The creator of Fleur Weymouth Photographs is featured in the summer issue of Forest Notes, the distinguished journal of the 107-year-old Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

In 1971, writer-photographer Fleur Weymouth of Francestown, N.H., single-handedly initiated a campaign to allow local communities to designate certain town roads as Scenic Roads. She marshalled a statewide following of homeowners and politicians, newspaper editors and lawyers. Four months later Gov. Walter Peterson signed the 1971 Scenic Roads Law that remains a model for other states to adopt (Massachusetts passed virtually the identical legislation in 1973).

Weymouth had to contend with State Highway Department administrators trying to defeat her effort. She wasn’t impressed by arguments that trees and walls hit speeding cars.

"My goal," Weymouth said, "was local control, not state control, of local back roads. I wanted people to understand that road agents need good big areas where they can push plowed snow in winter, and I wanted road agents to understand that people cared about trees and old stone walls."

Today state highway departments, electric service companies and other agencies must comply with the scenic roads statute. Public notice must be given and agency representatives must inform town planning board members at hearings for tree-cutting proposals for designated scenic roads.

Weymouth’s quiet, passionate pursuit of the beautiful carries over to her singular book Fleur Weymouth Photographs.

In early August, the NH State Library featured Julia Older's historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals as its statewide Book of the Week.

The award-winning novel is part of Older's Isles of Shoals Trilogy. "The first book in the trilogy, The Island Queen," Mary Russell wrote of the Celia Thaxter biographical novel, "would be a great companion" to the second book of the trilogy.

Russell is director of The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. The Center is designed "to celebrate and promote reading, books, literacy and the literary heritage of New Hampshire." The program is an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

The forecast of book sales is figured for an increase of 3.2% by the end of this year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, although this would be down from the 4.98% increase for 2007.

The major category of Adult Hardcover sales is projected for a 2.0% increase for 2008. Adult paperback sales should increase 1.6% increase this year.