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We have a GREAT Bella Italia Giveaway coming up.  All you have to do is comment starting today and all during the month of September, and when I return from France I will round up your comments, run them through random.org and declare 8 winners. It will be particularly fun for you because I will have guest bloggers throughout the month and you will meet a lot of new voices.( The posts during the month will not ALL be about Italy–that might be just too much of a good thing.)

Rules:

• Comment on any post at A Traveler’s Library, and comment several times a day if you like, but only one comment PER POST will count. If you mention the prize you prefer, I’ll try to comply.
• Tweet about a post using @pen4hire in the Tweet, and you will get another entry.
• Contest starts one minute after midnight (MST/Arizona–meaning same as Pacific Daylight Time) on August 30 and ending at midnight (MST/Arizona) on September 30).
• Must have U.S. mailing address. Please see general contest rules.

SEVEN Prizes:

From Travelers Tales:

• 100 Places Ever Woman Should Go by Susan Van Allen
  
• Travelers’ Tales  Italy: True Stories of Life on the Road
• Travelers’ Tales Tuscany: True Stories
• 30 Days in  Italy: True Stories of Escape to the Good Life

From Palgrave MacMillan:

• Old Calabria by Norman Douglas (like new)
• The Last Judgment: Michelangelo and the Death of the Renaissance by James A. Connor, a brand NEW paperback edition of the 2009 book. (Two copies to give away)

****From Kathy McCabe, Dream of Italy:*****

• A full year’s membership in the online newsletter of Dream  of Italy packed with practical information and fun articles about Italy. Worth $79.00.  Thatsa Nice!

Be sure to Subscribe to A Travelers’ Library by Email, so that you can comment or tweet every day in September  to increase your chances of winning one of the fantastic Italy prizes.

Anyhow, you won’t want to miss the guessing game of who’s going to turn up next to write a post!

Now read on,  for a review of one of the prizes, The Last Judgment.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

I hasten to assure you that I would love this magazine even if they were NOT publishing my book reviews. But they are, and I’m very happy to be part of such a great product.  You can read my reviews of Paris Movie Walks, the Moon Fiji guidebook, and a beautiful coffee table book about explorations that have shaped our view of the world.  I reviewed Paris Movie Walks here earlier and Explorations that Changed History appears on my suggested gift list (Number Two).

But enough about me–just imagine a new magazine, in this time of failing print publications, that features gorgeous photography and top notch travel writing.  You’ve probably seen one or more of the regular columnists doing their travel writing thing in other venues–Kim Mance writes about Women’s Travel, Christine Gilbert Almost Fearless, writes about her switch from corporate life to high-tech travel writing, and Darren Cronian, who entertains and enlightens and infuriates us with Travel Rants does his thing.  Craig and Linda Martin add beautiful features and practical goodies.

This issue features New Zealand summer as Craig leads us on a comprehensive tour of the two islands; European skiing, photos of China and so much more will keep me busy with the magazine for days.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Indie Travel Podcast Magazine cover

Destination: The World

Magazine: Indie Travel Podcast Magazine (Available September 1, 2009)

Don’t be put off by the title of this new travel magazine. Craig and Linda Martin, world travelers who started the award-winning Indie Travel Podcasts, a website and popular blog, are sticking to their brand name as they take the plunge into travel magazine publishing.

As they say in their premiere issue, “It’s never been a worse time to launch a travel magazine.” But then, they say to the naysayers, “Stuff it.”  The New Zealand couple traveled the world for three years. They presented podcasts and videos covering those travels. Now they want a platform to “showcase content in more depth.” And you do not need an I-pod to read the magazine.

The tone of the magazine (which I saw in a special on-line preview edition made available to bloggers) is cheerful, positive, adventurous, but practical. Enticing photography accompanies the brief articles. It comes in a free subscription for digital delivery, or a paid subscription paper edition.

Although photos in an on-line magazine look stunning on a computer screen, personally, I find it hard to get the balance between seeing the whole page on the screen and being able to read the print.  Generally, I give up on trying to see the whole thing, and do a lot of scrolling. On-line publishers have yet to lick this problem, so the Martins are wise to offer a print edition as an alternative.

Burma article

The subject matter of the first issue ranges over many areas. I’m strictly an armchair traveler when it comes to a place like Burma–particularly the northern region bordering China. Ryan Libre and Tim Patterson spent a month in territory controlled by the Kachin Independent Army, a Christian group fighting against the Burmese military government. I hoped to learn more about this struggle, but the report delivers a meditation on the author’s experience rather than showing  the experience. The great photos that accompanied the article, unfortunately are not captioned, so they did not advance my knowledge, either.

Undeterred, and drawn by the nifty layout and graphics and outstanding photography, I read on.  Of course, being A Traveler’s Library, I paused at the page that presents book reviews to see if there was some interesting new travel literature. Two were guidebooks that are valuable to know about a Rough Guide and a Lonely Planet Guide. The third, J. Maarten Troost’s Lost on Planet China, sounds like a book I might want to read. (Note to Linda and Craig–if the books reviews are going to be first person, they should be signed.)

In a related column, they review travel blogs, a useful piece for web surfer, travel buffs. And I loved the little extras inserted here and there, like how to say “I love you” in nine languages and a measurement conversion table.

Although the articles, mostly only one page long, and most of that page taken up by photographs, do not  fulfill the stated objective of “depth” in articles, this magazine shows great potential. If you want to read about some unusual places, and some new angles on usual places, then get on over to the Indie Podcast Magazine  subscription page and get your FREE issues delivered by e-mail or RSS to be read on the web, or pay for a real, honest-to-goodness, paper edition. And either way, thank Craig and Linda for being daring enough and/or crazy enough to launch a BRAND NEW TRAVEL MAGAZINE.

Tonga Article

Readers, I’m curious about your reading habits.  Obviously you read blogs on the web–but are their web zines that you read? Do you prefer paper or pixels? Let’s talk.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.