Category: Reading

Books and Book Reviews

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Contemplation Life Reading

LISTEN LEARN SHARE by James R Martin

Listening mindfully is a different type of listening than what we may hear with our ears. In fact our human sense of hearing is subjective and filters out much of what might be heard if we pay attention to the sounds around us.

Mindfulness involves, being aware of what is happening now, in the moment in four areas. First we are aware of our body, movements, sensations and posture. We listen to our breathing and to our hearts. The next aspect of mindfulness is to listen to and be aware of what we feel is pleasant and unpleasant. Being aware of feelings is important because it shows what we may be clinging to, judging or condemning. The third thing we listen to is our consciousness. We are aware of all of our mental states like anger or fear and their impermanent nature. The fourth aspect of mindfulness is awareness of the cosmic order and/or the Dharma, life and the true nature of our existence.

To listen mindfully is to be aware of our environment, our bodies and minds in the present moment. Being mindful in any of these areas brings clarity and balance to the mind. Being mindful is listening and being aware in the present moment.

 

Available on Amazon

 

 

 

Categories
Film News Reading

Directing Documentary Productions

Interview at Shaolin Temple, China

Documentary Directing and Storytelling by James R (Jim) Martin

The best directors understand the traditions and aesthetics of the medium in which they are working. They also have an understanding of the crafts involved and may have worked at some of those jobs themselves. The focus of Documentary Directing and Storytelling, is on directing, but also includes information that experienced directors should know about the process of constructing a documentary story.

New Book

Documentary Directing and Storytelling, written by James R (Jim) Martin offers a learning experience and an exploration into directing documentary story projects.

The book looks at fundamental and advanced ideas about actuality documentary filmmaking and nonfiction storytelling of all types using film, video, multimedia and other mediums.

 Documentary Directing and Storytelling is a great read for anyone with a strong interest in documentary or nonfiction storytelling. There are many critical reviews of documentary films and the stories they tell from a directing and filmmaking perspective.

Available at Amazon.com  Print and/or Digital

Available at Apple iBooks

“I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I’ve chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still life or landscapes.” — Ken Burns

“I think it’s inevitable that people will come to find the documentary a more compelling and more important kind of film than fiction. Just as in literature, as the taste has moved from fiction to nonfiction, I think it’s going to happen in film as well. In a way you’re on a serendipitous journey, a journey, which is much more akin to the life experience. When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences. So for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”  — Albert Maysles

Categories
Contemplation Meditation News People Reading Relationships

LISTENING IS THE KEY TO LEARNING

 

 

Reviewers have written about Listen Learn Share

“What the book ‘The Secret’ is to intention, ‘Listen, Learn, Share’ is to positive thought process and awareness.”

“Liked James R. Martin new book “Listen, Learn, and Share”. An impressive collaboration of eastern and western thinking, there is much to learn from it about the world as a whole.”

“The stated purpose of this book is to share some simple truths to help people along their life paths. The book delivers on this purpose in a clear, gentle, and compelling way, providing many helpful insights into how to think about and consider our thoughts and feelings...”

 

It’s very easy to lose or shut down your learning ability. You can’t grow or make changes to your life if you’re not listening. Without listening and learning you keep creating similar outcomes, which are not always what you desire.

It’s like the sound of a recording, a word or note, stuck on the same glitch in the track, repeating itself endlessly, unable to get passed the glitch.

You can’t reset the recording if you don’t hear the glitch. You can’t move ahead if your tires are spinning.

You need to stop looking in the rear-view mirror, while you try to drive forward.

Listen, Learn, Share is a book that will help you get unstuck. It explores this phenomenon, exposing the causes of not moving forward, as it reveals how to move your mind into the present.

 

LISTEN LEARN SHARE IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AND APPLE iBOOK

Listen Learn Share: How & Why Listening, Learning and Sharing can Transform Your Life Experience In Practical Ways

 

 

ALSO BY James R Martin Available on Amazon

Actuality Interviewing and Listening: How to conduct successful interviews for nonfiction storytelling, actuality documentaries and other disciplines … (Documentary and Nonfiction Storytelling)

 

Categories
Contemplation Life Meditation Observations Reading

Article on Vipassana Meditation

What Exactly is Vipassana Meditation?

Vipassana or insight meditation is a clear awareness of exactly what is happening as it happens.

By Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

The distinction between Vipassana meditation and other styles of meditation is crucial and needs to be fully understood. Buddhism addresses two major types of meditation. They are different mental skills, modes of functioning or qualities of consciousness. In Pali, the original language of Theravada literature, they are called Vipassana and Samatha.

Vipassana can be translated as “Insight,” a clear awareness of exactly what is happening as it happens. Samatha can be translated as “concentration” or “tranquility.” It is a state in which the mind is brought to rest, focused only on one item and not allowed to wander. When this is done, a deep calm pervades body and mind, a state of tranquility which must be experienced to be understood.

More of article

 

What Exactly Is Vipassana Meditation?

LISTEN LEARN SHARE

Categories
Contemplation News Reading

LISTEN LEARN SHARE

Have you ever asked yourself questions like: “Why does this always happen to me?” I’m successful but why am I not happy? Why is life so stressful? Why do certain things make me so angry? What causes rage? This book will help you to answer these questions and others, as it takes you on a step-by-step journey exploring ideas about how the human mind works and how listening, learning and sharing can resolve these issues.

Listen Learn Share is a story inspired by a question. “If you had to choose just one of the things you do, would you choose teaching, making films and documentaries, or writing?” My answer to the question surprised me. I realized they were all the same experience so there was no need to choose. My life was listening, learning and sharing. It did not matter what form it took, it was all the same practice. How did this happen? Was listening the key to learning? What role did sharing play? I found that listening is a state of mind rather than a tool by itself. I discovered that listening is more than what is heard via sound waves entering the ears.

“It seems that there should be one word that exemplifies the concept of listening, learning and sharing. This word should describe a state of mind with a sense that embodies the combined spirit of all three words. I believe the word is “mindfulness.”

“Twenty-six centuries after Buddha taught his philosophy science has begun to recognize that much of what he taught supports their research. Psychologists are now confirming the concept of “No Self” and the fact that “I” and “Me” are just constructs of the mind.”

This story draws from the authors forty-six years of teaching, making documentaries, fiction work, and writing. The book explains how the practice of listening, learning and sharing works and how it is tied in with meditation and mindfulness.

Print version of Listen Learn Share available January 17th.   

 

 

 

Listen Learn Share: How & Why Listening, Learning and Sharing can Transform Your Life Experience In Practical Ways

 

Actuality Interviewing and Listening: How to conduct successful interviews for nonfiction storytelling, actuality documentaries and other disciplines by … and Nonfiction Storytelling Book 1)

 

Categories
Arts Film News Reading

New Book on Interviewing and Listening by James R Martin

Actuality Interviewing and Listening techniques allow the subject or subjects of a documentary or nonfiction film to tell their own story in a first person narration. A third person voice over narrator may not be needed. Actuality Interviewing is a form of conducting interviews that relies heavily on the interviewer’s ability to truly listen to the interviewees and to know when to ask the right question. Communication occurs on more levels than what is spoken.

A film or video documentary usually has two primary components: action and interviews. Of course music and effects also play a role in telling the nonfiction story. But interviewing takes the place of dialog in a fiction film, so it serves the same function in a medium that relies on action to keep an audience engaged.

Many people think that they are listening to another person or a piece of music while they are also thinking about a conversation they had earlier that day or what they are going to say next. Listening requires more then basic attention to someone speaking or a piece of music.

Actuality Interviewing and Listening explores the connection between conducting an interview and listening on all levels. Anyone who conducts interviews or gives interviews, for any reason, will benefit from reading this book.

Available from Amazon.com in print or digital.  Also available from Apple iBooks

Categories
Contemplation Life Observations Reading

Selected Readings on Mindfulness and Meditation

Selected Readings on Mindfulness and Meditation by Jim Martin

These are a few, of the many excellent titles available that we have found informative and well written on the topic of Buddhism,  Mindfulness and related subjects. This includes both nonfiction and fiction titles.

If you have a favorite book on these subjects  that you would like to recommend please leave the name of the book, details and any thoughts about the title as a comment and it will become part of the list.   If you have read any of the books on the list and wish to comment that is also appreciated.

 

Nonfiction

The Foundations of Buddhism – Rupert Gethin – © 1998 

ISBN 978-0-19-2892223-2 – Oxford University Press

The Foundations of Buddhism (Opus S)  

“Rupert Gethin is Lecturer in Indian Religions in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and co-director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, at the University of Bristol. He  is the author of The Buddhist Path to Awakening (1992) and is a specialist in Theravada Buddhism.”

“Buddhism is a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches back over 2,500 years. In this book, Rupert Gethin investigates the common threads connecting diverse traditions of Buddhist thought and practice: the story of the Buddha, the scriptural tradition of his teachings, the four noble truths, monastic and lay ways of life, karma and rebirth, ethics, meditation and philosophy. While concentrating on the formative phase of Buddhism in India, he also considers the ways in which these foundations have shaped the development of Buddhism beyond India and into the twentieth century.”

 

Mindfulness In Plain English – Bhante Gunaratana – © 2011

ISBN 978-0-86171-906-8 – Wisdom Publications

Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition

Bhante Gunaratana is also author of Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English and the memoir Journey to Mindfulness

“ A Masterpiece.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness In Plain English is said to be “one of the most influential books in the burgeoning field of mindfulness and a timeless classic introduction to meditation.”

Excerpts from Mindfulness In Plain English:

“Within the Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct address to a spiritual entity. Contemplation is a prolonged period of conscious thought about a specific topic, usually a religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of mental cultivation, both these activities are exercises in concentration.”

“Out of the Hindu tradition comes yogic meditation, which is also purely concentrative.”

“Within the Buddhist tradition concentration is also highly valued. But a new element is added and more highly stressed: the element of awareness. All Buddhist meditation aims at the development of awareness, using concentration as a tool toward that end.”

 

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation – The Buddha’s way of Mindfulness – Nyanaponika Thera

  © 1954, 1962, 1996 – Buddhist Publication Society – This edition published in 2014 by Weiser Books – ISBN 978-1-57863-558-0

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: The Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness

Excerpt from Foreword, by Sylvia Boorstein, to The Heart of Buddhist Meditation:

“The Heart of Buddhist Meditation was the first serious, didactic Dharma book I read. It was the early nineteen-eighties. My teacher, Jack Kornfield, suggested it as the beginning of formal training to become a Mindfulness teacher. “

“Apart from the meticulous yet accessible writing style with which the Venerable Nyanaponika builds every point, I feel a warmth and friendliness in his tone that makes me feel as if he is talking to me.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn writes: “This is the book that introduced Vipassana and Mindfulness to the West. Its content is timeless — and universal. All teachers of mindfulness-based programs would do well to carefully red and re-read this book…”

 

Full Catastrophe Living – JonKabat-Zinn – Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness 

Revised and updated Edition © 1990, 2013 by Jon Kabat-Zinn – Published in the United States by Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-345-53693-8

Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

“Stress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health, even shorten our lives. It makes us more venerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kapbat-Zinn’s renowed mindfulness-based stress reduction program this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology-shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing.”

 

Where Ever You Go There You Are – Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life –10th Anniversary Edition

© 1994, 2005 Jon Kabat-Zinn Published by Hackette Books ISBN 0-7668-8070-8

This is a well-written, thoughtful guide and reminder what meditation and mindfulness is all about.  In many ways it is the soul of Full Catastrophe Living. If you are practicing meditation and living mindfully, this book will remind you why. After you read it once, you can just pick it up, open to any page and find something inspiring.

 

Living As If Your Life Depended On It! Twelve Gateways To A Life That Works

© 2000 Cia Rico – ISBN 0-9678-849-1-8 Published by Life Care, Inc

Self help in keeping with Buddhist tradition, meditation and modern psychology. Spiritual and psychological growth.

 

 

Fiction

TheDharmBums coverThe Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac © 1958 — Published by Penguin Books

(See full review here: https://www.almostseventy-one.com/2016/03/28/jack-kerouacs-the-dharma-bums-book-review-by-jim-martin/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Island – A Novel – Aldous Huxley © 1962 – Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics ISBN 978-0-060156179-5 (pbk)

Island

In this amazingly prophetic novel written in 1962, Aldous Huxley creates the fictional island of Pala in the Pacific, somewhere in Southeast Asia, not far from a neighboring country with a powerful corrupt dictator who has a plan to take over Pala, which has been basically left on its own for 120 years because it didn’t have anything desirable until now, after oil is discovered. A billionaire, oil magnate, who also owns newspapers, has enlisted a reporter, William Farnaby to see if he can get a line on how to get the island government to work with his oil company.

But the leaders of Pala have their own agenda, one that has been nurtured for many generations, over  a hundred years, a utopian society built on science, mainly Buddhist philosophy and Hindu traditions. Science, medicine and psychology are being used in ways that are still not put into practice in major countries in the world today. For example education that teaches children skills to stay healthy mentally and physically. Sex education and practices that help keep population growth under control and preventive medicine, rather than treating illnesses with drugs after they occur. Early psychological testing to help children develop their talents and gifts without succumbing to  antisocial behaviors. Meditation and a form of mindfulness practiced by most of the population.

Will Farnaby, the reporter, gets himself ship wrecked on the island and is taken in by key citizens of Pala. They agree to let him stay for a month while they show him their island utopia, discuss their culture and plans for the future. The novel facilitates the exploring of Pala’s history and goals for the future against the backdrop of a world still recovering from Hitler, fascism, political turmoil, television, consumerism, health issues, poverty and racism.

Buddhist philosophy, begun over 2500 years ago, foreshadows many of today’s scientific principles like evolutionary psychology, modern psychology and how the mind works. Huxley writes, in 1962, about concepts that are just beginning to be discussed today.

jrm

Categories
Contemplation News Poetry Reading

Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums — Review by James R (Jim) Martin

 kerouac HaiI wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading The Dharma Bums. I didn’t remember much about Jack Kerouac’s writing having read On The Road, many back in the day years ago; the experience was stuck in my mind’s dusty archives. I wasn’t the same person who read On The Road back then, I was here now in the present suspecting I might be a Dharma Bum of sorts myself.

The Dharma Bums is a cultural walk-about America in the late 1950’s with the spread of suburbia, a growing middle class with an increasing addiction to television and sameness. It also includes vivid and beautiful representations of natural phenomenon from the desert to the high mountains. The characters that Ray Smith, the narrator of the story, meets in his travels range from intellectuals, artists, poets and beatnik friends, to hobos he meets as he hops fast freight trains up the California Coast or thumbs rides with truck drivers and others while he travels across the country a couple of times. He carries his home on his back and to some extent depends on the good will of those he meets on his path. He meditates in the desert, mountain meadows and the woods. He exchanges what he has learned with his fellow Dharma Bums and gains insight from them and his travels. At times Ray Smith and his Dharma buddies seem like modern-day  bhikkhu (monks), each on the path of enlightenment in their own way.

This is a trip that anyone can enjoy, from the first time Ray Smith, the main character, hops a freight train, headed North up the California coast.  Even though it was written some time ago it feels contemporary and relevant today. One thing I knew as I began reading The Dharma Bums, was that Jack Kerouac knows how to tell a story. I also became happily aware that this book was an adventure entwined with the basis of Mindfulness including the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Eight-fold Path;” a Bodhisattva’s journey looking for nothing, knowing and not knowing.   The two main characters Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder are on a quest for truth that finds them climbing mountains in the high sierras, partying with San Fransisco Bohemians, and others and writing their own poetry.

“…Pray tell us, good buddy, and don’t make it muddy, who played this trick, on Harry and Dick, and why is so mean this Eternal Scene, just what’s the point, of this whole joint? I thought maybe I could find out at last from these Dharma Bums.” — Jack Kerouac — The Dharma Bums

I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people these days may not know much about Jack Kerouac. I wonder if his work is read in high school or college English classes? It should be. Probably banned in Texas or Alabama, like Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye. Kerouac was born in Lowell Massachusetts in 1922, went to public school and ended up with a scholarship to Columbia in New York City where he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs who  turn up in The Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in St. Pete Florida in 1969 at the age of forty-seven.

Those who do remember Jack Kerouac would probably think of the classic “On The Road” that was published in 1957 and made Kerouac one of the most appreciated writers of that time. “On The Road” came to personify what was called the “Beat Generation.” Other books followed including those in what Kerouac included in the “The Duluoz Legend Series” including The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Big Sur, other novels and poetry. But Kerouac’s writing is a lot more than “Beat Generation” tales.

The Dharma Bums was published in 1958, after On the Road.  Written in College Park, a neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. It is a subtle, non-preachy primer, in some ways, on certain concepts found in Buddhism, in particular Zen Buddhism. But written as a novel, in Kerouac’s rhythmic, descriptive and first person conversational storytelling style, these notions come up naturally. Words, sentences and paragraphs loose their individual functions as they create a new actuality, moving, nudging and seducing the reader into the strokes and colors of  the author’s word paintings.

            “But I had my own little bangtail ideas and they had nothing to do with the ‘lunatic’ part of this. I wanted to get me a full pack complete with everything necessary to sleep, shelter, eat, cook, in fact a regular kitchen and bedroom right on my back, and go off somewhere and find perfect solitude and look into the perfect emptiness of my mind and be completely neutral from any and all ideas. I intended to pray, too, as my only activity, pray for all living creatures; I saw it was the only decent activity left in the world. To be in some riverbottom somewhere, or in a desert, or in mountains, or in some hut in Mexico or shack in Adirondack, and rest and be kind, and do nothing else, practice what the Chinese call ‘do-nothing.” I didn’t want to have anything to do, really, either with Japhy’s ideas about society (I figured it would be better just to avoid it altogether, walk around it) or with any of Alvah’s ideas about grasping after life as much as you can because of its sweet sadness and because you would be dead some day.”      — Jack Kerouac The Dharma Bums

Ray Smith’s journey moves along spontaneously and as fast paced as Jack Kerouac’s prose. This timeless story is hard to put down with a bonus if you are interested in Dharma, mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy; you will find many moments in the book with which to relate. Beyond the philosophy you will find a artfully crafted novel that is engaging and classic, as a spiritual journey to find self or perhaps no self. Jack Kerouac, intentionally or not created his own Buddha book of “sutras” and left them with us.

The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac – 1957 – Penguin Books – 244 pages

The Dharma Bums

The Dharma Bums

 

Review by James R (Jim) Martin

Books by James R Martin

Documentary Directing and Storytelling: How to Direct Documentaries and More!

Listen Learn Share: How & Why Listening, Learning and Sharing can Transform Your Life Experience In Practical Ways

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

Actuality Interviewing and Listening: How to conduct successful interviews for nonfiction storytelling, actuality documentaries and other disciplines … (Documentary and Nonfiction Storytelling)

Categories
Arts Fine Arts People Reading

CREATIVITY – the perfect crime

CreativityPhilippe Petit does not try to define creativity or offer a plan for being creative. Petit is an inventive problem solver who, in is own way, includes the reader of Creativity – the perfect crime in a documentary style, personal process of creation.   Artists of all types, writers, filmmakers; anyone involved in being creative in their occupations and lives will find this book inspirational.

“With the reader as his accomplice, Petit reveals fresh and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor, from generating and shaping ideas to practicing, problem-solving and ultimately pulling off the “coup” itself—executing a finished work.” — Creativity – the perfect crime book cover, inside front flap.

Petit writes that creativity is a “criminal activity,” that early on he dropped the conventions and ethics of society, went outside the restraints culture imposes, invented his own rules and rebelled against a repressive environment. In fact Petit reminds us,  that his evolution is universal for creative people. Critical inventive problem solving must break established rules, laws and convention. In that respect it is, as Petit writes, “a criminal activity.”

“Develop unabashedly your own set of morals, cling to your own logic, inhabit your own universe: teach yourself as you let life teach you.”  — Philippe Petit – Creativity — the perfect crime.

The structure of this book is documentary in nature. There are a number of parallel themes interwoven though out Creativity – the perfect crime. Anecdotally the author creates a first person narration, his personal journey in life along with the way he has learned to solve life’s obstacles through invention, breaking some rules, observation, intuition and thinking beyond the constraints that surround him. Another theme layered throughout  is a case study of his high wire walk between the twin towers in New York City in January of 1974. Numerous other experiences also bring out concepts and ideas that form the creative process for Petit. The author has also created hand drawn illustrations that graphically bring to life many of the notions and points he is making.

Tower walk NY City 1974
Tower walk NY City 1974

Creativity — the perfect crime is a story that both entertains, educates and informs the reader.  It will inspire creative souls with more information than they can absorb all at once.  It is a book that should be read slowly and more than once.  Appreciated the same way a good glass of wine is observed and appreciated with all the senses. Philippe Petit advises: “Learn and teach, teach and learn. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”

Philippe Petit is a performing artist who started out teaching himself to juggle, then do tight rope walking.  He has been a street performer, a magician, writer and teacher. Creativity — the perfect crime, is not a text-book in any  conventional sense.  But it could be a great addition that expands any type of arts curriculum.  Students of the arts, writing and film, at all levels of learning, will benefit from the wisdom in this book.

Review by James R Martin at J R Martin Media, author Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia.

 

Philippe Petit at TED

BOOK LINKS

[amazon_image id="1594631689" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]Creativity: The Perfect Crime

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

 

Categories
News Reading Travel

Turn Right At Machu Picchu – Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

cover turnrightMachu Picchu is one of those places I’ve always wanted to visit. While in the Army, Leon, and I went to the Boston Library and started researching a possible journey we could take when our enlistments were up. We were researching the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu. Of course we soon discovered that there was a train that went along the Inca Trail or to Machu Picchu.  This took some of the adventure out of the idea. I think we thought the Inca treasure might still be out there.

Reading Mark Adams book Turn Right at Machu Picchu, all these years later has brought back not only the sense of adventure but also, after reading the book, a feeling that I’ve been there. Documentaries (nonfiction stories) come in all forms. Adams takes you step-by-step through his own experience and the history of Peru as it relates to the Inca civilization, the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu and other ruins in the area. The Inca civilization itself didn’t last that long, especially after the Spanish arrived in 1532. But the indigenous people of the Peruvian Andes, who speak Quechua, still live in the area around Cuzco and Machu Picchu.Machu Picchu1

Binghamiii A
Hiram Bingham III

A major part of the story evolves around Hiram Bingham III, who in 1911 basically brought Machu Picchu into the limelight along with the notion that it was the Lost City to which some of the Inca’s, with their Gold and Silver treasures, retreated from the Spaniards. In 1913 National  Geographic featured Bingham’s travels in one edition that brought Machu Picchu, Bingham and National Geographic into prominence.  Bingham was a controversial character and went on later expeditions to Peru. According to Adams he may have been the inspiration for Indiana Jones character in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Adams layers the historical facts with his travel progress so that the book has a narrative cinematic quality. There are some well-drawn maps and black and white photographs included in the book. There is also a glossary that helps with pronunciation of some of the Quechua (Ketch-wah) names.

Mark&John
Mark Adams and John Leivers

Adams writes he “wanted to retrace Bingham’s route through the Andes on the way to discovering Machu Picchu” along with looking at other important locations.  Turn Right at Machu Picchu is more than one man’s journey of exploration and discovery. It leaves you with a feeling that you’ve gone along on this adventure, done the research, heard the many stories, met the intrepid guide, John Leivers, who’s experience makes the journey possible, hiked the mountains, hiked the Inca roads and seen the awesome Apu (mountain) views. There’s also a supporting cast of characters including local Peruvian mule handlers, cooks and others.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu offers new appreciation and insights into Inca architectural and astronomical accomplishments. The Inca employed a method of building with stone and granite that, without the use mortar,  brought the blocks together as flush as any modern building. The built hundreds of miles of small stone paved roads up and down mountains that connected various parts of their dominion. They aligned their cities by the stars and had buildings with windows that would capture the solstices on the appropriate days.

Inca Trail
Inca Trail

If you are planning a trip to Peru, Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, Turn Right At Machu Picchu is a must read and might be something to stuff into your back pack. You can also be an armchair adventurer, this book will make you feel like you are there. No need for a TV, the words create the pictures.

Review by James R Martin – Author Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia

 

 

Daily Show Interview with Mark Adams

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/1tlapy/mark-adams

 

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

 

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.