Now available! The Light of Alexandria by James Maynard

[jgmaynard]

Yup, I caught that one, thanks....... 

I was talking last night with John Clayton, an author here in NH, and he said no matter how many times he or someone else reads his manuscripts, he has never gotten any first batch  o' books where he hasn't found something wrong..... 

Of course, now I'm noticing errors in every book I read. LOL.

If you folks like it, feel free to leave a comment on my Amazon page!

JM

[Kat Kanning]

Remind us again in a month or so, so we can review it after we've read it?

[jgmaynard]

NO! Review NOW! Respect my au-thor-a-TAY! LOL jk..... Take your time......

And DO keep those copies pristine...... You never know what they'll be worth someday... lol

JM

[Russell Kanning]

Could you send me an article about your book for the Keene Free Press?
After a while we will be writing a scathing book review were we reveal all you're typos, so you need to beat us to it.

[jgmaynard]

LOL........ I have lot's o' press releases.......

Here's the NH media one, below.......

NEW HAMPSHIRE AUTHOR RELASES FIRST BOOK

   James Maynard, longtime Keene resident and New Hampshire native, released his first book, ?The Light of Alexandria,? on October 12th. The book is a history of the first 1,000 years of science, from the birth of the first true scientist, Thales, in 625 BC to the death of the last great scientist of the ancient world, Hypatia, in AD 415. In between, the biographies of all of the known major scientists from the era are told: Plato and Aristotle, Hippocrates, Archimedes, Ptolemy and more.
   During the flooding which hit large portions of his hometown, the thirty-six year-old Maynard kept typing away furiously at his keyboard, attempting to finish the book before any possible evacuation. ?While finishing the final editing, I was backing everything up to a computer far away from the flooding every few minutes,? Maynard stated, unwilling to let his four-year project be destroyed if his computer was damaged.
   In ?The Light of Alexandria? Maynard paints a world not so different from our own as many people believe. This was a time of shopping malls, automatic doors, con machines, vending machines and primitive computers. The author explores the invention of all these advances and more, along with the music, art, theatre, styles of dress and history of 2,000 years ago. The role of women in the ancient world and the beginnings of women?s liberation are also delved into, with surprising results.
   ?I first became fascinated with the Library of Alexandria when Cosmos first aired in 1980.? Explains Maynard. ?I went to the bookstore, looking for a book on the subject, and I was told there were none. I became determined right then and there to someday write one.? Twenty-five years later, Maynard has completed the goal he set for himself at age eleven.
   Maynard spent four years researching the subject and has worked nearly all of 2005 coalescing the assembled notes into a cohesive whole. A 2002 graduate of Keene State College (earning a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and physics, with a minor in history), he also wrote ?StarWatch,? a weekly newspaper column on astronomy that was carried in the Keene Sentinel for three years. Earlier this year, he was also the editor of ?Phenomenal Physics,? (www.phenomenalphysics.com) by Dr. J. Russell Harkay of Keene State College, his former faculty advisor. Currently working as a web designer and book editor from his Keene home, Maynard has taught at schools and special events around New England for over a decade. 
   ?The Light of Alexandria? is currently available through the website for the book at www.lightofalexandria.com, and it will be available in stores soon, as well as online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Maynard intends to support the work by holding several book-signings in the Keene area. Information about these events will be available through the website.
   For more information on ?The Light of Alexandria,? please visit www.lightofalexandria.com, e-mail jmaynard@keenenh.us or call 603-358-5079.

###

There's going to be an article about it this Sunday in the Union Leader.......

JM

[jgmaynard]

The book is now available at Earth Treasures and Toadstool in Keene.

My first book signing is Nov. 19th at 1pm at Earth Treasures.

It's now the 131,357th best-selling book on Amazon and number 1597 (out of ~8600) on Lulu! lol

JM

[AlanM]

The book is now available at Earth Treasures and Toadstool in Keene.

My first book signing is Nov. 19th at 1pm at Earth Treasures.

It's now the 131,357th best-selling book on Amazon and number 1597 (out of ~8600) on Lulu! lol

JM

Cool!!! 

[jgmaynard]

An article about the book is on the front page of today's Union Leader! Dave and Mike P are also on the front page! This could be an issue for the ages............LOL

John Clayton: Floods don?t short out the Light of Alexandria
By JOHN CLAYTON
Union Leader Staff

ONE OF THE GREAT DAYS of my life was the day when ? at age 6 ? I got my first library card, yet, as much as I love the Carpenter Memorial Library in Manchester, it can?t compare to the library once known as ?The Light of Alexandria.?

For more than a thousand years, the Egyptian landmark was the repository of all of the world?s recorded scientific knowledge.

Its ultimate destruction in 415 AD was a telling precursor to the arrival of the Dark Ages ? when science remained all but dormant for another thousand years ? and now James Maynard is shedding new light on ?The Light of Alexandria.?

That?s the title of his new book.

It explores the first 1,000 years of science and the way that science helped to shape Greece and Rome and the rest of the known world, and as chance would have it, James had to deal with extremely relevant issues of science ? issues like the interplay of water and electricity ? while writing the book.

?I live in Keene,? he said.

He paused.

I probably didn?t need him to elaborate, because, if you?ve been following the news, you know that Keene ? and the rest of Cheshire County, for that matter ? has recently had serious issues with an overabundance of water.

Now, when you have four years of work invested in a book, and that work is all contained in your home computer, and flood waters are lapping at your door and your neighbors are being evacuated from their homes, well... it gets a bit hairy.

?But I refused to stop,? he said.

?We?re right near the Ashuelot River and I had visions of my computer shorting out and being destroyed and losing all that work,? he said, ?so I bought some space on-line and I just kept backing-up and backing-up everything.?

Now I shall back up.

I shall back up all the way back to 1980 when James Maynard, at the age of 11, was watching television. He was watching a program called ?Cosmos.? The host was the brilliant Carl Sagan and the subject was ?The Light of Alexandria,? and it was then that the seed for this book was first planted.

James was already fascinated by science.

After all, his mother and father ? Robert and Jeanne Maynard ? had their signatures affixed to the landing stage of the Lunar Excursion Module that still sits on the surface of the moon, but the notion of a long-lost repository of all accumulated scientific knowledge drove him deeper into the field.

?After watching that episode of ?Cosmos,? I went to the bookstore to look for a book on ?The Light of Alexandria,? and I was told there were none,? he said. ?Right then and there, I became determined that, someday, I would be the one to write one.?

Twenty-five years would pass before he fulfilled that vow, but it was a quarter century in which he filled his head with the stuff of science.

And history.

And writing.

There was the dual major in chemistry and physics (with a minor in history) at Keene State College. There was his run as the author of an astronomy column (called ?Star Watch?) for the Keene Sentinel and his work as the editor of a text book called ?Phenomenal Physics? and then it was time to start writing his own book.

It starts with the birth of the first known scientist, Thales, in 625 BC, and it runs through the death of the last great scientist of the ancient world, Hypatia, in 415 AD, and in between, there are names that the most casual of scholars would know and love.

There are brief and readable bios of Plato and Aristotle, plus Pythagoras, Euclid, Hippocrates and Archimedes and lest I forget, one of his personal favorites, the lesser known Eratosthenes (who accurately measured the circumference of the earth by using a runner, two sticks and shadows cast by the sun).

?One of the things I love about him is that he had the nickname ?Beta,? which is the second letter of the Greek alphabet,? he said. ?Come to think of it, it?s also the name of the newest tropical depression, but the reason he was called ?Beta? was because it was said that he wasn?t the best in the world at anything ? like astronomy, mathematics or geography ? but he was second best at everything.?

Among his other favorite discoveries?

An analog computer, of sorts, that was discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek isle of Antikythera in 1900.

?The part of the device they found appears to have been able to calculate the position of the moon and the sun,? James explained, ?along with the positions of Mercury and Venus, and it could do this with any date entered into it by the operator using interlocking differential gears.?

By his guess, the device may have been 2,000 years old, and by way of context, he likens it to the Norden bombsight, which, after the atomic bomb, was the second most guarded secret of World War II.

Certainly, there are other bombshells in the book, which James has directed at a rather general audience.

?The target audience is people who enjoy the Science Channel or the History Channel,? he said. ?I tried to go for readability ,and with the illustrations, I think it would work for junior high, high school kids and even for home-schooled kids.?

If there is an irony to be found in all this, it may be this: This book, which celebrates the marvels of ancient science and the remarkable repository that housed them, was produced by a modern means ? on a computer, using the new ?print-on-demand? technology ? that may mean doom for libraries.

?I suppose it?s possible,? he said, ?but I don?t think libraries will ever go away. When newspapers came about, they didn?t supplant books. When radio came along, books didn?t disappear and when TV came out, books still persisted.

?As the Internet becomes more of a research tool, I think we may find that libraries may diminish in importance, but they?ll forever remain a part of our lives.?

For more information on the new book by James Maynard, go to www.lightofalexandria.com

John Clayton is the author of several books on Manchester and New Hampshire, including the newly released ?You Know You?re In New Hampshire When...? His e-mail address is jclayton@unionleader.com

[FSPinNY]

 

Added to the FSP Newswire: http://www.freestateproject.org/news/newswire/

[Russell Kanning]

I guess a book is safe enough....... but that is still good news.

[jgmaynard]

Thank you all!

[Kat Kanning]

Hey Maynard, we saw your book in a Main Street window display 

[jgmaynard]

<John Travolta voice>
GEEZ! Ain't it cool?!?!?
</John Travolta voice>

It's selling like crazy (about a copy/day) in Toadstool and I just got my first two international orders from Sweden and S. Africa (due to the $100 postage, I had to refund the SA one, but I AM shipping to Sweden!).

Now, it's off to Borders to try to get it in there!

JM