Non-Fiction

 
Maine Icons: 50 Symbols of the Pine Tree State

(Click on cover for larger image)

MAINE ICONS: 50 Classic Symbols of the Pine Tree State

A handsome visual tour of Maine, this book consists of 50 classic symbols of the Pine Tree State. Maine Icons profiles the likely suspects—lobster, blueberries, lighthouses, whoopie pies—but you’ll find a whole lot of surprises in these pages, too (Raye’s Mustard, Renys, Fog, and so many more!).

Available now: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound | Powell’s

(Globe Pequot Press; May, 2011; Hardcover w/ dust sleeve; Square format; 112 full-color pages; ISBN: 978-0762759989.)

BOOTLEGGERS, LOBSTERMEN & LUMBERJACKS:
Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England

(Click cover for larger image.)

By Matthew P. Mayo
(Globe Pequot Press; October, 2010)
(Softcover; 6 x 9; 320 pages; 28 historic photos; $16.95; ISBN: 978-0-7627-5968-2)

“American history at its most violent and authentic.” —Howard Frank Mosher, award-winning author

In Bootleggers, Lobstermen, and Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England, author Matthew P. Mayo presents 50 narrative-driven tales covering hundreds of years of incredible, true accounts of Indian abductions and all-out wars; of timber-tough men in the golden age of New England logging; of suspected witches being hung and crushed by stones; of savage storms, fantastic shipwrecks, ruthless pirates, and half-starved castaways; of train wrecks, blizzards, and nor’easters; of the hair-raising exploits of rumrunners, smugglers, and bootleggers; of hardworking lobstermen driven to settle their differences any way they can; of hill farmers with fast cars during Prohibition doing their best to survive in the challenging and unique locale that is New England—as much a place as a state of mind.

Here’s a taste of what’s inside:

• The Pilgrims’ first winter is a time of disease, starvation, and death

• Giles Corey is pressed to death with stones during the Salem Witch Trials

• Hannah Duston’s scalping spree leaves 14 Indians dead

• Every month in 1816 saw a killing frost, and famine swept through New England

• Big Jim Cullen gets his neck stretched in New England’s only lynching

• A R.I. girl’s corpse is mutilated, then her family inhales the fumes of her burning organs

• The mother of all logjams rips apart a Vermont town

• Two-million gallons of molasses in a 40-foot wall roars through Boston

• A high-speed Vermont booze-run ends in a shooting, a car wreck, and a dead boy

• FBI’s most-wanted, the Al Brady Gang, are outwitted by savvy Mainers

• Nazis from a submarine use a small Maine town as their entry to sabotage the US

• Lobstermen cut trap lines, burn docks, sink boats, and then the shooting starts

(Read the reviews here.)

Available now: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound | Powell’s

COWBOYS, MOUNTAIN MEN & GRIZZLY BEARS:
Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of the Wild West

Cowboys, Mountain Men and Grizzly Bears Cover
By Matthew P. Mayo
(Globe Pequot Press/TwoDot; December, 2009)
(Softcover; 6 x 9; 264 pages; 27 historic photos; $16.95)

From the first bloody battles between mountain men and Indians to shootouts between famous gunslingers, Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears targets what draws people to the history and literature of the Wild West. Matthew P. Mayo, noted author of Western novels, takes the fifty wildest episodes in the region’s history‚ including John Colter’s harrowing escape from the Blackfeet, Hugh Glass’s six-week crawl to civilization after a grizzly attack, and Custer’s last moments‚ and presents them in one unputdownable, action-packed volume!

Read all about:
· John Colter’s harrowing escape from the Blackfeet

· Hugh Glass’s six-week crawl to civilization after a grizzly attack

· Janette Riker’s brutal winter in the Rockies

· John Wesley Powell’s treacherous run through the rapids of the Grand Canyon

· The Earp Brothers’ hot-tempered gun battle at Tombstone

· General Custer’s ill advised final clash with the Sioux

(Read the reviews here.)

(Read an excerpted chapter here.)

Available now: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound | Powell’s

© 2012 Matthew P. Mayo Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha