New Books in the Works!

For the last few years--even before the final copy edit on Road through Time,  in fact--I've been working on two non-fiction projects.  The ideas for both came from my earlier projects, and incorporate observations and information I've collected over the years.

The first one, which is now called Frenemies: Why Some Places That Should Be Alike Aren't Alike, goes back to my first days in Montreal when I discovered how similar yet different  Vermont and New Hampshire are  There followed the realization that Canada has a similar pair, Alberta and Saskatchewan. There are many others like Burundi and Rwanda, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In all I've found ten pairs of political entities which you might call "unidentical twins" including the Big One:  the US and Canada. I had a manuscript ready to roll in 2016, but then came the incredible election of Donald Trump, and I had to hit Pause and do some more thinking.

During that time I began Rock of Ages: How Concrete Built the World As We Know It, which is in one sense an outgrowth of my books about cities, and Road through Time.  The University of Regina Press was very interested, and until a week ago, the plan was that it would publish the concrete book in 2019.

However, as my publisher says, the zeitgeist has shifted, and the time is ripe for the book about those unidentical twins, particularly as Canada prepares for a federal election in 2019, and the US for a presidential election in 2020.

So the order is shifted, and concrete will have to wait...

More later about pub dates and all that.   Now to get back to work and update Frenemies...