On 20th April we had our online book launch event for our latest project Ancient Skies of Banat. To find out more about the project (and past publications) have a look at our previous post. The date has a special meaning for me as it is the birthdate of my late dad who I am sure would have enjoyed reading our latest book and participating in the event. We managed to attract 23 participants from around the world curious to discover more about this little-known region of Europe with a long and rich history spanning three countries. While not a big number I am personally thrilled that with each event more and more people choose to listen to us. Not all participants showed up for the event, but as is the case with all of our online events, we shared the recording with them. Unfortunately, Simina was among them as she was traveling during that time. She doesn’t like the spotlight either being more of a hands-on out-of-the-sight key person. Without her, this project would not have seen daylight as she had a vital role in proofreading, editing, and prepping the manuscripts.
If you are still not sure where Banat is here is an image of the area right in the middle of Europe.
I only got hold of a copy a few days before the launch during my visit to Timisoara Romania. I discovered to my astonishment that the publishing house has printed it in color! A first for our books, which despite raising its price considerably, emphasizes the material full of images way better than a b/w could ever achieve.
While I like to talk a lot 🙂 I made an effort this time and allowed each author of the collective volume to describe their experience and summarize the results. I enjoyed listening and watching each of them as they shared their thoughts. We all have put a lot of effort and time into the project that took almost 3 years (my first email to potential authors was sent out on 29th April 2020). We ended up spending more than the allocated hour (despite a brief interruption by Zoom which has reintroduced its 40-minute limit to free meetings) and even had Timisoreana beer (the first one produced in Banat in 1718) to honor the achievement. Words cannot express my happiness and sense of fulfillment seeing the fruit of our long combined effort in this first collective study on astronomy in culture in Banat written entirely in English.
If interested you can check out the video of the event below:
And of course, you can buy the book from here (84 RON ~17 EUR).
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