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Sidra Stich’s Art-SITES “is a unique series combining art books and travel guides. User-friendly, each handbook is filled with in-depth commentaries and nitty-gritty details on art museums, top-notch galleries, pioneering exhibition spaces, cutting-edge contemporary architecture, film centers, vanguard public art, sculpture parks, art fairs, festivals and bookshops. Far beyond the usual coverage of museums and monuments, these handbooks offer an excitingly different way to explore cities and discover the hinterlands.

December 14, 2008
7:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

Editors Barbara J. Euser and Connie Burke will present their latest travel anthology, Venturing in Italy: Travels in Puglia, Land between Two Seas at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 14. Contributing writers will read segments from their stories about Puglia (the heel of Italy’s boot) and Barbara and Connie will present thirty slides of the region.

Local readers include Nancy Alpert, Connie Gutowsky, Tom Harrell, Laurie McAndish King, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Ethel Mussen, and MJ Pramik. Out-of-town “celebrity readers” include Sandra Bracken, Annelize Goedbloed, and Carol Kelly

Join Us!

November 7, 2008

7:00 pm

I’ve seen this book, and it’s beautiful. Hope you can join Kraig and Michael for the launch celebrations:

Kraig Lieb and Michael Shapiro celebrate the publication of Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya. Lieb, a photographer for Lonely Planet, will show slides illuminating the land, traditions and celebrations of the Maya in Guatemala. Shapiro, who wrote the text for this pictorial book, will address questions about traveling to Guatemala and the best places to see there.

Two free venues:

Friday, Nov. 7, 7pm
Copperfield’s Books
138 N. Main St.
Sebastopol, Calif.
707-823-2618

From Rolf Potts, on his new book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There (in stores last month; I’m just getting caught up): The subtitle to the book is “Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer,” and the story collection is just that — a look back at my boldest, funniest, and most revealing travel-writing adventures from the past 10 years. In a way, it’s both a sequel and a “prequel” to my first book, Vagabonding.

I found out last night, in an entertaining evening at the War Memorial in San Francisco. It was a Recce conversation, sponsored by Geographic Expeditions, in which Don George interviewed Robert Thurman, to the extent that Thurman can be interviewed.

Bob Thurman is one of the world’s leading experts on Tibetan Buddhism, “the founder of Tibet House, the President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, and the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. He was the first American ordained as a Tibetan monk and Time magazine named him one of the 25 Most Influential People in America.” (GeoEx)

Lenny Karpman, who used to live in the SF Bay Area but moved to Costa Rica several years ago, says the country is developing a sophisticated restaurant scene. Check out Lenny’s blog for for updates on Costa Rican foods and restaurants.

“Lenny Karpman is a prolific writer of food and travel pieces from his nest, a farm in Costa Rica that he and his wife, Joan Hall, share with their menagerie of rescued critters.

October 29, 2008

7:30 pm

Stephanie Elizondo Griest will be touring for the next few months with her latest memoir, Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines. She’ll be in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 29 at Modern Times Bookstore (888 Valencia Street in the Mission District) at 7:30 p.m.

Here is a description of the book:

October 12, 2008
1:00 pm	to	4:00 pm

Camille Cusumano’s book, Tango: An Argentine Love Story will be celebrated with a book launch party at the The Museo ItaloAmericano on Sunday, October 12, from 1 to 4 p.m. Details at Camille’s site. I’m reading—and enjoying—the book now. It’s about the intersection of tango, Zen and yoga, and how they pulled Camille through a difficult transition.

November 8, 2008
7:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

FREE event: Kraig Lieb and Michael Shapiro celebrate the publication of Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya with a book launch party at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, November 8.  In addition to Michael’s evocative descriptions, the coffee-table book is filled with gorgeous photos. Lieb, a photographer for Lonely Planet, will show slides illuminating the land, traditions and celebrations of the Maya in Guatemala. Shapiro, who wrote the text for this pictorial book, will address questions about traveling to Guatemala and the best places to see there. More info on Michael’s website.
Saturday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m.
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA

Travel writer and photographer Linda Ballou’s new book is available here.

“Through the eyes of high chiefess, Wai-nani, experience the Hawaiian society as it existed when Captain Cook arrived at Kealakekua Bay in 1779; ride the billowing seas with Eku, the wild dolphin she befriends; learn why she loved the savage, conflicted ruler, Makaha; walk with her as she defies ancient laws and harsh taboos of the Island people; share the love she received from all who knew her and learn how she rose to become the most powerful woman in old Hawai’i.”

“Chuck Thompson’s ‘Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer’ slams modern travel writing as mediocre, if not dishonest. Why this is the case is a question he—like many critics—can’t seem to answer, observes Rolf Potts” in this WorldHum article.

City Lights recommends this and nine other choices in their list of holiday gift ideas:

Local Girl Makes History
Exploring Northern California’s Kitsch Monuments
by Dana Frank

A combination of memoir, local history, and reflections on culture, Dana Frank’s Local Girl Makes History uncovers the skeletons in the closet of some of your most beloved local spots. Leave the fruitcake at home — this book is a guaranteed conversation-starter for holiday dinners!

I stumbled upon the website for a book called 2012, and liked the site design (I’m always on the lookout for great marketing ideas), especially the use of that bouncy “think map” that grabs your attention without being visually obnoxious. Wonder whether I could figure out how to use it….

The site content was kind of interesting, too: “Cross Aldous Huxley, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda—each imbued with a twenty-first century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology—and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms. Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York’s literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper’s Bazaar.”

Thanks to Diane LeBow for forwarding the link to this book review from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Reviewed by Ilan Stavans
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Travels With Herodotus
By Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by Klara Glowczewska
KNOPF; 275 PAGES; $25

Ryszard Kapuscinski made globe-trotting reportage alluring. In an age of ephemeral information, his engaging, thought-provoking dispatches from various war zones (Angola, Iran, Congo, Algeria, Cuba, Zanzibar, El Salvador and Uganda, among other) gave readers a sense of history in the making. Born in Pinsk, Belarus, in 1932, he died in Warsaw earlier this year, at the age of 74, having witnessed 27 coups and revolutions and being sentenced to death four times. And although Warsaw was home, he was a foreigner even there. For to be a foreigner — to reject complacency — was for him to be alive.

By Christine Delsol, San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, May 31, 2007

“In travel publishing, as in all media, book topics come clustered like Muni buses at rush hour. Recent guides have been wooing women — solo or in gangs of girls — lovers of literature and travelers who care more about the hotel than the destination.” Christine’s review of Marybeth Bond’s 50 Best Girlfriends Getaways in North America, Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, and others is here.

“Travel and writing were twin passions for her, and they were often intertwined. She didn’t enjoy returning to America, in 1872, but …” Review by Amy Weaver Dorning.

Here are Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s tips for traveling in communist/post-communist bloc countries. Her books look good, too.

The Europe From a Backpack travel book series recently published Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack. Check out their books and blogs. They are not currently looking for stories, but you can sign up on their website to receive a notice when that changes.

Carla King’s new book is out:

“New book describes a woman’s solo journey around the USA on a cranky Russian motorcycle
San Francisco, CA — February 5, 2007 — Breakdowns in small towns all around America is the theme of a new book titled American Borders by Carla King, about her solo journey around the United States on a Russian Ural sidecar motorcycle.

A comedy of mechanical, social, and natural disasters
A motorcycle journey to explore the borders between the United States with Canada and Mexico becomes a comedy of mechanical, social, and natural disasters. King’s four-month, ten-thousand-mile solo test ride of the newly-imported Russian Ural is punctuated by cracked welds and electrical gremlins, evil tow truck drivers, roadside romances, tornadoes and hurricanes.

A great read! says Lonely Planet.

From the January 12 New York Times: “Early this year, the Book Review’s editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify ‘the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.’ Following are the results …” [Read A. O. Scott's essay. See a list of the judges.]

by Constance Hale

by Louise Purwin Zobel and Jacqueline Harmon Butler

It’s out: the 6th edition of The Travel Writer’s Handbook: How to Write — and Sell — Your Own Travel Experience. “In the new edition of this standard guide, veteran travel writers Louise Purwin Zobel and Jacqueline Harmon Butler cover everything from pre-trip research on the Internet and at the library, to how to obtain writing assignments for websites, to ecotourism and volunteer travel opportunities, to specific marketing strategies and tax information. Written in an accessible, humorous style, the book includes 12 formats for travel articles with surefire appeal to editors and readers, and savvy advice on such topics as finding new angles for overworked subjects and what to take along on the trip.”