The winner
We got a huge number of submissions to the How To book tour challenge, and I’m delighted to announce the winner: The How To book tour will be taking me to Juneau, Alaska, thanks to an entry from Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley Public Library.
The 98-person entry was submitted in a series of four amazing YouTube videos: Video 1 / Video 2 / Video 3 / Video 4.
I’m a sucker for (a) public libraries, and (b) people who get so excited about glaciers that they lose their train of thought.
Runners-up
There were countless fantastic entries, a just few of which I want to highlight here.
The Content Bookstore in Northfield, MN organized over 60 patrons into a choose-your-own-adventure story.
The Sacramento Public Library hosted an enormous collection of stories, including one which appears to confess to a bank robbery:
Benton Lowey-Ball of Neptune Beach, Florida wrote and self-published a book, A Shameless Attempt at Convincing Randall Munroe to put Neptune Beach, Florida on his Book Tour: A tale of Necromancers and Skydiving, specifically for this challenge.
And Naitian Zhou of Ann Arbor, Michigan built an interactive tool that can generate arbitrary grammatical sentences using Python language tools and a database of book titles.
We’ll be reaching out to the runners-up to send them a signed book or a personalized drawing of their bookstore or library. Thank you so much to everyone who participated!
Tour updates
The How To book tour starts on September 3rd in Cambridge. I’ll be appearing in conversation with some very cool people, including researchers, journalists, and cartoonists. We’ll be discussing How To, science, comics, the destruction of the universe, and the ethics of hitting drones with tennis balls.
Some of the events are already sold out, so if you want to attend, you may want to get tickets now!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 | CAMBRIDGE, MA
In Conversation with Kate Darling | Tickets and information
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 4 | WASHINGTON, DC
In Conversation with Alexandra Petri | **SOLD OUT***
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 5 | NEW YORK, NY
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 6 | ANN ARBOR, MI
In Conversation with Jim Ottaviani | Tickets and information
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 8 | PORTLAND, OR
Event information coming soon. To pre-order the book with Powell’s, click here.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 9 | SEATTLE, WA
In Conversation with Ken Jennings | Tickets and information
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 10 | SAN BERKELEY, CA
In Conversation with Adam Savage | Tickets and information
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 11 | SAN FRANCISCO, CA
In Conversation with Ariel Waldman | RSVP/more information
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 11 | SANTA CRUZ, CA
In Conversation with Cory Doctorow | Tickets and information
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12 | LOS ANGELES, CA
In conversation with Kyle Hill | Tickets and information
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14 | SALT LAKE CITY, UT
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 16 | KANSAS CITY, MO
In Conversation with Bill Amend | Tickets and information
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 17 | CINCINNATI, OH
In Conversation with Dean Regas | Tickets and information
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 18 | LOUISVILLE, KY
In Conversation with Sean Cannon | ***SOLD OUT***
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 19 | RALEIGH, NC
In Conversation with Katie Mack | ***SOLD OUT***
I hope to see you there!
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