The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

daughter — is returning to work as a petroleum engi- neer, he pauses thoughtfully, and then says, “Where we’re going, I think life is not a bed of roses.” This com- pilation from the author’s letters and journals from 1952 through 1965 — when, two years after her husband’s tragic death in a car accident, she and their children return to the U.S. — recounts the exciting but often dif- ficult process of adjustment to life in Turkey. The book reflects her growing understanding and appreciation of the family and culture into which she married, and is a tribute to the country she came to love. Anna Maria Malkoç served as an English teaching offi- cer in USIA, with postings in Turkey, Poland andWashing- ton, D.C. She retired in 1990 after a 15-year career. The Time of My Life: A Personal Look at the Twentieth Century Hawthorne Mills, Xlibris, 2005 (revised edition), $24.99, paperback, 424 pages. In this memoir, a Foreign Service officer and inter- national peacekeeping official reflects on a career spanning the years of the Cold War — from 1945, as a young sailor in the Pacific, through 1990, when he was responsible for helping enforce the security pro- visions of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Mills records his impressions of the era’s key political and security conflicts, including Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan and Israel. “Writing a book is a little like designing an airplane,” says Mills. “You have to know what purpose it is to serve before you can get the design right.” In this book, he seeks to balance two objectives: to preserve a record of the events of his life for his children and grandchildren, and to record his own impressions of the era in which he was a participant-observer in so many pivotal events. The result is certainly flight-wor- thy. Mills’ observations about the international scene from the start of the Cold War to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar world will be F O C U S 46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 Continued from page 41 D o you have something original to say that is being ignored or rejected by the media and mainstream pub- lishers? Talk to retired FSO and former ambassador Robert Keeley, founder of Five and Ten Press in Washington, D.C., (http://fiveandtenpress.com). A mbassador Keeley, whose business card identifies his profession as “Consulting Iconoclast,” established this small, independent publishing company in 1995 for the purpose of bringing out original arti- cles, essays and other short works of fiction and non-fiction that have been rejected or ignored by mainstream outlets. The name comes from the intention to price the products of the press at between five and 10 dollars a copy. “There were to be no restrictions as to genre: historical, personal, polemical, humorous, serious, fictional, factual or, a category I particularly like, factual fiction,” Keeley explains in the introduction to Five and Ten Press, and its imprint Black Sheep Books, on the Web site. “I was eager to find other writers who were interested in self-publishing their own work in the same manner, using my new press as the vehicle.” One of the latest writers to seek out Five and Ten Press is John V. Whitbeck, an American international lawyer whose The World According to Whitbeck was added to the Black Sheep list in April 2005. The book is a collection of 20 essays about the Middle East, focused pri- marily on the Israel-Palestine con- flict, that present the author’s imag- inative solutions to this problem. Another 2005 offering, An Ameri- can Soldier in World War I by retired FSO Robert Sherwood Dillon, is listed on p. 30. Five and Ten’s main criteria for publication are wit (if possible a lot), originality and readability. All of the books are published in limit- ed first editions of from 300 to 600 copies, in a 5” x 8” for- mat that makes them convenient to carry in a coat pocket or purse. They rarely exceed 100 pages, so are not heavy to read in bed. Since late 1996, Five and Ten has been selling its publica- tions on a subscription basis (though it is not necessary to subscribe to purchase the books), and also through the Internet. The Press currently has more than 200 subscribers, a list of 24 titles and nearly breaks even. Amb. Keeley retired in 1989 with the rank of career minister after a 34-year career in the Foreign Service. He served three times as ambassador: to Greece (1985-1989), Zimbabwe (1980-1984) and Mauritius (1976-1978). Five and Ten Press: An Iconoclastic Institution