I sometimes despair of our modern world (as you'll see if you read my new book) when I read or hear about people's obsessions with techno-gadgets like GPS devices to help them find out where they are. However, there's one aspect of the modern world that is a wonder for me, and that's the possibility of self-publication. 


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As with many writers, I find there's always a gap between what publishers want me to write and what I'd really like to write myself, which leads to a fair amount of frustration. However, I've spent the last couple of weeks struggling with re-formatting the text and images for this new publication, Searching for Shangri-La, and now it's been released both as an ebook by Amazon Kindle and as a print-on-demand paperback from Create Space, another branch of Amazon.

Searching for Shangri-La consists of a collection of short writings culled from over a couple of decades, describing unusual places or experiences that I have come across on my travels. Since they are very personal and opinionated pieces, they are the kind of stories that are difficult to sell to magazines and websites, which prefer their travel stories crammed with hard facts.

Nevertheless, I have confidence that there are readers out there who will be intrigued by such writings, which are (I hope!) both entertaining and informative. So please consider splashing out $2.99 (for the ebook edition) or $4.99 (for the paperback edition) to read the entire collection, and if you find it a worthwhile read, please tell your friends! To see a sample, click here.