My book – in physical form!
Hello subscribers! On Friday I picked up a large parcel sent by UPS while I was away travelling. When at the pick-up point I saw “Hachette” written on the side of the box I knew what it was: my batch of personal author’s copies of my book - Atlas of Dark Destinations! I tried to carry the heavy load of tomes home in the box but after a few dozen yards gave up and my wife and I just opened the box and distributed the books amongst the three shopping bags we had on us and carried them home that way (we had intended to go shopping afterwards, but this load had to be taken home first). So the initial opening of the box was a much less ceremonious affair than it would have been had I received it delivered to our door at home. It would have been a surprise that way too, though, as the delivery was in no way announced and I hadn’t expected physical copies before September anyway. At home I spread the ten copies out on our sofa and took the photo above. Now they are stacked in our spare room awaiting distribution to a few special people who deserve a free copy. And a couple I will just keep. And what does the book look and feel like? Well, it’s a beauty, and a delight to leaf through, even though I am of course thoroughly familiar with every page. But it is indeed different to hold it in your hands and turn real paper pages rather than clicking through the content on a computer screen. It’s just more “real”. The print quality is generally fine, except for the map spreads for each section where the red numbers of individual sites are a little hard to read because they all seem to have a slight white shadow. But so far that’s the only flaw in the printing I’ve found, and that’s hardly a big one. I expect, though, that one day I will hit upon something that’s indeed my fault and more cringeworthy, be it an overlooked typo or a factual inaccuracy or mistake. One photo in the book I now know is already outdated, namely that of the main monument at the memorial site of Sobibor, which has been completely changed, as I found out last week when I was there (see the previous newsletter). But it’s in the nature of the subject matter that things get outdated rather quickly. At least we got it as up to date as was possible, especially covering the recent developments in Ethiopia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The official release of the book will still be 26 October, but you can now pre-order it also from outlets other than Amazon, so no need to feed that greedy giant’s insatiable mouth at all. Rather go through your preferred independent book shop or if you want to order online, go direct to the publisher’s website (where the price is currently better than Amazon’s actually!). In the UK that’s this webpage. They can’t ship outside the UK though (which would also incur customs fees and bureaucratic complications, thanks to the titanic success that is Brexit … not) so if you are within the EU use the German website instead. And for ordering within the Americas use the US site. … for the rest of the world, I don’t know, try one of the latter two sites, I’d say. But so much for self-advertising. As for the rest of my summer travels since last week’s newsletter: I enjoyed spending some time in the city that I was born and lived almost half my life in: Hamburg. I’ve been back on numerous occasions since I moved away in 1996, but rarely given the city much time. Now visiting as a tourist for three days, I did a few “proper” touristy things the first day (Elbphilharmonie, Landungsbrücken, Speicherstadt, etc.), but then also added a few DT elements, revisiting e.g. BallinStadt and U-434 (which haven’t changed dramatically, but I was able to take new photos so I can add some up-to-date images to the respective photo galleries on my website in due course). I also discovered an entirely new (for me at least) dark place in Hamburg, namely the site of the former Hannoverscher Bahnhof (Hanover train station). From here, some 8000 Jews as well as Sinti & Roma were deported from Hamburg during the Holocaust. The open-air memorial features some original train tracks and in the adjacent park there’s a container with a small but rich exhibition. This is a stand-in until a proper memorial museum exhibition is finished in a building that was still under construction at the time of my visit. This is scheduled to be completed in 2023. Gives me a reason for another revisit. So does the so-called “Energiebunker”, one of Hamburg’s flak towers that still survives in the southern suburb of Wilhelmsburg and that has been turned into a photovoltaic power station. It also features a rooftop cafe and a small exhibition about these WWII-era monsters. The latter was closed when I was in Hamburg Monday to Wednesday (it’s only open at weekends), so that’s also one for another visit. The same goes for the exhibition at Hamburg’s medical university that I’ve so far never seen either. When I will have the next chance to go there, however, is uncertain in this prolonged pandemic era. Ideally I would want to go after Christmas, but whether that will be possible this winter is very unclear. If the Delta variant keeps spreading vigorously in winter, we may find ourselves back in lockdowns and with total travel restrictions once again. So it’s impossible to plan anything at this stage. But the marketing for my book is starting (on Wednesday I have an interview for a big airline’s in-flight magazine that’s to feature my book), I have plenty to write up from my recent travels, as well as other gaps to fill on my website, so I won’t get bored any time soon. The Blog should get a few new posts too, starting with one about Sobibor perhaps. Please bear with me. So much for this time. As always: all the best and stay safe! Peter
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