7 PM, Tuesday April 11th at City Lights, 261 Columbus at Broadway, North Beach, San Francisco
Details: https://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100085830
Interview in this week’s Pt. Reyes Light:
https://www.ptreyeslight.com/article/lloyd-kahns-new-book-highlights-not-so-tiny-homes
In the next 6 or so weeks, I’ll be doing slide shows from the new book, talking about options for young people seeking shelter (and avoiding high rents or bank mortgages), and signing books. In Northern California, Canada, and NYC; then in August in Oregon.
April
April 7 – 7PM
Copperfields
138 North Main Street
Sebastapol, CA 95472
April 11 – 7PM
City Lights
261 Columbus Ave.
San Francisco CA 94133
April 28 – 7 PM
Bookshop Santa Cruz
1520 Pacific Ave.
Santa Cruz CA 95060
May 4- 7:30 PM
Builder’s Booksource
1817 4th
Street
Berkeley CA 94710
I’m doing an author appearance at the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute on January 29, 2017. It’s a reception at 5PM that day, where authors meet booksellers. I’ll be talking about our forthcoming book, Small Homes: The Right Size, and handing out copies of Tiny Homes. https://www.bookweb.org/wi2017/winter-institute
I’m going there a few days early to explore around the Twin Cities. Any advice on things to do there?
And, as of about a half hour ago, it looks like after the event, I’ll drive the next day to Grand Marais and visit folks at the North House Folk School, and do some kind of presentation there.
***
I’m gonna get together a state of the state at our publishing company and of what I’ve been doing lately, now that the book is off to the printers. I’ve cut down a lot on my posts in the last year, what with now using Instagram, and finishing my 1st book in 3 years, but I have a bit of posting to do soon. Stay tuned.
We got the proofs back last week, and I almost cried when I went through it page by page. Sounds dumb, I know, but it was overwhelming to see all the pages, in collated order, full size, 4-color for the first time — after a couple of years working on it. I’d only seen rather low-quality, reduced size printouts up until now. And you know what, it’s ahem, a beautiful book.
People, home builders from all walks of life, a great variety of designs, materials, locales. It may very well be the most useful book we’ve ever done. Tiny homes are great for some people, but too small for most. Here are 65 or so homes in all, a cornucopia of ideas for people who can’t afford high rents and bank mortgages, and want to build or remodel (or contract out) their own homes.
Check out the “sneak previews” on TheShelterBlog:
https://www.theshelterblog.com/?s=sneak+preview
Book due out April, 2017. More details to follow here.
I got interviewed via Skype (with which I’m not too comfortable, at least doing an intercontinental interview) by the BBC yesterday. A last-minute deal.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has an exhibit opening next week titled:
“You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970”
“How have the finished and unfinished revolutions of the late 1960s changed the way we live today and think about the future?”
They’ve been working on this a long time; they came to our house with a camera crew about a year ago; then a month or so ago, V&A personnel along with four British reporters interviewed Stewart Brand and me for several hours in San Francisco. What were the 60s like? What role do the Whole Earth Catalog have in the countercultural revolution? Etc.
Here’s the news program that ran in the UK last night: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p046zwdy
Here’s info on the exhibit: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/you-say-you-want-a-revolution-records-and-rebels-1966-70
Small Homes – the book
I’ve got pretty much all the pages laid out. Rick will be back from Hawaii next week and build the rest of the pages in InDesign. The book is looking better each week. Here’s a little hidden waterfront cottage (under construction) on Vancouver Island, BC (the shakes for the eaves were steamed and bent).
Material continues to come in for the book (400-1200 sq. ft. homes), and we’ll continue the book after its publication on theshelterblog, with a section titled “Small Homes.” Ongoing small homes.
My Next Book (?)
Adventures in Building – a 70-Year Odyssey
No kidding. I started at 12 years old, helping my dad build a house on his rice farm near Colusa, California. At 18 I got into the carpenters’ union in San Francisco and worked for a shipwright on the docks (SF was a port in those days!). At age 25 I started building and remodeling on a piece of land with 3 cottages in Mill Valley, California.
I never got the chance to work with a master carpenter or formally learn architecture, so I had a layman’s approach. Everything was new.
Right off, I liked the smell of lumber, and was fascinated with how things went together (still am). In about 12 buildings over the course of years, I personally went through post and beam, then polyhedral (domes), and finally stud frame construction techniques.
And all along, I shot pictures of buildings, collected books, and interviewed builders about all types of buildings and materials, and so far, have produced 6 highly graphic books on building.
Having this layman’s view means I can talk to inexperienced builders in understandable terms. Plus, all the travel and studying and interviews have given me a wealth of material of interest to experienced builders. We’re all interested in how things are put together. That’s what building is all about.
Música del día:
Etta James “Come Back Baby”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFcg7zkhqM
Enough! I’m heading for the beach…
We just finished what will probably be the middle section of the book, “Small Homes in Cities and Towns,” 67 photos on some 20 pages. When Rick showed me the finished pages, I was thrilled. Some times I’ll muddle my way through a project, starting with no concept of how it will come out, and the whole, as they say, is greater than the sum of its parts, i.e., synergy.
We’ve got 200 out of 224 pages done now. I have this great feeling, having worked for so many months, because:
1. we’re close to the end (to printers in November, out February 2017)
2. it looks so darned good!
For some years I was really into blogging. These days I post a lot less, what with doing Instagram, contributing to theshelterblog, Tumblr, Twitter, and reluctantly, Facebook. A blizzard of internet activity.
The idea is to get our “content” out in digital form to compliment our publishing of hold-in-your-hands books. All this with “build it and they will come” approach. We’re working at having theshelterblog be more and more of our original material as opposed to stuff already on the web.
We’ve also upgraded our website in the process.
I’m also posting less because I’m immersed in production of our next book, Small Homes. Which is looking, ahem, incredibly good. This may end up being our most relevant building book ever, with a variety of simple homes and lifestyles that will give lots of people ideas and inspiration to create their own shelters.
Sure, tiny homes are wonderful and photogenic and a welcome relief from homes that are too big and expensive and rents that are too high. But small homes are relevant for way more people.
So far we’ve done 97 (out of approx. 200) pages. A sample we just completed today:
So onward I go with the book, posting less. But hey, 5000 posts is a body of work (along with all time history page views of 7,448,979)…
The big news around here regarding our next book, Small Homes, now in production, is that we decided to postpone the publication date until spring, 2017.
It takes us an enormous amount of time to put a book like this together.
Also, this book is looking so good, and will be so relevant to so many people, that we want to take our time and do it well.
Here (today) I’m working on the most complicated two pages so far in the book. When I started I had no idea how it was going to come together (or if it would).
But starting did the trick; in over two days it worked itself out. 22 photos with fact-filled captions.
Here’s an interview of me done a few months ago by Natalie So, where I talk about layout and beyond: https://www.editionlocal.com/lloyd-kahn-shelter-publications/?rq=kahn
Photo:Evan Kahn