For my birthday in July, I’m going back to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge to celebrate my 85th birthday at the same place I celebrated my 83rd! But I did not do a photo book for that trip, so this is a delayed report as a gift to the lodge this July. It is paperback and only 22 pages, but shows the variety of nature you can experience there. For a free preview of all pages, go to this book in my bookstore at https://www.blurb.com/b/12361792-a-walk-in-the-rainforest
CLICK cover image to see a free preview.
¡Pura Vida!
Note that in my bookstore there is a separate edition of this book listed with a different cover. That is because I like to offer both the softcover and the hardcover image wrap editions, but now the crazy programmers at Blurb are requiring each edition to be created and uploaded separately. I don’t like technology that makes things more complicated like this! 🙂
According to Goodreads, where I track my book reading and follow the reading of friends who are also on Goodreads, I read 15 books in 2024. Most of my books this year were the adventure/mystery/detective series of Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI who is an eccentric modern Sherlock Holmes from New Orleans with a southern accent that is commented on in the stories like mine is here, so I partly identify! 🙂 This series is co-authored by two writers, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
I got started reading these guys’ excellent story-telling when I googled something like “adventure stories taking place in Central America” and came up with The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston which is a well-told true story of an archaeological mystery in one of the rainforests of nearby Honduras. Preston is also a real archaeologist. So you know, his stories have a little bit of Indiana Jones here! 🙂 Then I read a short series of his books about a young woman archaeologist in Santa Fe, New Mexico with some exciting adventures all over the west including one at Glorieta Pass, NM, close to the conference center I spent a lot time at over the years. So he kept me involved in his writing and when he joined Lincoln Child to write the Agent Pendergast series he even brought that Santa Fe archaeologist into one or two of those stories and by then I was hooked on reading this mystery series. I’m now on book 18 of the 22 currently in the series, but there may be more as it is a popular adventure/mystery series. 🙂 They are the Kindle books I read on bus trips and at dinner when eating alone. While at breakfast I read a passage from the Bible and then selected stories in the Washington Post plus the WP Comics of course! 🙂
My 2024 Books read.
“If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Becoming world famous for hikers is the coast to coast (Atlantic to Pacific) hiking trail titled El Camino de Costa Rica (WEBSITE link), a 280 kilometer hike through forests, mountains, farms and small villages with many suggested overnight stays in homes, camping or even a few luxury hotels nearby. 🙂
for the Democrats Abroad Fundraiser & Voter Help . . .
Keel-billed Toucan photo by Charlie Doggett, 16×20 printed on metal. Pura Vida Butterflies, 2nd Edition by Charlie Doggett – Photos of 250 species of butterflies with index of common names in English and scientific names in Latin.
Both of these have a minimum bid well below the retail price, but of course the fundraisers hope you will bid much higher! 🙂 The silent auction is from 1-4 tomorrow, 30 September 2024, at Huaraches Atenas Mexican Restaurant, with auction winners announced promptly at 4 pm. If you are a U.S. citizen and don’t know how to vote from abroad, people will help you. And if you have prepared your overseas ballot for mailing but don’t trust the post office, then people can take your mail-ready ballot and deliver it to the U.S. Embassy for their mail pouch to the states. And while you are there, bid on some of the many wonderful things in the auction including one of my wall art photos and one of my photo books! 🙂
CLICK this front cover image to see a free preview of all pages!
To celebrate what will be 10 years of living in Costa Rica come December, I decided to publish a coffee table book of my favorite bird photos that turned out to be a lot! 174 photos! Each includes both the English and Spanish common names of that bird plus the location where I photographed it. Whether a birder or a lover of “Nature As Art,” I think you will like this 86 page photo book printed on premium matte paper. It might even become a collector’s item some day! 🙂 It will definitely become the book that I gift to the birding lodges I visit over the next year or two! 🙂
This was where I spent most of last weekend at my table in the pre-Christmas art fair called Just In Time or JIT. I sold more than a lot of the others but not near enough to make it worth the work, time and expense. This will be my last time for this show and I’m out of the Galería January 14, meaning that after that if you want any of my pix for wall art, in books, on merchandise, etc., you will have to go through my website and order online. I’m no longer selling stuff in person! :-)
Interesting side note: In one of the photos below you will see the word “Pizza” on the next building. It was not open last weekend but will be sometime this week and it will be the very first American chain fast food in Atenas: Papa John’s Pizza! :-) It will be interesting to see if they make it with locally owned pizza places literally all over town! Plus other themed restaurants here also serve pizza, so I question the business decision, but pizza is very popular here (especially with the young) and they may have the marketing skills, the money (and lower prices) to put all the locals out of business like Walmart does when they move into other communities. Fortunately Walmart is not in Atenas as such, though they are the owners of two local supermarkets, Maxi-Pali and the smaller Pali Supermercado which do have lower prices and Walmart-brand stuff, but neither the quality overall nor service of the local cooperative supermercado that I prefer. I try to avoid such American places and don’t plan to eat pizza at Papa John’s! :-) As a smaller town we have been fortunate to avoid the invasion of American fast-food joints that are all over San Jose and Alajuela. Here’s 4 photos of my stuff at the weekend art fair . . .
Today is your last chance to get some great deals on unique art as gifts or for yourself, 10 am to 2 pm today at Calle 2 Plaza adjacent Linea Vital. DON’T MISS THIS!
If you live in or near Atenas, I hope to see you this weekend at the “Just in Time for the Holidays” Art Fair at Calle 2 Plaza and Gallería Artenas.
Get the one of a kind gifts for everyone on your holiday list, or for yourself at the third annual Just in Time for the Holidays Art and Artisanal feria. Over 20 local artists will be featured this year, including many of the past year’s favorites. The art fair will be held December 8th, 9th, and 10th at Calle 2 Plaza, located next to Linea Vital in Central Atenas. As in past years 10% of all sales will be donated to Rescate Animales Atenas, the Atenas Red Cross, Animales Atenas and the Atenas food bank. Hours are: Friday 3pm-7pm, Saturday 10 am -7pm and Sunday 10 am -2 pm. This feria is sponsored by Galeria Artenas.
NOTE: This may be my last time to offer my “Nature As Art” in this show (still debating on my future in it) but I am definitely leaving the Gallería Artenas January 14, so now is the time to get my artwork in person in two places at once! My greeting cards and accent pillows will be only in the Gallería Artenas while everything else will be just outside on the beautiful new Calle 2 Plaza at my Art Fair table! This year I’m featuring a new Calendar 2024 of beautiful Costa Rica Butterflies! Plus a few new “Feliz Navidad” nature Christmas Cards! Come check it out!
In the future my photo art will continue to be available online through multiple sources by way of my website/blog! On my website/blog menu just click Gallery or Bookstoreor CafePressfor Wall Art & Books to Coffee Mugs & Accent Pillows! And my Nature As Art will continue to be available on the internet! Hey! I’m retired, 83 years old, and keep trying to make myself slow down! But I will never stop photographing nature! 🙂 And I’ll continue posting the photos on my blog! Sign up for that if not already subscribing. 🙂
The annual weekend art fair that I have been participating in for 3 years now is next weekend, December 8-10 at a new location, Calle 2 Plaza, in the same plaza as the new Galería Artenas which is now the sponsor of the art fair. That means you can find Charlie Doggett “Nature as Art Photography” next weekend in both places! Side by side! 🙂
I will continue to have 6 wall art photos, all of my greeting cards and floral accent pillows plus 5 photo books in the Galería Artenas through 13 January, my last day as a member of that cooperative, which I will explain later. But I WILL HAVE 7 DIFFERENT ITEMS IN THE ART FAIR! (1) A new CR Butterflies 2024 Calendar, (2) Atenas Tote Bags, (3) T-shirts, (4) Coffee Mugs, (5) Mouse Pads, (6)several different Wall Art Photos, and (7) a few different Photo Books including my brand new Pura Vida Butterflies, Second Edition with more than 240 species! (Linked to a free preview of it!)
Don’t Miss the “Just in Time for the Holidays” Art Fair next weekend, December 8-10 at Calle 2 Plaza next door to Linea Vital Medical Plaza! 3-7 Friday, 10-7 Saturday and 10-2 Sunday.
And today just before publishing it, I added another new butterfly! 🙂 I’ll share that butterfly tomorrow, but here is the link to my new Costa Rica Butterflies book:
348 photos of more than 240 species of butterflies in Costa Rica makes this the largest current photo book of just Costa Rica Butterflies. Use as a coffee table book or for identification and research with a complete index of both common English names and the Latin scientific names. And this is right on the heels of the release of my second edition of the smaller Hotel Banana Azul Butterfly book! 🙂
