Cyberflanerie: Rare Books Entrepreneurship Edition-- Double OO Books

So my dear travel writing amiga, Peat O'Neil, has opened a bookshop, Double OO Books--the Os standing for Oh Li Ping and Peat O'Neil. She is specializing in crime, espionage and mystery.

Speaking of espionage, two fabulous books I hope she will carry:

Heribert von Feilitzsch's bio, In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico

and

Sara Mansfield Taber's memoir, Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter

I am all about collecting rare books these days, and just recently in Mexico City I found a few humdingers related to / about the Mexican Revolution... one with an absolutely astonishing inscription. Stay tuned for the videos. Meanwhile, some more surf-worthy links:

William Reese's fascinating and eye-opening talk for the Grolier Club: Books in Hard Times

Once again I point you, dear reader, to Michael Suarez, SJ's talk on books, "The Ecosystems of Book History" (don't miss it)


Allen and Patricia Ahearn, owners of Quill and Brush, offer Book Collecting Tips

Ken Lopez shares "Some Thoughts on the Maturing of the Rare Book Market at the Start of the 21st Century"

Sarah, a painter and used book dealer in Maui recommends So You Want to Open a Used Bookshop

Rick Lugg on A Spa for Books
(Hey somebody open this service for private collections? Maybe like those wine storage services?)

Richard Goodman blogs the love for his books.

Just finished reading Alessandro Marzo Magno's delightful Bound in Venice: The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book, which makes my top 10 list for 2013, hands down.

COMMENTS

Cyberflanerie: Nifty Stuff Edition

Julia Sussner's latest app! (She's my favorite app designer, based in the blazing heart of Palo Alto.) The app, which accompanies an exhibition, "Never Built: Los Angeles," takes a selection of the projects and situates them on a map, creating an interactive experience of the city, as it is, and as it could have been. 
>>Download it now from iTunes here.
(The Trump project may prompt ironic chuckles.)

PS Check out Julia Sussner's guest-blog post on 5 Fabulous Apps to Experience for Yourself


L. Peat O'Neil's Adventure Travel Writer blog
Her joy for travel is infectious, plus heaps of nifty tips.

Dan Gilbert explains the whole happiness thing (but sorry, Dan, I would still rather win the lottery than end up a paraplegic...) Seriously, this is one of the best TED Talks ever.

The Archdruid Takes Us 10 Billion Years Into the Future
No need to smoke anything, folks. 

Via Real Delia, Jane Friedman's talk (video) on audience development for writers.
(very sandwich-worthy).  

La Bloga: Las Mujeres:
Lorna Dee Cervantes, Rosemary Catacalos, and María Espinosa
Una celebración.


Writer Beth Kephart's very thoughtful blog

No cookie search-o-rama! DuckDuckGo 

Link without affecting page rank (kind of evil, maybe sometimes in a good way)

Recommended by Cool Tools (another favorite blog): The Yeti for podcasters.

More anon.

COMMENTS always welcome.

Cyberflanerie: Beltway's Resurrection Issue, Travel, Farmstand, USSR in the 60s, Eight Martinis, Steven Hart Has a Twitter

A fascinating and beautiful read: Poet Kim Robert's has just announced Beltway's Resurrection issue, which brings several long-lost Washington DC poets back into print.

It's a weirdly ever-morphing publishing world out there: My amiga the intrepid, far-ranging and widely published travel writer L. Peat O'Neil offers 5 sites for travel writers to publish

For those who avoid Wal-Mart at all costs: Where's the farmstand? Get the app.

Very gray, very cold, very scary... Naomi F. Collins interviewed about life as student in 1960s USSR

More po news: Wilson Wyatt, photographer and editor celebrates Richard Blanco

For Ingo Swann fans: Daz Smith's Eight Martinis remote viewing magazine May 2013 is out.

One of my favorite bloggers: Steven Hart has entered the labyrinth of the Twitterverse and seeks followers

Another literary labor of love: Ezra: an online journal of translation has just posted its new issue

Jawdropping: Pigs, Gourds & Wikis blog has info on the video capabilities of Kindle (EPUB3) 

Guest-blogger L. Peat O'Neil: 5 + Links on Walking and Literature

Goethe advised, "Plunge into the the thick of life." It might not be so poetic, but certainly, one could walk into the thick of life. Walk, run, swim, climb, sail-- what travel writing is all about is not only the adventure itself, but bringing to it the sharp awareness that one needs to later shape a narrative to share with others (which leads to the sometimes thrilling, sometimes soul-chilling adventure of publishing...) I met travel writer L. Peat O'Neil at a Washington DC Women's National Book Association-sponsored event in the Rosslyn, Virginia Olsson's Book Store, where I read from my memoir and she read from hers. I've been a big fan ever since, and in my travel writing workshops, I always avidly recommend her book, what should be every travel writer's Bible, Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story. Over to you, Peat!

Some day soon, if the yoga and creative visualization work, and I finish necessary edits, Pyrenees Pilgrimage will be available through Amazon.com. The book is about my solo walk across France from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean through the Pyrenees. A walk in the woods, French style.

Hah! Not so simple as that. I trudged and climbed, sweat and drank, following the French paths that feed into the Camino de Santiago de Compostello. I was walking away from Santiago and met several people on the trail near St. Jean Pied du Port who were headed to Spain. I even turned down an invitation to join a jolly group headed to the traditional pilgrimage destination. No, I was walking to the Mediterranean Sea.

An iconoclast, I like to look backwards to find out what’s ahead. On this journey, I visited landmarks, churches, chateaus and sites that illustrate the spiritual and political history of the region. I dug into ruins, sat in caves, scrambled up crumbling hillsides and meditated next to crosses honoring Resistance fighters shot dead by Nazis. A pleasure seeking pilgrim, I sampled local cheese, bread, meat and wine. I picked apples and cooked preserves. When my feet hurt, I rested and painted watercolors which lured the curious who sometimes became new friends. Lodgings ranged from bunks in mountain lodges to refurbished 17th century mansions. I stayed in schoolhouses converted to hostels and, when I arrived at the deserted seaside in October, I slept soundly in a room over a sports bar. Each walking day was different, but the repetitive rhythm of walking hundreds of kilometers alone hones a person’s spirit.

When opportunity presented, I conversed with the people of the region, learning much about animal husbandry, crops, the wars-- centuries of wars, legends, saints and ghosts. I attended an organ music festival and played the piano in a cellist’s home, slipped in a mountain stream and was patched up by an orthopedic surgeon who told me he had fixed similar broken wrists for Tour de France cyclists. I attended a Basque wedding reception and a funeral in Corbieres wine country.

I walked 40 days and 685 kilometers. I walked alone, wind and wildlife for company. One evening near St. Paul du Fenouillet, caught out after sundown, I witnessed boars wrestling with their tusks in the dusk. On the high plateaus east of Col de Mehatché, I stared up at circling Lammergeier and Griffon vultures soaring on thermals. One afternoon I carried a dead white owl found in my path to its final resting place.

The book should be out this fall on Amazon as an e-book.
Read an excerpt from Pyrenees Pilgrimage. And click here for travel information on the Pyrenees.

5 + links to aspects of walking and literature:

Interview with Rebecca Solnit, on Boston WBUR radio.
She’s the author of Wanderlust, a literary history of human perambulation. I devoured this book before starting my walk across France.

Kipnotes on Walking
Bibliography of narratives about walking journeys-– mostly literary, some how-to guides.

The Power Walk That Charges Your Phone
Here comes our future. A generator that harvests wattage from humans while they walk-- enough power to charge cell phones.

Run the Planet: Race Walking in Mexico
Race Walking in Mexico offers links to coaching and information sites for
walkers and runners.

Peace Pilgrim
Peace Pilgrim walked around the North American continent as a messenger of simplicity and peace.

PowerWalk
My blog about walking.

Walk On!
--- L. Peat O'Neil

--->For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.

The Day Before She Flew to Shanghai, L. Peat O'Neil

signed books with Yours Truly at the Washington Independent Writers Conference. Madam Mayo hears that she's now in Shanghai, but will be offering her on-line travel writing workshop via UCLA. If you're interested in travel writing, don't miss this workshop, and check out her excellent advice-packed book, Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story.

This Saturday's Washington Independent Writers Conference

This Saturday June 9th is the big bash of the Washington Independent Writers Conference in Washington DC, featuring Francine Prose, writers of all stripes, and literary agents galore. My own panel is on travel writing, with Sara Mansfield Taber, L. Peat O'Neil and Candida Mannozzi, yes, the Candida of the fabulous and unique international treasure trove that is Candida's World of Books. Click here for the details.

Travel Writing Panel at the Washington Independent Writers Conference June 9th

I'm chairing the travel writing panel for the Washington Independent Writers (WIW) conference this June 9th. Here's the official blurb and the line-up:

Travel Writing: Article, Essay, Book

What and where are the markets for travel writing? Where and how do travel books sell? Can a travel article turn into an essay and, eventually, a book? Or, vice versa? Three distinguished travel writers and an innovative travel bookseller discuss their experiences and views.

Moderator: C.M. Mayo's books are Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press), Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California the Other Mexico (Milkweed Editions), and Sky Over El Nido (University of Georgia Press), which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her travel writing has won three Lowell Thomas Awards and the 2005 WIW Award for best essay.

Candida Mannozzi is the owner of Candida's World of Books, which opened in Washington DC in 2004. A native of Italy with dual Italian / US citizenship, she speaks six languages fluently, and has lived and worked in many different countries including the Czech Republic and Japan. She has a BA and and MA in language and literature from Swarthmore College and Yale Univ. respectively, as well as a graduate diploma in European Studies from Johns Hopkins University SAIS (School of Advanced International Studies).

L. Peat O'Neil, after 18 years in the Washington Post newsroom, O'Neil currently is learning Mandarin, teaching writing for UCLA and freelancing. Author of Travel Writing – See the World, Sell the Story (Writer's Digest Books 2005).

Sara Mansfield Taber was raised in Asia, Europe, and the United States as the daughter of a CIA agent. She is the author of two books of literary journalism: Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia (Henry Holt) and Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf (Beacon). She has also written a writing workbook for internationally global youth entitled, Of Many Lands: Journal of a Traveling Childhood (Foreign Service Youth Foundation). Her memoirs and essays have been published in national literary magazines and produced for Public Radio's All Things Considered. Her work appears, also, in the anthologies, Notes from a Traveling Childhood and Unrooted Childhoods.

For more about the WIW conference, click here.

Washington Independent Writers Conference: Panel on Travel Writing

Quick blog post before I run out the door to AWP with Tameme: Just finalized the line-up for the travel writing panel at the Washington Independent Writers conference, which takes place this June 9th at the George Washington University's Cafritz Conference Center, Washington DC. Yours Truly, Sara Mansfield Taber, L. Peat O'Neil, and--- drum roll--- Candida Mannozzi, owner of Candida's World of Books, one of the most unusual and charming and altogether Washingtonian venues in Washington. Get on Candida's mailing list and you'll be invited to readings and signings of books on Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Italy, Iceland--- and maybe all in the same month. In the meantime, WIW's website has profiled my anthology, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion here. Gracias, guys! Pictured left is the cover of L. Peat O'Neil's Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story (2nd Edition). I always very highly recommend this book to my writing students. L. Peat O'Neil has sold more travel stories than any one I know--- and now she's learning Chinese. And here's the cover of Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf, Sara Mansfield Taber's luminous travel memoir of her quest for the DNA of the best bread in the world. The writing is as delicious as the subject.