- Publication Date: Oct 17 2012
- Page Count: 64
- Trim Size: 6" x 9"
- Color: Full Color
- Order paper copy here.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Plants of the Redwood Forest
Plants of the Redwood Forest is another plant identification guide, this time, as the title implies, it helps you to identify the major flowering plants that can be found in a redwood forest: a unique habitat that is well worth visiting.
Plants of the Arcata Marsh
Well, it's finally here. Plants of the Arcata Marsh is a book authored by me and it is an identification guide to flowering plants of the Arcata march and Wildlife Sanctuary, a town 10 miles north of Eureka, CA. Surprisingly they did not have one narrowed to the area though they had identification guides for birds.
You can check the sample pages from Amazon.com.
- Publication Date: Oct 08 2012
- Page Count: 96
- Trim Size: 6" x 9"
- Language: English
- Color: Full Color
- Order the paper copy.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Il Poggio
Another book by Thomas Wold has hit the virtual shelves of our stores and is now available for sale. It's a brand new book titled Il Poggio. It describes a life in an Italian countryside.
Read the excerpt from the book Il Poggio:
- Publication Date: Apr 27 2012
- Page Count: 70
- Trim Size: 5.5" x 8.5"
- Language: English
- Color: Full Color
- Order the paper copy of this book.
Read the excerpt from the book Il Poggio:
The hotel or Bed and Breakfast called Il Poggio (The Hill) is, or was since I don't know about its present condition a fine ancient cut-stone building originally constructed by the Medici family on a sunny hilltop surrounded by a small forest of pine and cypress trees.
The main building had been a country estate. When I discovered it the owner had converted into an eight bedroom hotel.
The building, more solid than elegant, had heavy wooden shutters and massive front doors—a two story structure with mossy pink tile roof.
The owner, Elizabeth Studer, welcomed me warmly as she did all her guests and asked how long I planned to stay. When I said a night or two she said, "Perhaps you would like to stay a bit longer, if you are not in a hurry to be somewhere. I would like to invite you to stay here to help out you can work for me a half day and have the rest of your time for yourself. Your rent and meals would be free and I will pay you something to keep you in spending money. The work would never be very hard. Why not try it for a while to see if it would be enjoyable for you?"
I had nowhere specific to go or to be—in fact I had become a traveler without a destination. I wanted to explore Europe and here I was.
Elisabetta's proposal was just the ticket. I could work part-time here near Florence, see the sights, maybe learn a little Italian, eat steady, sleep dry and live.
My second-floor room was fine bed, desk, chair, bath down the hall, heavy wooden door, window in the thick stone wall with a view of the patio and the rising farmland behind the old mansion vineyards and the signature cypress trees of Tuscany. The view was so stunning in fact that I made the social error of leaving the solid wood shutters open the first day I moved in. This is not done. Open shutters anywhere in the house raised the indoor temperature noticeably and I was told to please keep the shutters closed during the day.
From Il Poggio By Thomas Wold
Sunday, April 1, 2012
The Little Red Hen
The Little Red Hen is fairy tale for kids. This tale is familiar to all of us. But this time the famous Red Hen is retold with a surprising twist in a plot and a few embellishments along the way. It's still suitable for kids but has a nice touch of mature humor. Read it yourself and then read it to your kids. The book contains beautiful colored drawings that make the reading and listening more entertaining.
Order the paper copy here.
Order the paper copy here.
earthprobe
Earthprobe book is now available.
This is a new edition of an old 1976 copy that can be found only second-hand. So now for the first time this title became available to the general public. Now it is printed in nice easy-to-read font (the old edition was hand-written) but it contains the same pictures. Read about the adventure of the traveller around the world.
Order the paper copy of this book.
Read the excerpt from the book:
This is a new edition of an old 1976 copy that can be found only second-hand. So now for the first time this title became available to the general public. Now it is printed in nice easy-to-read font (the old edition was hand-written) but it contains the same pictures. Read about the adventure of the traveller around the world.
- Publication Date:Apr 01 2012
- Page Count: 226
- Trim Size:5.5" x 8.5"
- Language:English
- Color:Black and White
- Related Categories:Travel / Road Travel
Order the paper copy of this book.
Read the excerpt from the book:
Chiapas de Corso, Mexico: I meet a young man here who urges me to stay a couple of weeks to experience a yearly religious festival which features a famous “combate naval”, on the river that flows through this off the beaten path village. The Parisians must return home soon anyway so we bid each other adieu.
My tiny hotel room, costing one dollar per night, is on the second floor facing the town plaza
Ye gods, what noise! Skyrockets whistle and bang at two minute intervals all day and most of the night, deafeningly amplified music and announcements blare from loudspeakers mounted on tall poles and crowds of people, motorcycles, trucks, busses, and animals, all generating their special noises at top volume, surround and fill the square. This indescribable racket lasts without pause the entire two weeks I stay at the hotel.
The most unusual noise is produced by roving bands of boys in costume. With identical white-faced staring-eyed masks, blond rope wigs, colorful serapes, chaps and sometimes boots, these kids are supposed to represent Spanish conquistadors. Each gang chants a song honoring some saint as they shake rattles filled with gravel.
Every night a carnival with midway rides, beer pavilions, and burlesque shows takes place right under my window.
I prowl the village around the clock and get quite caught up by the festive mood. There are no other tourists. I am the only foreigner to hear and see this display. I have lived in Hawaii so long–where only “professional natives” perform all the folkloric activities and shows for the tourist dollar–that the idea of ordinary people doing entertaining things just for themselves seems extraordinary!
So, in spite of the outrageous racket, I find this fortnight refreshing.
I meet one of the young musicians who plays with a local rock group called “Moses and the Resurrection”. He tells me he was with his girl last night in the Town Park and thought it was a most beautiful place. Today, without the girl, he sees that the park is really desolate and filthy.
They walked together in the park
So green and fragrant in the dark;
Today the park is dusty brown–
He’s walking in it all alone.
The last day of the celebration, there is a parade of the townsfolk which seems to me to represent an allegory of human life: Leading the parade are the masked and chanting boys–like awakening spirits–then come the youngest children, boys wearing little suits and girls wearing embroidered dresses; next older girls wearing what appear to be elaborate traditional folkloric dresses and these girls are showered with confetti by slightly older girls walking near them–these older girls are dressed in the latest fashions: tight blouses, silky pants and platform soled shoes. Next come a cluster of men carrying a statue of a saint followed by whet seem to be the important men of the village dressed in black suits decorated with red silk sashes. Last of all, the old women of the village shamble past dressed in faded black and carrying lighted candles like mourners at a funeral. There are no old men–I suppose men in this culture are expected to die young. Everyone living in the village marches in this parade and I am almost the only spectator. I have my camera out like a tourist and the people encourage me to take lots of pictures. Some of them have cameras too and take photos of each other.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Some Old Books
Checking for Thomas Wold's books on internet I was surprised to find a couple of copies of old "earth probe" books on Amazon.com and the best part is: they are both around a hundred bucks! My! I'd never imagine. I wonder how many they sold.
Well, we are not going to charge you nearly that much. The old copy has historic value but that's about it. It is hand-written, although in a very clear handwriting, but still might be a problem for modern people who don't even know how to use a pen instead of a keyboard. The cover varies with edition. The old edition is also divided in three part and one of them cost a hundred dollars. A hundred bucks just for one third of the book!
Like I said before, we are going to keep the price very reasonable. And you will get complete copy, with all three parts included. (The book can be roughly divided in three sections or parts: South America, Africa and Asia). Also included in this updated edition are all the original pictures drawn by the author. And the whole book is now printed in easy-to-read font. It also has a new gorgeous cover, courtesy of our printing press.
Oh, and we also changed the name to "earthprobe".
And to get your juices really running, we have one more book coming (it's almost done): Imhotep Construction Company. Tom wrote lots of it on his blogs but this time the material will be edited and organized in a better way. Imhotep is basically a collection of short stories, essays and poems. Pretty good read.
Stay tuned.
Alice
Well, we are not going to charge you nearly that much. The old copy has historic value but that's about it. It is hand-written, although in a very clear handwriting, but still might be a problem for modern people who don't even know how to use a pen instead of a keyboard. The cover varies with edition. The old edition is also divided in three part and one of them cost a hundred dollars. A hundred bucks just for one third of the book!
Like I said before, we are going to keep the price very reasonable. And you will get complete copy, with all three parts included. (The book can be roughly divided in three sections or parts: South America, Africa and Asia). Also included in this updated edition are all the original pictures drawn by the author. And the whole book is now printed in easy-to-read font. It also has a new gorgeous cover, courtesy of our printing press.
Oh, and we also changed the name to "earthprobe".
And to get your juices really running, we have one more book coming (it's almost done): Imhotep Construction Company. Tom wrote lots of it on his blogs but this time the material will be edited and organized in a better way. Imhotep is basically a collection of short stories, essays and poems. Pretty good read.
Stay tuned.
Alice
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Way to Altotting
Hello,
Our next book, Way to Altotting by Thomas Wold is available for sale. It describes adventures of a pilgrim on old pilgrims' trail in Germany. Thomas has a talent to describe what it really feels to be a pilgrim. This story is a sort of sequel to Holy Mountain, though these two pilgrimages are more then a decade apart. If you enjoyed reading Holy Mountain, you will like this one as well. This book includes some color photographs that the author took while on pilgrimage in Germany. By the way the book explains why real pilgrims do not carry a camera.
Read the excerpt from the book:
Two women were responsible for directing my love of travel and adventure and my latent spiritual longings into the path of pilgrimage. An older German woman concerned herself with my education in the cultural/religious traditions of Europe when I was living in Germany. She was the one who first told me about the old pilgrim’s path to Santiago de Campostella in Spain and later asked me to undertake a pilgrimage to that holy place on her behalf since she felt herself too old to make the journey. The other woman was a devout Greek Orthodox Christian I met in California. When she found I was contemplating a pilgrimage to Campostella, she asked me to extend that pilgrimage on her behalf to Holy Mountain Athos, in Greece, since women are not permitted to visit that monastic province but may commission a male to make a pilgrimage there as their proxy.
From The Way to Altotting by Thomas Wold
Our next book, Way to Altotting by Thomas Wold is available for sale. It describes adventures of a pilgrim on old pilgrims' trail in Germany. Thomas has a talent to describe what it really feels to be a pilgrim. This story is a sort of sequel to Holy Mountain, though these two pilgrimages are more then a decade apart. If you enjoyed reading Holy Mountain, you will like this one as well. This book includes some color photographs that the author took while on pilgrimage in Germany. By the way the book explains why real pilgrims do not carry a camera.
- Click here to order Way to Altotting!
- Publication Date: Mar 22 2012
- Page Count: 26
- Trim Size: 5.5" x 8.5"
- Language: English
- Color: Full Color
- Related Categories:Travel / Road Travel
Read the excerpt from the book:
Two women were responsible for directing my love of travel and adventure and my latent spiritual longings into the path of pilgrimage. An older German woman concerned herself with my education in the cultural/religious traditions of Europe when I was living in Germany. She was the one who first told me about the old pilgrim’s path to Santiago de Campostella in Spain and later asked me to undertake a pilgrimage to that holy place on her behalf since she felt herself too old to make the journey. The other woman was a devout Greek Orthodox Christian I met in California. When she found I was contemplating a pilgrimage to Campostella, she asked me to extend that pilgrimage on her behalf to Holy Mountain Athos, in Greece, since women are not permitted to visit that monastic province but may commission a male to make a pilgrimage there as their proxy.
This Orthodox woman also introduced me to a little book written by an anonymous Russian more than a hundred years ago: The Way of the Pilgrim. In this book I read for the first time about the Prayer of the Heart, also called The Jesus Prayer, a short mantra-type prayer recommended to the devout seeker as an important spiritual exercise to be done while making a pilgrimage. Oddly enough, this book and this prayer captured my interest and I began to repeat the mantra—at first more or less as a joke with no seriousness, but gradually, recognizing in it a foundation technique for possible spiritual growth I became user of the prayer.
I had abandoned the religious activities of my youth in a reaction against not only the hypocrisy I saw in the church, but even more to the hypocrisy I saw in myself. Regarding the “Jesus Prayer”, for example––at first I could not even recite the words comfortably in English, so I learned to repeat it in the original Greek—the meaningless sounds of that language: “Kyrie Jesu Christe eleson mas” were less repulsive to me than “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us”.
The author of The Way of the Pilgrim recommended that a sincere pilgrim should repeat this simple formula continually as he walks, and since he walks all day, he repeats the prayer several thousand times daily. After a few days or weeks of this, he no longer needs to articulate the prayer—he repeats it silently as he walks, and eventually, he will discover that the prayer has become, quite literally, the “Prayer of the Heart” since it is being repeated automatically night and day, awake or asleep, in his heart. I found through experience, that for myself at any rate, this is absolutely true. During a pilgrimage I would awaken in the middle of the night, for example, in strange surroundings and experience the subtle comfort of the repeating prayer rather than the fear of the unknown. The prayer thus seems to help sustain equilibrium of the pilgrim’s psychic condition.
From The Way to Altotting by Thomas Wold
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