Book news

Monday, I said I'd see about acquiring more of my books, possibly for sale at Amazon.com, but that's a no go. Our entire print run has been sold, at least at the wholesale level. You can only find it at retailers now - in North America, that's Squadron.com.

Alex Y., my co-author, tells me that many modeling magazines have graced us with glowing reviews - he's going to scan some and send them to me.

We chatted about the possibility of a second printing. Alex prefers to do a second edition. He's in pursuit of some colour slides - yes, colour. Apparently, one photographer shot colour film of David Ben-Gurion's visit to 101 Squadron in August 1948. Alex has seen copies of the results, which exist as colour slides. He has a lead on where to find them, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. I have a local lead to pursue: the family of a ground crewman in the squadron lives in Montreal. His effects, including memorabilia and photos of his time with the squadron is allegedly in the attic a half hour north of me. I've gotta pester them....

We also came to an agreement on a second collaboration, on a book about the B-17 in Israeli service - er, I could say on the three B-17s in Israeli service. For that, my role will be more editor than original writer, which is exactly how I want it. Writing a B-17 text from scratch would take far more research for me than did the book on the Avia S-199 whose history at this point is encoded in my genes. For the B-17 book, Alex will do the bulk of the thinking and I'll whip it into shape.