Since he left Harbourfront to devote himself fulltime to writing, Greg Gatenby has been working on several mammoth projects. The largest of these (titled The Book of the Century) is a history of the approximately one hundred years leading to World War One, including a history of the Great War itself—the text pitched to the lay person interested in the general lines of history without becoming bogged down in military minutiae or political weeds.
One compelling aspect of this project is its substantive treatment of sex as that topic affected international relations—whether that be the corrosive impact venereal disease had on the efficiency of armies, the pillow talk between politicians and their lovers, the revolutionary leadership of women like Florence Nightinfale, the unhappy fates of females such as Mata Hari, and the supportive but too often unheralded role assumed by women nurturing their nation’s cause by initiating some of the world’s first domestic recycling campaigns.
This book will also be heavily illustrated with old photos and antique postcards, the great majority of which have never before been published in a book. Read more about The Book of the Century here.
Irish author Brendan Behan described himself as a drinker with a writing problem. When American poet and story writer Dorothy Parker was warned by her doctor that unless she stopped drinking immediately she would be dead within a month—she replied, “Promises, promises”.
Alcohol abuse has been a sickness for many of the world’s most renowned authors. This book will salute many of the most acclaimed among them, showing how they were celebrated via what we now call “vintage postcards”.
Dozens of the world’s most famous authors experimented with addictive drugs—or became addicted to the risky pharmaceuticals.
Some initially took laudanum and opium, for example, to reduce pain from which they were suffering, only to find themselves hooked for life by the medicine which was supposed to save them.
Others took strong opiates with the hope the drugs would enhance their creativity or remove whatever was blocking their creativity—only to discover they had made a pact with the Devil, he ultimately demanding a price beyond all reckoning.
Pipe Dreams will offer a survey of dozens of literary folk from around the planet (as seen via antique postcards) for whom drugs were far more a curse than a pleasure.
For the past decade, Greg Gatenby has been working steadily on his literary memoirs. It is very possible (because of his hosting hundreds of famed authors each year
at Harbourfront (to say nothing of the further hundreds he met annually during his many travels abroad) that he has come face-to-face with more esteemed literary figures than any other person on the planet. Many of these encounters resulted in longterm friendships.
His memoir will be much less about him and more about the personalities of (and anecdotes involving) the distinguished writers into whose lives he was often given unique access. To get a better view of his encounters please visit Greg’s Page here.
Also in the last ten years, Gatenby has undertaken a study of old libraries via antique postcards. Thanks to the singular generosity of Andrew Carnegie, thousands of public libraries were erected coincidentally in time with the evolution in the popularity of postcard collecting.
Often a new library was the only thing in a small town worth photographing—and the pride of the locals in these edifices is obvious in every postcard which emerged during the Belle Epoque.
This survey of libraries will be produced as an eBook to accommodate the extensive text and to allow the colour postcards to be published as they originally appeared.
The survey will also be partitioned into volumes dedicated exclusively to Public Libraries, to Post-Secondy Libraries, and to Private Libraries. Treasured book repositories from around the planet will be well represented.
