June 2007

I’m very happy with the way my new book has been received, because I won’t deny that I was nervous. There can never be another “Jupiter’s Travels” and that was a hard act to follow.

Dreaming of Jupiter is on its way at last.

There was a very good review in the Observer, and another in the Sunday Times, as well as a number of stories and paragraphs in various magazines and newspapers. The BBC program “Excess Baggage” was good fun, and a lot of people seem to have caught it, even outside the UK. By all accounts the book is doing well, in England, Germany and the Netherlands which makes the long and painful gestation seem worth while. There is no news about France, Italy and Spain. I know there are many potential readers there. I get emails all the time asking for different language versions of Jupiter’s Travels.

It’s unclear how it will be published in the States, but I now have a good stock of copies of the British hard back at my home in California to send to all the people who have ordered it from me already and will, I hope, do so in the future.

Most of this year I have been in Europe, promoting the book in the UK, in Germany and later in Holland. I was at the Tesch meeting, which was as usual a very appreciative crowd, and later at a really enjoyable meeting of Africa Twin enthusiasts at a castle somewhere north of Frankfurt.

Then I was back in England for the Horizons Unlimited meeting at Lumb Farm near Derby and got my first puncture in seven years on my way there which made me feel more like a motorcycle traveler again. In spite of the atrocious weather, the meeting was great, and full of inspiring and unexpected people. From there, at the end of June I rode on to Amsterdam, to publicise the Dutch edition.

I planned to go to the BMW MOA meeting in Wisconsin, but by the time I got back to the States, I realized I was burned out. When you leave a rural place for six months there’s just too much to do. So I’ve put off my American tour to next year. Now I’m busy chopping up trees, building decks, packing books, and tending my garden.
Thank you all for welcoming me, and making my efforts seem worth the trouble.