By Jean and John Dillon
ISBN 978-1-8383454-3-3 / 314 pp / 6” x 9” / €15.00 / Pub date: 12 September 2023
In this tome, Jean and John Dillon open their old travel diaries to take us fondly back to the days of pre-millennium travel, when getting there was achieved with the use of maps and signposts, as opposed to pings and notifications, and being there was recorded in a daily journal.
Whether for leisure or scholarly pursuit, Jean and John bring us to North America, Mexico, Europe, Hawaii, Israel – and most fondly of all, perhaps – to Greece. The diaries are frank, witty, and always entertaining. They represent the first sortie into travel writing for the authors.
The instinct to wander, John writes in his introduction, is today, “sadly, facilitated as never before by increasing prosperity, at least in the developed world … and is now putting insupportable burdens upon previously charming venues, and contributing to the devastation of the planet.” However, the peregrinations in Being There, from half a century or so ago, he continues, “are a record of a period when this was not yet the case.” The travels are a mixture of family holidays and jaunts undertaken by John in connection with academic conferences around the world.
Also of note is the upcoming title, Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective (Springer Verlag, Germany, 2023) on which John Dillon, along with Professor Marie-Elise Zovko, serves as editor.
Join us in Books Upstairs on Sunday, 15th October 2023 at 2:30pm for the launch of BEING THERE
BOOK LAUNCH at: Books Upstairs
We are pleased to announce the launch of BEING THERE on Sunday, 15 October next, 2:30pm, at one of Dublin’s favourite book shops, Books Upstairs in the heart of the city. Close to Trinity College at the corner of D’Olier and Fleet Street, the event will take place upstairs in the shop’s charming Victorian tea rooms. Authors Jean and John Dillon will read from the book and and invite you to a glass or two of wine. The proceedings will be launched by author Helena Mulkerns, and books will be available to purchase from Books Upstairs both at the launch and in the shop thereafter.