Happy New Year!

As I welcomed in 2024 watching a truly impressive fireworks display over downtown Providence, Rhode Island, I decided that one of my New Year’s resolutions needed to be paying more attention to this website and creating some new blog posts for the new year. As I’ve shared in earlier posts, during the last few months of 2023 I was preoccupied with finally getting my book published and trying to promote it.

At Home in the World: Reflections of a Travel Addict is for sale in both paperback and e-book formats at Amazon.com. While it’s not likely to crack the New York Times Best Seller List anytime soon, it has received a dozen 5-star reviews on Amazon and I’ve had a lot of very positive feedback about it. If you’ve purchased it already, thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll take a couple minutes to post a review of it on Amazon. I’ve noticed that even a single purchase or the addition of one review can boost the book’s sales ranking on Amazon considerably, so every little bit helps.

If you haven’t gotten the book yet, I hope you’ll consider buying a copy. For anyone living close to southeastern Massachusetts, I’ll be doing two public Author Nights/Book Signings this month. The first, hosted by Friends of the Millicent Library in Fairhaven, Massachusetts will be Wednesday, January 10 from 6:30 to 7:30PM. Next, the main branch of the New Bedford Public Library in my hometown of New Bedford, Massachusetts will have me as a guest on Wednesday, January 17 from 6:30 to 7:30. Books will be on sale and available for me to sign at these events.

In November I turned 65 years old, a landmark birthday. My dear friend Judy sent me a set of Roman numeral birthday candles, allowing me to replace the 65 individual candles that could have potentially started a house fire with a simple L, X and V. Now that I am officially a Massachusetts resident, what better birthday cake to place the candles on but a Boston Cream Pie from Flour Bakery in Boston. It was a memorable birthday, and I’m gradually adjusting to the shock of realizing I’m now on Medicare.

Now that my birthday and the holidays are behind me, I have a couple of blog posts I’m working on that I’ll be posting soon, so please stay tuned. I’ve also started pondering some ideas for another book, but that is a bit further off. Meanwhile, I hope that all of your holidays over the past two months were joyful, bright, and merry and that the new year will bring all of us good health, peace of mind, time with loved ones, and of course, more happy travels.

Thanks for reading, and Happy 2024!

Matt