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Ghost Map Trailer

Here's a first in my publishing career: Riverhead has put together a little mini-Ken-Burns documentary for The Ghost Map, with me as the sole talking head. It's a nice little preview of the book and its themes, with spooky music thrown in for good measure....

September 27, 2006 in Meta |

Comments

Oh coolness.

How did you know I was looking for a book on the Cholera epidemic? (just finished reading books on sewers and on spring water, which touched on the issue tangentially)

Posted by: Lis Riba | September 27, 2006 at 07:50 PM

Great clip. I'm curious what sort of response you're getting from academic Victorianists, given that you're addressing a topic that is well within the Victorian Studies field, but you're doing it in a way that has a more general or non-academic audience in mind. Any disciplinary anxieties manifesting themselves? Or has "Ghost Map" been welcomed into the conversation? It will interesting (to me, at least) to see how the book is received by, say, the Journal of Social History or Victorian Studies.

Posted by: Rob | September 28, 2006 at 02:25 PM

I obtained a galley of Ghost Map from my husband who is in the book business and we both read it with great interest and excitement. We had planned a trip to London over New Years this year (2007) to visit some historical places of interest. After reading the book, the Broad Street pump location was added to the list. However, I had forgotten to bring a copy of the book with us and was only able to obtain, from the internet, a copy of the original map (same as the one in the book). I remembered that the area in question was in Soho and that it was near the golden square. I also remembered that it was at the intersection of Broadwick and Cambridge Streets and that Broadwick had been changed to Broad St. So, we didn't think it would be too hard to find. Wrong. Apparently no one in London knows about this or doesn't care. Neither our concierge or any of the taxi drivers we spoke to knew anything about the location of the former pump or Broad and Cambridge Streets. So we had a taxi driver drop us on Dean Street in Soho and we progressed on foot to Broad. In the process we accidentally stumbled onto the location of John Snow's house, which is on Dean St. We took this as a good omen. Walking up Broad toward Carnaby St. we came upon the John Snow pub at the corner of Broad and "Lexington" St. As I was standing on the corner of Broad and Lexington,looking at the John Snow, utterly transfixed at being stuck in time trying to mentally picture what must have gone on at this location 150 years ago, my husband told me to turn around. There, behind me, on the corner opposite the John Snow, was a memorial with a replica of the pump. There was also a plaque indicating that the original pump had been where you described it in the book, which would be in the street now. In the galley version of the book it states that there was a pump memorial several blocks away but that it no longer exists and there is no mention of the street name change from Cambridge to Lexington. I was just wondering if these items were corrected in the final edit. Also, I have some great pictures of John Snow's house with it's historical plaque, the John Snow Pub and the pump memorial if anyone is interested.

Posted by: Tina | January 28, 2007 at 02:14 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0ea.htm?laptop

Posted by: Notebook | June 03, 2007 at 02:18 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0ea.htm?laptop

Posted by: Notebook | June 03, 2007 at 02:18 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0ea.htm?laptop

Posted by: Notebook | June 03, 2007 at 02:18 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://www.atl.devry.edu/GenEd/_disc2/000018b2.htm?laptop

Posted by: Laptops | June 03, 2007 at 02:32 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://www.atl.devry.edu/GenEd/_disc2/000018b2.htm?laptop

Posted by: Laptops | June 03, 2007 at 02:32 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://www.atl.devry.edu/GenEd/_disc2/000018b2.htm?laptop

Posted by: Laptops | June 03, 2007 at 02:32 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0f0.htm?carisoprodol

Posted by: Carisoprodol | June 03, 2007 at 03:25 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0f0.htm?carisoprodol

Posted by: Carisoprodol | June 03, 2007 at 03:25 PM

This is very nice site, but my is better! ;) http://cs.ua.edu/403/_disc/0000a0f0.htm?carisoprodol

Posted by: Carisoprodol | June 03, 2007 at 03:25 PM

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    The Basics

    • I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of five books. In early 2007 I went and foolishly got myself a day job running the hyperlocal community site, outside.in that I co-founded the year before. We spend most of the year in Park Slope, Brooklyn, though I'm on the road a lot giving talks. (You can see the full story here.) Personal correspondence should go to sbj6668 at earthlink dot net. Media requests should go to Matthew.Venzon at us.penguingroup dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

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    • : The Ghost Map

      The Ghost Map
      The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.

    • : Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

      Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
      The title says it all. This one sparked a slightly insane international conversation about the state of pop culture -- and particularly games. There were more than a few dissenters, but the response was more positive than I had expected. And it got me on The Daily Show, which made it all worthwhile.

    • : Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

      Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
      My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.

    • : Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

      Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
      The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.

    • : Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate

      Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
      My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

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