I started writing GIMME SHELTER email newsletters about 15 years ago, maybe one every month or two. They were originally intended for sales reps (first at Random House, then Publishers Group West), to keep them apprised of our publishing activities, and then later, I added friends to the mailing list. As I got into blogging, the frequency of the newsletters dropped off.

Here’s the latest one. If you’d like to be on the list, sign up here.

Water tower near Prineville, Oregon, on my trip last week to see the eclipse

I’ve written less and less of these newsletters recently, as I’ve been blogging and now doing Instagram regularly. Made me think about all the different forms of communication I’ve employed over the years. My high school year book, running an Air Force newspaper in Germany for 2 years, then working the Whole Earth Catalog, and then — books.

Followed by, over the years: booklets, pamphlets, flyers, posters, 20-30 handmade books, mini-books, magazine and newspaper articles, videos, interviews … I’m a compulsive communicator.

These days I put up posts on my blog, but not as often, or as in-depth as a few years ago. I do Instagram almost daily and all these photos automatically go onto my blog, and to my Twitter and Facebook pages. You can check my Instagram account here; it’s a summary of posts: www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn

Three New Books

The ’60s

I decided to do a book on the ‘60s, since there’s been so much attention given to the “Summer of Love” lately, and because as a person who grew up in San Francisco, went to high school in the Haight-Ashbury, and watched the ‘60s unfold first-hand, I don’t agree with what’s being presented all over the media; these accounts don’t coincide with what I saw happening at all.

“The Haight-Ashbury was a district. The ‘60s was a movement.”  –Ken Kesey

I started the book tentatively, to see if it was going to fly. I thought I’d give my background, what San Francisco was like in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and track my life — a kid growing up in San Francisco, college, Santa Cruz, Big Sur, the Monterey Pop Festival, building domes at Pacific High School, the Whole Earth Catalog — so readers would know where I was coming from. Rather than starting in 1960.

I started getting into it, recalling things that had been buried in my semi-consciousness. This was fun! And I realized that the ‘60s completely changed my life. In 1965, I quit my job as an insurance broker in San Francisco and went to work as a carpenter.

I’m going to illustrate it with black and white photos I took doing those years.

I’ll start posting parts of the book on my blog as I go, to get some feedback.

Read More …

Hello!

As you can see we have a sweet little collection of your books going.  In the back of Small Homes, Lloyd mentions what would be the next book.  All of them sound great, but BARNS would be what we would like to see.  We have 6 donkeys, 2 ponies, 3 horses, and a llama and I would like nothing better than to live in a barn with them and have my art studio!  So our vote goes to writing a book on BARNS!  We also have a 1200 acre woodlot with old growth Doug fir, a Woodmizer sawmill, a Nile kiln, and a Logosol planer, so we could make a marvelous barn with some great ideas coming from a BARN book of yours! 

Howard and Beatrix Linde

Williams Lake, BC

Canada

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On the road from Ullapool to Gairloch on the northwest coast of  Scotland
My trip to Scotland was an overwhelmingly wonderful experience. 30 days of people who were friendly, cheerful, and helpful—civilized society!

I shot maybe 1000 photographs, with three different cameras. I posted (mostly photos) on Instagram and this blog almost every day.
I could do a book on this trip, but the reality, the priority right now, is to get our new book, Small Homes, finished.

So I will be posting less for a while, and certainly not posting daily.

I had an epiphany, as they say, yesterday: I can reach a lot more people by turning out books than I can by posting things on my blog or via Instagram—at least with my present internet followers (about 500 people a day).

Plus the feedback from our books is phenomenal. Just about daily: people inspired, lives changed, abilities discovered.

I want to get this book finished and then try to get one new book published each year (instead of one book every 2-3 years, as now).

I’m thinking of three possibilities for the book after this one:

• Trips I’ve taken over the past 40 years, with photos and text. Readers can ride shotgun with me.

• My favorite builders: about six or seven of them, describing not only their work, but their personalities. I just love all these guys.

• Barns: a scrapbook of my photos over the years and reference to the many (not well-known) books I’ve accumulated on barns; we have over 3 feet of barn books in our shelves.

So it’s back to book making for me. I’m really excited by this new one. I’m gonna get oan wi it.

Check out https://www.theshelterblog.com/ for daily postings on building, homesteading, gardening, carpentry. tiny homes, small homes, and the like.

800 photos here: https://www.pinterest.com/beckyjo/barns-and-buildings/