To me, the answer is “yes”.
You’ll have to make up your own mind once you have your own copy.
Like my other books, my newest effort has a mouthful of a name. Since it sums up 180 large-format pages, I’m comfortable with it. I’ve winnowed down my photo collection to a bit over 300 photos that I’ve shot in Ireland since I began coming here in the 1970’s. Their captions reflect my experience and tell stories you probably won’t see in the tourist-oriented pretty picture books. But if you simply want to look at pictures, you’ll see photos ranging from Cork’s southern tip north to Derry’s walls. You won’t see the Blarney Stone, but you’ll see tales about the origin of its legend and what happens in today’s tourist trap.
And if you’ve ever wondered about what happens when you actually move to the place you thought you knew from years of visits, read any one of the 2-minute stories about the expected – and unexpected – life changes that come with moving from Advertising Standard Time to Ireland Time.
If you’re one of those people who like to scan stories in a couple of minutes or less –
You’ll find lots of them here. About Ireland’s pyramids. Or an Irish patriot’s run-in with Wiliam Bligh of the HMS Bounty. A church that hosts a “Four-Faced Liar”. A train trip with an end-times evangelist. Snowmaggedon – the storm that paralyzed Ireland in 2018. Of course you’ll find a story about Irish bankers. But Irish banks look good – really good – when you compare them to Ireland’s phone companies.
Why am I doing this? And why now? Why do we do most things? Because we feel like it.
In my case, it started when I began deleting some old posts and photos from my various social media pages. Some were obsolete. Others no longer reflected my current life. And also because I don’t feel like being a trainer for AI, which openly admits that it’s built on plagiarism. I don’t know if jumping from AI to Amazon is like jumping from the pan to the fire, but if I can toss my single grain of sand into a well-oiled machine that will never notice me, I’ll do it. On principle.
It doesn’t take much to see that the plagiarism problems of everyday people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy technoworld. But if AI finds my stuff worth stealing, it’ll have to invest a few more bits and bytes to get it. In the greater scheme of life, it’s not much. But it makes me feel better.
I hope you enjoy the book.
Available on Amazon, which occasionally offers discounts without even telling the author!
Note that amazon.ie is still a work in progress and may not list the book. It’s available on their UK page without any Brexit hassles, as well as their US site and any of their EU pages. For a hardcover or paperback edition, click on your country’s Amazon page or on one of these two links –
For Amazon USA, click here
For Amazon UK, click here
