PORTLAND, OR, United States, February, 2024 — Happy Year of the Dragon, and happy 2024!
I’m beginning the year with exciting news. I have a new book coming out next month: A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War. It arrives March 26 from Blacksmith Books. Here’s the cover:
A Danger Shared provides a searing visual history of an often overlooked aspect of World War II as seen through foreign correspondent Melville Jacoby’s stunning photography from China, the Philippines, Vietnam and elsewhere in wartime Asia. This collection of powerful images — many of which have never previously been published — weaves photos of bombed classrooms, anxious refugees, and exhuasted soldiers with images depicting scense of friendship, toil, and commerce. The result is an illustrated narrative that documents humanity’s persistence at a cataclysmic historical moment.
I’ve been working on and looking forward to this ever since the release of my first book, 2016’s Eve of a Hundred Midnights, which most of you know told the story of Mel’s life reporting in wartime China, his marriage to fellow reporter Annalee Whitmore Jacoby just before the Pearl Harbor attacks, and their dramatic escape from the Philippines, first from Manila, then from Corregidor. This time, instead of telling Mel’s story, A Danger Shared presents the story of the war in Asia as Mel witnessed it.
As proud as I was to have told Mel’s story in Eve of a Hundred Midnights, I’ve been waiting for years for this chance to share more of his photography. I was privileged to catalog and digitize more than one thousand of Mel’s negatives and prints from which I then curated the images that appear in A Danger Shared. I also wrote the book’s introduction, accompanying explanatory text for each chapter, and the photos’ captions. Paul French, the best-selling author of such books as Midnight in Peking and City of Devils, generously contributed the book’s foreword.
Pre-orders are available via Bookshop as well as anywhere else you like to buy books (I’ve gathered some links to various retailers’ listings for A Danger Shared over on my web site).
By the way, did you know that Melville Jacoby was born in the Year of the Dragon — 1916 — and that he first arrived in China’s wartime capital in 1940, just as another dragon year began? Coincidental, perhaps, but I find it welcome timing for this book’s launch.
Introductory Glimpses
To get you a little more excited for A Danger Shared, here are a few sample pages from the book’s introduction:
Dog is love
Shocking no one, I love dogs. It is objective fact that the presence of a dog improves the quality of online content by 888,817 percent. I know. I’ve measured it.
Thus, as I prepare to launch A Danger Shared I’m also launching a new regular feature for The Scenic Route: Dogtopia (or a feature to be named later). Here’s the first entry:
Each edition of The Scenic Route will now include guaranteed canine viewing opportunities. Typically, I’ll include pictures of dogs from the past discovered as I work, like the one leading off this inaugural edition. This image was extra special to me because it’s not only a two-dog photo, it’s a picture of Mel’s I’d never seen before last week when I found it wedged in an envelope of Mel’s photos that were in a box of papers of his mothers I was sorting. I don’t know much about its context, but what I do know is that I instantly adored these dogs. They look like pals. Clearly Mel also cared enough about them to want to photograph them. That’s not terribly surprising. I think he loved dogs too. He even wrote a grade school report on dogs that ended up in my hands. Here’s its cover:
Since I found this picture among a tranche that I know were taken in Chongqing in 1940 or 1941, I’m going to assume this one came from there too. With that in mind, I’m going to start Dogtopia with a bonus dog photo. Where Mel Jacoby took the first picture, I took the second in 2015 while visiting Chongqing myself.
What’s over there just to the right off camera? Seems like both dogs want to know.
By the way, some credit for this feature must go to of for demonstrating the synergistic power found in the dog+journalism+newsletter combination.
This Week’s Detour
My Perfect Console: Each week, guests of this tremendous podcast pick the “five video games they would like to immortalise on their very own fictional games machine,” but don’t be fooled and don’t dismiss this recommendation because you don’t like games. Instead, pay attention to a point host Simon Parkin — a contributing writer to the New Yorker and the Observer — makes in introducing each episode: “Games, a bit like songs, often become powerfully attached to a particular moment in our lives. When we return to them they can become warp points to the past.”
Each episode travels through these warp points to powerful moments in the lives of guests prominent in such areas as literature, film, music, comedy, libraries, and, yes, the game industry. When we travel with them, we understand a bit more about what drives their lives, their work, and their art. I’d argue we might even reflect a bit on similar moments in our own lives. My recommendation: scroll through the episode list, find some guests who intrigue you, and start listening. Two specific episodes that hooked me on the podcast featured fellow journalists. One, featured investigative reporter Ronan Farrow. Another political journalist Marie Le Conte, whose experience rediscovering video games during the first stages of the lockdown struck me deeply and reminded me of my own path, right down to the experience of playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I wrote about last fall.
I need your help
In between episodes and while you anxiously await your next fix of Dogtopia, and, of course, A Danger Shared’s release, perhaps you can help make that release a success. More than I did with my previous books or any other prior project of mine, I need your aid to ensure A Danger Shared’s gets seen and read. Over the next six weeks I may ask other things, but right now I have some immediate needs. Can you help with any of the following?:
Pre-order A Danger Shared: Nothing helps an author more than committing to purchase a book the day it’s released. You can order it anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org (where you can support your local bookstore at the same time), from the publisher directly, yes, even via Amazon. At the time of this writing it even looks like multiple retailers have it on sale!
Spread the word: Know anyone who would like this book? Tell them about it! Better yet, pre-order it for them!
Media blitz: Do you work for a media organization, have contacts in a news organization, or know someone who writes about books or history? Do you have a friend with a great podcast who needs a guest? I’d love to tell any of them more about A Danger Shared and Melville Jacoby, why each is newsworthy, and what it’s like (and why it matters) to look at history with so many important stories happening today. I have a ton of great supporting material, including photos, sample chapters, even wartime audio and film footage to enhance anyone’s coverage.
Get social: Are you social media savvy? Do you have a popular Gooodreads account? Do you write a book blog on the side? Talk to me and please tell your followers about A Danger Shared.
Ask your local bookstore to stock A Danger Shared: You know your community best, and that includes the places where people buy books. Bookstore owners are overwhelmed with choice about which books to carry. As their customers, your requests of them to choose A Danger Shared weigh more than any appeal I’ll make. If your store needs more information I’m happy to pass along some more specific selling points. Also, if you’d like to see me come to your town (virtually or in person) ask them if they’d host me. I’d be happy to participate, and, if circumstances allow, to come by and sign a few copies.
Inform me: I’d love to build my network of organizations, venues, institutions, and people — especially ones focused on history, China-U.S. relations, books in general, and photography — who might be interested in either carrying my book, hosting an event (virtual or in person), discussing it, or otherwise connecting with me.
Pre-order the book! I haven’t mentioned this yet, have I? You can do so right here!
Thanks for reading all this way! I look forward to seeing you along the scenic route
-Bill
Any questions about A Danger Shared? Have any more ideas of how you can help? Have a favorite dog ? Let me know in the comments below, or leave a note about anything else you’d like to express.
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