Jake's blog
OMG. I HAVE MY COPY OF THE BOOK ON MY DESK. (if you ordered one, you'll get it in a few weeks)
I now have my personal copy of The Lost Subways of North America sitting on my dinner table right now. If you ordered a signed copy from me, I'll ship it in 4 weeks or so. If you haven't ordered one yet, you can order one here. I am over the moon about this.
Let's talk about what it takes to get a book published.
The Lost Subways of North America is coming out in November, published by UChicago Press, and so I thought it useful to summarize for would-be authors just what it takes to get a book traditionally published, why traditional publishing takes so long, and to give a timeline of my experiences. I thought about self-publishing but decided against it; it's expensive to front all the money yourself for an illustrated book, and you really do need an established publisher behind you if you want to be taken seriously in a field as technical as this. I'm happy to talk to people...
Let's talk about why American cities aren't kid-friendly.
BOTTOM LINE, UP FRONT: Part of it is because the rent is too damn high - but it's also because of failed urban design policies.Older folks in the US like to get nostalgic about the old days, because back then it was safe to let kids play outside without supervision. My dad, who grew up in Boston in the 1950s and 1960s, regaled us with stories of how they used to go to the neighbors' houses and play stickball in the street. Older buildings still have these types of signs on them saying "no ball playing." (The sign in...
My debut book, THE LOST SUBWAYS OF NORTH AMERICA, is now available for pre-order.
The official release date of my book, The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present and What Could Have Been is November 6th, published by the University of Chicago Press. (My publisher wants to time the release for the Christmas market.) After over a decade of work, this project is finally coming to an end. The book is up for pre-order on Amazon, but if you pre-order directly from me you'll get a signed copy from me a little after Halloween. Pre-order here.
Let's talk about some unusual sources of inspiration for the Lost Subways book.
It's been a weird, long ride finishing this book, and now that the manuscript is mostly done, I'd like to recognize a couple of the major influences on The Lost Subways of North America.The first major influence comes from an unusual source: an obscure, out-of-print British sci-fi book from the late 1970s called Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD, written by a fellow named Stewart Cowley. (Paper copies are expensive but not impossible to find - thankfully, the Internet Archive has a copy.)Spacecraft is a delightfully weird book. Cowley took a bunch of quirky 1970s sci-fi art made by masters of the genre,...