ookMarcs Publishing is a small, independent press whose purpose is to preserve and expand the Maine bookshelf by publishing and, in some cases, reprinting books that express the practicality and creativity of Maine culture.

In 1999 we published our first book, The Story of Bangor: A Brief History of Maine's Queen City. Inspired by a visitor to Bangor and BookMarcs Bookstore who inquired, "why is this place even here?" The Story of Bangor provides an overview of the city's history. Readers learn how a struggling but ambitious settlement on the banks of the Penobscot River and Kenduskeag Stream called Sunbury came to be incorporated as the city of Bangor and how this upstart Bangor, once the "lumber capital of the world," survived the decline of the pine forest to become the service and retail center for the northern two-thirds of Maine.

Gig Weeks, the first employee of BookMarc's Bookstore (Gig varnished the locally-made oak bookcases in the weeks proceeding the store's grand-opening), wrote – and BookMarcs published in 2005 – Maine Is a Puzzle: Puzzles to Test Your Knowledge of the State of Maine.

In early 2006, we published Trudy Scee's Dictionary of Maine Words and Phrases. Trudy is the author of histories of Bangor's Mount Hope Cemetery, the Bangor Children's home, and the N.H. Bragg family.

More books are in the works for 2006-2007. We hope through our publishing endeavors to enlarge our reader's knowledge of their City and State and maybe even have some fun while we are doing so.