Irish nomads

In "Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More" photographer Alen MacWeeney pays tribute to an itinerant people of Ireland whose way of life is vanishing. Traditionally, the Travellers lived in caravans and tents, camping by the roadside. They were tinsmiths, pot menders, turf cutters, chimney sweeps.

MacWeeney, a native of Ireland who now lives in New York, writes that he saw in these itinerants a "mirror image of the migrant farmers of the American Depression. Like the Americans, the Travellers were poor, white, and dispossessed." They are fiercely proud, too, and MacWeeney only slowly gained their trust.

In addition to photographing them on and off beginning in 1965, MacWeeney recorded their stories and songs on a CD that comes with the book.

"Irish Travellers" is the first book from a new publisher, New England College Press in Henniker, N.H. Its founding editor is Robert Emmett Ginna Jr., formerly editor in chief at Little, Brown.

A tale with teeth

Gregory Maguire's novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" launched a hit Broadway musical and a touring show now visiting Boston. Now the Concord resident has a new book, "What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy," based on a serial story published as "Gangster Teeth" in the Globe four years ago. The tale about a colony of tooth fairies was inspired by a writing assignment Maguire once gave a class of sixth-graders: combine the ordinary with the extraordinary. Maguire, who writes along with his students, created a scene that stayed with him for 15 years.

Faith based

Journeys of spiritual discovery are at the heart of a new novel and a memoir by two Massachusetts authors.

In Roland Merullo's "Breakfast With Buddha," Otto Ringling, a down-to-earth family man, takes a road trip from New York to North Dakota with Volya Rinpoche, the guru of his flaky sister. Ringling introduces the Mongolian monk to American landmarks and pastimes such as Wrigley Field and miniature golf. Meanwhile, Rinpoche infuriates Ringling with his long silences and his enigmatic statements about life.

In "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back," Frank Schaeffer explores his past as a dynamic young evangelist. Cal Thomas, onetime vice president of the Moral Majority, once introduced him as "the best speaker in America." Schaeffer became alienated and left the evangelical movement. He produced and directed a number of low-budget films before settling into a career as a writer.

Coming out
"The Worst Thing I've Done," by Ursula Hegi (Simon & Schuster)
"Igraine the Brave," by Cornelia Funke (Scholastic)
"Trespass," by Valerie Martin (Doubleday)

Pick of the week

Carole Horne of Harvard Book Store recommends "Bridge of Sighs," by Richard Russo (Knopf): "I thought that 'Empire Falls' could turn out to be the peak of Russo's literary career, but happily his new novel is its equal. Russo's themes of love and longing, and the intricacies of relationships - between parents and children, lovers and friends - are explored with humor and an underlying melancholy that make for great reading."

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.