The Foreign Service Journal, November 2007

high school reunion. The book can be ordered from the author at 5809 Lenox Road, Bethesda MD 20817. At Home in the World: Memoirs of a Traveling Woman Dorothy S. Conlon, Ingram, 2007, $19.95, paperback, 160 pages. From a lively, well-trav- eled woman comes this col- lection of well-written per- sonal tales that give a memo- rable glimpse into our plan- et’s inexhaustible treasures of lands and peoples. From Bolivia to Bhutan, from Tanzania to Thailand and beyond, many of Conlon’s global adventures are based on volunteer projects with Earthwatch and Global Volunteers, among others. They promise to intrigue the seasoned traveler or inspire the hesitant novice. Conlon’s zest for new sights and her enthusi- asm for getting to know people of other cultures are contagious. Dorothy S. Conlon was born in Japan. Her husband, Ned Conlon, was a career FSO whose postings includ- ed Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. Widowed in 1989, Conlon embarked on her own jour- neys, teaching, doing wildlife research and exploring new parts of the world. She gives frequent slide-show presentations on her excursions at retirement facilities in Southwest Florida, where she lives. Freelancing in Paradise: The Story of Two American Reporters Who Supported Their Family by Covering Turbulent Times in the Caribbean, 1958-1963 John Hlavacek and Pegge (Parker) Hlavacek, iUniverse, 2007, $23.95, paperback, 350 pages. “Don’t read this book — unless you are prepared to be green as a Caribbean log- gerhead turtle with envy over the life and adventures that John and Pegge Hlavacek write about in Freelancing in Paradise ,” says New York Times reporter Anthony DePalma. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, based in Jamaica with their five children and Indian nanny, the couple covered the turbulent events in the Caribbean for print and broadcast media. From encounters with Errol Flynn, Billy Graham, David Brinkley and Juan Peron, to a night in a Cuban jail in 1960, the Hlavaceks tracked breaking stories on revolu- tions, assassinations and other turning points in history. “This is no mere vanity book — it’s a wonderful period snapshot, rich in detail,” says Omaha World-Herald columnist Michael Kelly. Freelancing in Paradise is the second volume in the memoirs of Pegge Parker, the pen name of Mrs. Douglas Mackiernan, who was a vice consul at Consulate Lahore when she met her second husband, foreign correspondent John Hlavacek. Her first hus- band was a vice consul in Tihwa, Sinkiang province, China. Ordered to stay at the consulate, he escaped ahead of the Communist Chinese but was shot at the border of Tibet in 1950. Diapers on a Dateline (2002), the first volume of memoirs, told the story of the Hlavaceks’ life and work in India from 1952 to 1957. Freelancing was written in collaboration with her husband, drawing on her letters and clippings of the stories she wrote during the time they lived in the Caribbean. Old Gods, New Nations: A Memoir of War, Peace and Nation Building Eugene Staples, iUniverse, 2006, $24.95, paperback, 386 pages. This highly readable memoir offers both a slice of recent history and a com- pelling look at the opportu- nities, the richness of experi- ence and the unparalleled knowledge of the human condition that a Foreign Service career offers. Eugene “Rocky” Staples joined the Service in 1951 as an information officer after service as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II, and was assigned to the newly created U.S. Information Agency. In 1958, he was press officer for then-Vice President Nixon’s controversial Latin American tour and, in the 1960s, cultural counselor in Moscow during the Kennedy-Khrushchev period. He then joined the Ford Foundation, and spent two decades helping manage its Asian development work, including on field assignments in Bangkok and New Delhi. Staples returned to the Foreign Service in 1980 as USAID’s deputy assistant administrator for the Asia 30 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 7