Blogs

Morning Sun is the true story of Merrick Alpert's journey across America to track down the father who abandoned him and his siblings 30 years earlier. This poignant and often-funny memoir chronicles Alpert's rise from near poverty in rural Connecticut and his successful pursuit of the American dream.

Alpert is running for senator in the state of Connecticut.

Morning Sun Book Trailer/Merrick Alpert

Three Questions for Kit Laybourne

Falcon Authors Win 4 2008 National Outdoor Book Awards

Nick Knack's NY Adventure: How to Create the Perfect Slideshow

In the last post, I mentioned my recent visit to Mediapedia author Kit Laybourne's NY apartment, where I videotaped Bret Kerr playing with his camera on Kit's balcony overlooking Central Park. Lest you think that's the only video we filmed there--oh, no. There's more. Much more.

For example, we also shot the first in a new video series I'm creating for Knack Books. This "show" will feature Nick Knack (yours truly) as he shares various step-by-step, do-it-yourself tips drawn from Knack Books. I like to think of Nick as GPP's entertaining answer to the Complete Idiots and Dummies guides--if severely mechanically challenged Nick can figure out how to get the job done quickly and easily, then so can you, dear reader, believe me. Without further ado, here's "How to Create a Perfect Slideshow":

How to Create a Photo Panorama

Last week, GPP designer Bret Kerr and I visited author Kit Laybourne in New York to shoot promotional video for his book, Mediapedia. Inspired by Kit's tips on creating panoramic photos, Bret stepped out on the balcony of Kit's amazing Central Park West apartment and took a series of pictures he stitched together to form a 180-degree view of the park:

Three Questions for "Haunted" Author Mary Beth Crain

Halloween is just days away, and there's nothing like a good spine-tingling tale to help you get your spook on. GPP's new book, Haunted U.S. Battlefields: Ghosts, Hauntings, and Eerie Events from America's Fields of Honor, has 25 stories that will leave you and the kiddos shivering. Recently, I sat down with author Mary Beth Crain to discuss her fascinating look at the spirits and otherworldly entities believed to inhabit America's legendary fields of war.

According to paranormal research, ghosts seem to be more prevalent at sites involving a sudden and/or violent death. There are a number of proposed reasons for this. The spirit may be disoriented, especially if it belonged to a young person who was very attached to life. It may not realize that it’s dead. It would undoubtedly have unfinished business—messages to get to the living, or loved ones it wanted to see again. A battlefield ghost may be seeking revenge, one more chance to get back at the enemy. And let’s not forget that battles were also high points in men’s lives, and many ghosts seem to want to relive them, over and over.

Wow. I have a lot of them, but I guess my favorite concerns the dapper Confederate General from Louisiana, Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, who lost the Battle of Shiloh due to a dumb miscalculation, and never forgave himself. His ghost has reportedly been seen and heard by many people at his old New Orleans home, now the historic Beauregard-Keyes House, moaning “Shiloh! Shiloh!” and wandering the halls. But the wildest part of the Beauregard haunting is the fact that since the General’s death in 1893, the home’s residents—and others—have reported witnessing a phantom midnight re-enactment of the Battle of Shiloh, complete with misty landscape, horses, soldiers, booming cannons, the whole nine yards—in the ballroom!

I don’t know if this counts as a ghostly encounter, but it occurred at around 2 a.m., when I was writing the chapter on my favorite Civil War personage, General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who won the critical Battle of Little Round Top and was supposedly aided by the ghost of George Washington. As I was working at my computer, the chapter suddenly started printing out by itself. Swear to God! And then, a few minutes later, my Chihuahua, Truman, started growling in the bedroom and backing up, like something or someone was coming toward him. He kept barking at thin air, and I had a suspicion that old Chamberlain was paying me a courtly visit, in appreciation, maybe?

Knack Video: How to Cook a Lamb

I was recently brainstorming ideas for the how-to video series I'm creating to promote GPP's Knack books, when inspiration came in the form of a birthday e-vite. Each year, my pal Chris Norris celebrates his latest trip around the sun by cooking a whole animal in his backyard. Last year, it was a pig. This year, it would be a sheep. The perfect test subject for a video, I thought—how to cook a whole lamb.

Fortunately, Chris liked the idea, too, and didn't call the cops when I arrived at his house just after dawn the morning of the party to film him preparing "Larry the Lamb" for the afternoon feast. I documented the whole process step-by-step, from the first cut with a power saw to the final unveiling at the fire pit.

Note: Chris is not a Knack author. But he is the head of the paleontology collection at the American Museum of Natural History, with a PhD in zoology from Oxford, so his expertise at preparing animal remains for public consumption is certainly world-class.

Serenity Now!

It's no secret that times are tough for book publishers. A recent New York magazine article--darkly titled The End--notes that the publishing world is full of "prophets of doom, Cassandras in blazers and black dresses arguing at elegant lunches over What Is to Be Done." The demise of the book, we are to believe, is as imminent as it is inevitable. "Two, five years from now—who knows? Life moves fast in the waning era of print; publishing doesn’t."

But we at GPP are trying to remain positive amid all the gloom. No matter how bad the news in PW Daily may be, we are determined not to stare out windows, walk into walls, or cry through meetings any more now than we did back when the future was as bright as the sun and money in the bank was as safe as, well, money in the bank.

That's why, to bolster our spirits, we invited author Kate Hanley to come talk to us about her new book, The Anywhere, Anytime Chill Guide. Written with "a dash of Zen and a large helping of humor," Kate's book features "77 simple strategies for serenity," and we asked her to share each strategy with us--twice:

Libby Langdon's GPP Cubicle Makeover

HGTV design expert Libby Langdon boasts she can whip up a stylish solution to any design problem--no matter how small the room, or the budget. But what could she possibly do with a 9-foot-by-6-foot office cubicle that's so cluttered with trinkets and rubble that not even WALL-E would know where to start compacting? Well, when Libby stopped by the office the other day to discuss her forthcoming book, Libby Langdon's Small Space Solutions, I put her to the test. I steered her over to ace GPP designer Bret Kerr's cube and filmed her working her magic, eventually taming the beast that is--or should I say was--Bret's workspace: