Stephen R. Bown's Blog: Stephen Bown's random author musings

I just posted a new kindle ebook on Amazon, a short and interesting earlier work now republished. The main focus is the crazy antics of ost outrageous pirates, set within the historical context. The Golden Age of Piracy: a Short Histoy of Privateers, Buccaneers and Pirates in the Caribbean. It is free until the end of May 8.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Golden-Age-...

I was really excited to get these maps back from Scott Manktelow Design for my upcoming book The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen, to be released in September 2012. They show all of Amundsen's crazy adventures at the North and South Poles.

I can't attach copies here but you can view the maps at www.facebook.com/srbown

Today I put up two ebooks on https://www.amazon.com/author/stephen.... One is an edition of Sightseers and Scholars: Scientific Explorers in the Americas (that was originally published in 2001 and is now out of print) and the other is Wanderers and Nomads: True Stories of Eccentric and Wild Explorers in the Americas, which is a Kindle book collection of fourteen non-fiction stories of adventuers and travelers that were originally magazine articles from years ago.

Both are FREE for the next day or two on Amazon for anyone who wants them.

A great review of 1494 in the Globe:
"...an entertaining and elegantly written voyage into the treacherous seas of religious fanatics, greedy slavers, depraived autocrats, doomed indigenous peoples, and deperately brave adventurers in search of fortune."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/a...

Here in the Calgary Herald an author profile on the release of 1494

http://www.canada.com/life/Canmore+au...

I just learned the details regarding a UK publisher for my next book, The Last Viking: The Extraordinary Life of Roald Amundsen. It's going to be published simultaneously in Canada (Douglas & McIntyre), the US (Da Capo Press) and the UK (Aurum Press) next fall.

That'll be two books in one year in the US, since 1494 only comes out there in February.


http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/s...

I just received the Portuguese edition of 1494 today. It looks great but I wish I could read it. I always wonder about translated editions, if the the translation is accurate or not. I have Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Spanish editions of my books as well and I really have no idea what they say.

I've read some books in translation and found them to be awful - but I really wonder if it was the translation that was awful and the original would have been fantastic, if only I could have read it in the originallanguage. Of course, a suberb translator could probably improve a dull or uninspiring original. Translation is its own art form, creating something entirely new from an existing template - and the original author can never truly appreciate the new work.

A short fun video about me and my books done for the Mayor's Spotlight on the Arts.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShadowLig...

Rodrigo Borgia was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works from Raphael and Michelangelo, among others. He put on lavish entertainments in the large square fronting his mansion, including bullfights, musical and theatrical performances and fireworks displays.

Pope Pius II wrote in his memoirs that Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia’s palace “eclipsed in cost and ingenuity” the palaces of all the other cardinals and “seemed to be gleaming with gold, such as they say the Emperor Nero’s palace once did.”

The Palazzo Borgia, Rodrigo Borgia’s three-storey mansion, was one of the grandest palaces in Italy; its lofty corridors were painted with fanciful and dramatic scenes from antiquity, its soaring rooms were adorned with sculptures and other works of art, priceless tapestries and carpets competed with finely carved ornate furnishings; silk, brocade and velvet were on display everywhere.
1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half