In Retrieving Times, author Granville (Red) Austin paints a vivid picture of 1930s Norwich, Vermont through significant detail and memorable characters. Austin's time travels to the hometown of his youth are far more than pleasant excursions. They're emotional evocations of the men, women, and friends who populated the author's world, the people who "larned" him—to use the author's phrase—the meaning of honor, of fairness, and of the devotion necessary to turn a small collection of houses and stores into a community with a powerful pulse of its own.

Granville Austin graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, with a BA in American Literature. He then earned a doctorate in Modern Indian History from Oxford University. Austin worked as a journalist/photographer and later served with the U. S. Information Service, Department of State, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and on the staff of a U. S. senator. He is the author of two groundbreaking political histories of the constitution of India: Working a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian Experience (2000) and The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (1966).