Peace Corps Week is February 26 - March 4, 2017 and commemorates President John F. Kennedy's establishment of the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. Peace Corps Week is a time to celebrate the differences the Peace Corps has made in the world. A great way to do that (without getting on an airplane) is to read a book about the Peace Corps experience! Here are some to check out.

• Back to Pakistan : a fifty-year journey by Leslie Noyes Mass.
  Fifty years after living in a remote Pakistan village as a Peace Corps volunteer, Leslie Noyes Mass returns to discover a much-changed Pakistan-and a village that still remembers her. She deftly interweaves her experiences from 50 years ago with her current day story as a volunteer training female teachers. Leslie Mass captures the heart and the attention of the reader with her story of Pakistanis in 1962 and those of a new generation who are engaged in building a sustainable educational system for their country's forgotten children.
• Dear exile : the true story of two friends separated (for a year) by an ocean by Hilary Liftin and Kate Montgomery.
  A fascinating collection of letters celebrates the special friendship between two women as one embarked on a year-long assignment with the Peace Corps in rural Kenya and the other braved the life of a single woman in Manhattan. .
• First comes love, then comes malaria : how a Peace Corps poster boy won my heart and a third world adventure changed my life by Eve Brown-Waite.
  Eve Brown's dream is to join the Peace Corps...and maybe solve world hunger and win a Nobel Peace Prize along the way. But she secretly fears she isn't tough enough to survive the bug-infested jungle, much less live without toilet paper and decaf cappuccino.
• From Microsoft to Malawi : learning on the front lines as a Peace Corps volunteer by Michael L. Buckler.
  In this compelling narrative, Michael L. Buckler draws readers into the challenging, yet rewarding world of the Peace Corps. Inspired by his journals, the book recounts his life as a Peace Corps teacher after a heartbreaking divorce and a demanding legal career prompted him to make a change. Assigned to a village school in Malawi, Buckler opens his tiny home to three boys, embarking with them on a journey of cross-cultural discovery, personal sacrifice, and transformative growth. Determined to help his village, Buckler collaborates with community leaders to build a boarding school for girls. As momentum builds, a powerful bureaucrat tries to shut down the project and Buckler becomes discouraged. As he agonizes over whether to leave, the village takes matters into its own hands in a moving display of the persistent, courageous spirit of Malawi.
• A life inspired : tales of Peace Corps service.
  Contains a collection of autobiographical reminiscences written by 28 former Peace Corps volunteers.
• Living poor: a Peace Corps chronicle by Moritz Thomsen.
  At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation--including his own--and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have made Living Poor a classic.
• Nine hills to Nambonkaha : two years in the heart of an African village by Sarah Erdman.
  A Peace Corps worker offers a fascinating portrayal of an African village that stands on the brink of modernity, caught between ancient superstitions and the era of the cell phone as they struggle with AIDS and other life-threatening problems.
• Outpost : life on the frontlines of American diplomacy : a memoir by Christopher R. Hill.
  A former ambassador during periods of deep conflict in Macedonia, Poland, Iraq, and South Korea details his career of service, where he met with world leaders, war criminals, and statesmen during his tenure.
• Power lines : two years on South Africa's borders by Jason Carter.
  An account of life in contemporary South Africa as presented by a Peace Corps volunteer and the grandson of Jimmy Carter offers a portrait of a country struggling to recover from deep racial divisions.
• The unheard : a memoir of deafness and Africa by Josh Swiller.
  Describes one young man's efforts to reconcile his deafness in an unforgiving, hearing world by undertaking a two-year sojourn in a remote village in Zambia as a Peace Corps volunteer where he found a remarkable world marked by both beauty and violence.