Announcing new books: Curious Encounters of the Human Kind and Share Your Journey
Posted on 09. Oct, 2015 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Announcing launch of new book series Special ebook launch price of 99 cents ISBN: 978-2-940573-00-4 Buy on Kindle US Buy on Kindle UK I’m pleased to announce the release of the first of five books in the Curious Encounters personal travel tales series — a collection of stories I’ve written based on my 45 years of living and […]
Read MoreAn Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
Posted on 23. Aug, 2012 by Paul Sochaczewski in An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
While Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin) he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of “natural productions” – while in Asia he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens including 212 new species of birds, 200 new species of ants, and 900 new species of beetles.
In the book Sochaczewski, who has lived and worked in Southeast Asia for more than 40 years, follows Wallace’s eight years of exploration in Southeast Asia, based on Wallace’s classic book The Malay Archipelago.
In An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue.
Read MoreDistant Greens
Posted on 14. May, 2012 by Paul Sochaczewski in Distant Greens
Distant Greens travels to the highest golf course in the world, where breathless Tibetan precepts come face to face with the oxymoron of Indian military intelligence. To a golf course in the Amazon rainforest, near the source of rubber, which revolutionized the game. To the Middle Kingdom, to examine claims that it was the Chinese, and not the Scots, who invented golf. And to a volcanic Indonesian course where the Mermaid Queen ensures that “her” sultan always has good weather when he plays.
Distant Greens also travels into the soul of golf, the rituals, the belief that a tetrachaidecohedron-dimple-pattern can make a difference. Why can throwing junk-shop 4-irons provide an insight into the soul? What does a Zen priest in Japan hope to teach his acolyte golfers? Why do people cheat? Why do golfers remember the bad shots instead of the good shots? And why is golf more important, to some folks, than sex?
Read MoreRedheads
Posted on 02. Apr, 2010 by Paul Sochaczewski in Books, Redheads
In this satirical eco-thriller…
In the middle of a Borneo rainforest a band of near-naked Penan tribesmen, encouraged by an equally clothes-challenged renegade Swiss shepherd, hesitantly blockade a logging truck, testing their commitment to protect their forest home.
Nearby, an orangutan researcher is threatened with being thrown out of her isolated study site unless she can reach a delicate compromise with the powerful minister of the environment.
Who has the answer to saving the world’s oldest forest – the marketing experts of the world’s largest nature conservation group or the earnest monkey-wrenchers? Can the timid Penan rise up to defend their home?
At the heart of Redheads fictional action lies the very real problem of rainforest destruction and the philosophical question of where the real boundaries lie between apes and humans. And just what is it about red silk underwear, anyway?
Read MoreShare Your Journey – Mastering Personal Writing
Posted on 07. Oct, 2015 by Paul Sochaczewski in Books, Share Your Journey
I’m pleased to announce the publication of a book I’ve been working on for twenty years: Share Your Journey: Mastering Personal Writing.
It contains the (surprisingly easy) techniques professional writers use to write personal memoirs and travel stories that connect with editors and readers.
This fun and well-illustrated handbook is filled with cartoons, music, and film references, as well as plenty of examples of good and bad writing. It’s based on the writing workshops I’ve run in some twenty countries.
Read MoreCurious Encounters of the Human Kind – Southeast Asia
Posted on 07. Oct, 2015 by Paul Sochaczewski in Books, Curious Encounters of the Human Kind
This is the fifth book in a five-book series of unusual (and true) personal travel tales.
What’s the attraction of coffee that’s been digested by a civet? Can 200-million-year-old fossilized freshwater shark dung bring you good luck? Why do boys like to make things go bang — hey, lemme try the AK-47!? Why is the belching and slovenly widow of Laos’s first president so possessive about the animal she considers her white elephant? How did Vietnam’s last elephant hunter, at the age of 90, get a lucrative sponsorship deal for a tonic that makes men more powerful? Did a love potion help a Filipino politician become governor? And what role did an absurdly-rich, secretive American businessman (who enjoyed deflowering virgins) have in creating Vietnam’s golf boom?
Read MoreCurious Encounters of the Human Kind – Borneo
Posted on 07. Oct, 2015 by Paul Sochaczewski in Books, Curious Encounters of the Human Kind
This is the fourth book in a five-book series of unusual (and true) personal travel tales.
How has a town named after a female vampire ghost spawned an entire genre of kitschy horror films? Why did a quiet Swiss man choose to live rough in the rainforest with the semi-nomadic Penans — and what inner spirit drove him to fight a David vs Goliath rebellion against timber tycoons and corrupt officials who were destroying the Penans’s home? Has White-Brown colonialism been replaced by Brown-Brown arrogance? What’s the story of the grandmother who spits at meddling ghosts (but only because they spit first)? Why did the first White Rajah of Borneo amass a vast harem of concubines? What happened when I tried to ride the tidal bore that almost killed Somerset Maugham? In what way was an illiterate Borneo teenager instrumental in helping Alfred Russel Wallace develop the theory of natural selection? How close are we to orangutans — “our poor cousins who look like they haven’t done so well in life” — and why do some rehabilitant orangutans go bi-polar?
Read MoreShare Your Journey – personal writing workshop in London at Guardian Masterclass
Posted on 20. Jan, 2015 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Saturday, March 14, 2015. 10.00 – 16.00 Venue: At Guardian newspaper building, near Kings Cross. Have you always wanted to write your personal story but didn’t know how to begin, how to make it interesting? Perhaps the challenge was too daunting and you put the idea aside for a rainy day. For the first time […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace – The Hero’s Journey – An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles – March 10, 2015
Posted on 10. Sep, 2014 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Royal Geographical Society – South – Bournemouth Tuesday March 10, 2015, 6 pm In Bournemouth, in cooperation with University of Bournemouth. Presentation on Alfred Russel Wallace’s travels, discoveries, challenges in Southeast Asia, with emphasis on his time in Southeast Asia. With David Spencer Hallmark, who will discuss the legal case against Charles Darwin concerning the […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace – The Hero’s Journey – An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles – October 15, 2014
Posted on 06. Jul, 2014 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
London School of Economics, London This presentation will be made with David J.S. Hallmark, the only person who considers the Wallace-Darwin controversy from a legal perspective. Wednesday, 15 October, 2014. 18.30 – 20.00 Room 32L.LG.03, Lower Ground Floor, 32 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The 32 Lincoln’s Inn Fields building is marked on the campus map here: […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace – The Hero’s Journey – An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles – September 29, 2014
Posted on 07. Jun, 2014 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Royal Geographical Society, London Monday September 29, 2014 14.30-16.00 Presentation on Alfred Russel Wallace’s travels, discoveries, challenges in Southeast Asia, based on rarely-exhibited letters, documents and paraphernalia from the RGS archives, and special Wallace-related beetle specimens from the Natural History Museum. Free for RGS members, others UKP 5 Reservations: +44 (0) 20 7591 3044 or […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace – The Hero’s Journey – An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
Posted on 07. Jun, 2014 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Singapore Embassy, Washington, D.C. Friday May 9, 2014 Presentation on Alfred Russel Wallace’s travels, discoveries, challenges in Southeast Asia, with emphasis on his time in Singapore.
Read MoreFlying Phallus Fights Forces of Evil
Posted on 11. Mar, 2014 by Paul Sochaczewski in Curious Travel
FLYING PHALLUS FIGHTS FORCES OF EVIL How does the male reproductive organ, “exuberant, slightly askew and sometimes frothy,” protect villagers? NABJI, Bhutan “I can make you a new phallus, no problem.” “But we’re leaving in the morning.” “Trust me.” Figuring that we could always use a bit more protection against demons in our house […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace-Hero’s Journey-An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
Posted on 26. Oct, 2013 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
The Travellers Club Monday 24 February 2013 19.00-20.00 The Travellers Club 106 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5EP For more info: https://www.rsaa.org.uk/events/view/20130925_1-how-alfred-russel-wallace-su Priority goes to Travellers Club members, other guests welcome on space-available basis and prior registration: Contact: Mrs Dawn Barnett, [email protected] With David J.S. Hallmark, who is the only lawyer to look at the Wallace-Darwin […]
Read MoreAlfred Russel Wallace-Hero’s Journey-An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
Posted on 26. Oct, 2013 by Paul Sochaczewski in News and Events
Royal Geographical Society-East Anglia Tuesday 14 January 2013 19.30-21.00 Pierce Room, Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich, NR2 1RQ Priority to RGS members, other guests welcome with prior registration, contact Michael Hand: [email protected] With David Hallmark, the only lawyer to look at the Wallace-Darwin controversy from a legal point of view
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