sea
by Michael Crowley and Penobscot Marine Museum
Drawn from the pre-digital photographic archives of National Fisherman and Atlantic Fisherman, Working the Sea features more than one hundred historically significant images that highlight the sweeping changes that took place in America’s nineteenth century fisheries, focusing especially on the boats and people that have always served as the backbone of the industry. Working the Sea was made possible by the generosity of National Fisherman, a leading Maine-based trade magazine for commercial fishing that once billed itself as “the saltiest magazine on the newsstand,” and its predecessor Atlantic Fisherman. The two magazines together have donated more than three thousand images to the Penobscot Marine Museum.
Praise for
The Islanders
byLewis Robinson
“In Lewis Robinson’s riveting new novel The Islanders, his eighteen-year-old protagonists are…brave and smart and decent and resourceful. Also, wildly entertaining.”
—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls
"Accomplished... lean and sure-handed. [Robinson] is a keen observer of truths about place...and about people, too." —Boston Sunday Globe
"A thrilling story of teenage survival and camaraderie."—Kirkus Reviews
“Robinson is at his expansive best, reaching into a fraught American moment while retaining his gift for creating endearing characters...I was enthralled from first page to last, and couldn’t wait to get back to the island.”
—Monica Wood, author of How to Read a Book
"With an impeccable sense of timing and razor-sharp depictions of character, Lewis Robinson takes the reader through incidents that are too intriguing to resist; funny, unexpected, and always oddly poignant, this storyteller has a voice that pulls you right in." —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge
"A high-energy tale of young star-crossed teens awash in hormones, idealism, dreamy romantic images, and an age-old culture clash that threatens to upend everyone’s hopes." —Kennebec Journal
the space between you and me
by Julie True Kingsley
For Clem, summers are for Maine—for wandering the blueberry barrens, helping her grandmother on the farm, and stargazing with her parents. But her grandmother is gone, she hasn’t talked to her mom in months, and her dad is devoted to the family business. Now, all Clem wants to think about is a dance audition that could get her into Juilliard. She doesn’t need another distraction. Then she meets Rico. He’s nothing like the boys back home in LA or the boys in Maine, either. His secrets rival her own and as they grow closer, she must confront the hidden realities of places she thought she knew. In Julie True Kingsley’s debut novel, Clem and Rico’s worlds are threatening to tear them apart. Can they bridge the space between them before summer is just a memory?
We're Going Home
A True Story about Life and Death
by Cynthia Thayer
At first, the words didn’t connect: Bill’s in the middle of the road. I think he’s alive. But when they did, Cynthia Thayer found her entire world cut adrift from its familiar moorings. Her husband Bill had been in an accident while driving their team of horses; he could not speak, so what had happened remained a mystery. With the emergency helicopter grounded by fog, Bill and Cynthia endured a long ambulance ride to Bangor, Maine, where doctors were waiting to treat him.
Cynthia doesn’t know what comes next. Bill’s injuries are severe. Blood has pooled between his brain and his skull, as well as within the brain itself. Surgery isn’t possible until his condition improves … if it improves. In the waiting, Cynthia tells the story of the life, the farm, and the community that she and Bill built together and what happens when she brings him home again.
Fall Fiction!
In Bee Burke's young adult novel, The Last Summer Before Whatever Happens Next, Claire Hart learns that perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as she grapples with a profound truth—whether she wants to live a perfect life or one that’s perfect for her, whatever that may be.
In The Islanders, award-winning author Lewis Robinson has crafted his most irresistible book yet: a suspenseful reckoning of class conflict in America, with a vivid tale of friendship and family at its heart.
A Glorious, Glorious Bay!
Art of Penobscot Bay
by Carl Little and David Little
Glorious Penobscot Bay, with its quaint mainland towns, bustling tourist centers, and island fishing villages, stands as the backdrop of daydreams. The bay has attracted generation after generation of artists to its shores. To create the the wonderful new book of fine art, Art of Penobscot Bay, brothers David and Carl Little have selected art and artists that celebrate the myriad of inlets, islands, coves, and peninsulas—the “nooks and corners” of the region. But above all, they feature art by more than 120 artists that is infused with a remarkable representation of place.
Art of Penobscot Bay includes artists from the 19th century through the 21st century, including Fitz Henry Lane, Waldo Peirce, Edward Hopper, William Zorach, John Marin, Emily Muir, Greta Van Campen, Alex Katz, Eric Hopkins, and Amy Peters Wood. The art, combined with text by the Little brothers, takes readers on a wondrous visual journey around, across, and through a breathtaking bay.
A Full Net
by Susan Daignault
Sue Daignault was practically born with a rod and reel in her hand. While growing up, she and her family spent entire summers surfcasting for striped bass along the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. That love followed her through her days in the U.S. Coast Guard and then to her home on the coast of Maine as well as to some of the most beautiful, and fishy, places in the world.
Her fun and entertaining new book, A Full Net, showcases a woman increasingly driven to pursue everything from bonefish and tarpon to bass and, of course, stripers—wherever and whenever she could. But what shines through in all of her stories of success, failure, and friendship is her love for the waters of the world and the respect and admiration for the fish who call them home.
"Amy Calder's embrace of Maine comes through loud and clear in her engaging and heartfelt columns."—Gerry Boyle, author
Comfort is an Old Barn
Stories from the Heart of Maine
by Amy Calder
Amy Calder's Comfort is an Old Barn is a curated collection of columns from the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal that features sketches of colorful characters, special moments, and personal stories that showcase why living in Maine is so special.
Sunrise
and the Real World
A Novel by Martha Tod Dudman
When Lorraine, a recent college graduate, starts work at a residential treatment center for troubled teens, she quickly finds herself absorbed into a world very distant from the idyllic lobsters-and-lighthouses fairy tale she had always associated with Maine. Instead, she discovers a landscape of abused and angry teenagers, illicit romance, and danger. Still, she grows to love the place and its people until events shatter her confidence in the world and her own morality. Years later, disheartened and battered by life, Lorraine is unexpectedly drawn back to that world to confront the person she was, the choices she made, and the bitter ghosts that still haunt her. In Sunrise and the Real World, Martha Tod Dudman has penned a taut and spellbinding coming-of-age novel that will stay with you long into the night.
Downtown,
Up River
Bangor in the 1970s
by Emily Burnham
In the 1970s Bangor, Maine was undergoing change, both physical and social. As the urban renewal program and the opening of the Bangor Mall decimated the city's downtown, Bangor the city tried to bridge a gap between progressive and traditional, modern and historic, urban and rural. Downtown, Up River's more than 140 images, mostly captured by photographers from the Bangor Daily News, feature people, places and notable events that highlight life in Bangor, as post-WWII sensibilities coexisted alongside a nascent counterculture, and the memories of Bangor's days as the lumber capital of the world tried to hang on amid controversial attempts to modernize the city.
The Sea Flower
by Ruth Moore
The Sea Flower (1964) centers on two down-and-out orphans, a persnickety cat, an eccentric fisherman, and the hurricane that brings them together. Marney Lessard and Liz Bigelow separately fled from trouble only to find themselves adrift on the same luxury houseboat. When they run aground on a nearly deserted Maine island, Arvid Small comes to their rescue. Stout and friendly, the island’s one seasonal resident attempts to change their fortunes with the help of some friends who are as genuine as the coastal Maine folk Ruth Moore knew herself.
Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill
by Ron Joseph
In Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs and Hermit Bill, wildlife biologist Ron Joseph recounts his youth in central Maine, the importance of his family's dairy farm, and his adventures in the field over the course of a career that spanned more than three decades. A gifted storyteller, he also introduces readers to other like-minded people and fascinating characters who have worked in some way to preserve the natural beauty of Maine. Joseph's forty stories are told with the compassion and appreciation of a man who truly loves Maine, its people, and its many wonders.
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