I've Told You A Thousand Times: The 1000th Further-Review

Good morning! Thank you very much for turning to my Further Reviw page to see what I’ve come up with for you today!

However, my topic this morning is a little unusual: I’m writing about the Further Review page itself and my work as creator of Further Review.

As I hope you’ve heard by now, we have a hardcover Further Review book coming out next month. But the real reason I’m writing about my own work today: You’re looking at the 1,000th Further Review page I’ve built for The Spokesman-Review!

How Do You Choose Your Topics?

When I first started doing the full-page thing full time at the Orange County (California) Register in 2013, the editor there gave me one instruction: “Indulge yourself.”

And so I did. We had a good amount of success at the Register with what they called the Focus page. Years later, one of my colleagues at the Register, Rob Curley, became the editor of The Spokesman-Review and hired me to work long-distance from my home near Atlanta to create the same sort of page. Rob called it the Further Review page. And wisely, I think, he’s given me the same instruction.

I like science. I like history. I like pop culture. I like political science. Most of all, though, I like telling an interesting story in an interesting way. As I do my research, I’m always looking for an interesting visual “hook” for my story: behind-the-scenes facts that aren’t well known. Numbers I’ve never seen charted. I know that when I can find something like that, I’m on my way to creating a fun page.

How Do You Research Your Pages?

I worked at the Raleigh, North Carolina, News & Observer in the early 1990s, where we were one of the first two newspapers to go online and to provide internet access to every newsroom employee (the other was the San Jose, California, Mercury News). So I learned very early the value of internet research and how to tell between trusted, authoritative sources and sites that weren’t so reliable.

Even though I’ve been called the World’s Fastest Googler (trademark not exactly pending), I prefer to rely on old-school technology: books!

Yes, I’m a book junkie! As of this writing, my home reference library consists of 2,768 books in 17 bookcases in the two-room suite where I built my Further Review pages. I have three entire bookcases on U.S. history. Two entire bookcases on political science. Two entire bookcases on science, NASA histories and astronaut biographies. Three entire bookcases on pop music, movies and television.

This is why my wife dreads my occasional visits to Spokane: I’ll shop at Auntie’s and Page 42 and come back with so many books that we have to buy more shelves!

If you ever wonder what sources I’m using on a particular page, check out the list of sources I very carefully list — usually at the bottom left.

This is about a third of my home reference library.

What's This 'Further Review' Book?

This is a collection of 97 of my history-themed Further Review pages, reconfigured from a full newspaper page to a double-page book spread and reprinted in a full-color, hardcover coffee table-style book.

Why did we choose history for this book? Most of my pages are history oriented. I felt like this would have broader appeal to the bookbuying public.

I started working on this last winter and pretty much had it done by the end of March. Since then, it’s been edited, processed and I’m told the publisher will begin printing it on Oct. 10. The book ships to those who have preordered it on Nov. 15.

My work has appeared in books before — I drew maps for a Civil War historian once and I designed and illustrated a book by a management consultant. And my work has appeared in two books this same publisher, Pediment, created for my former employer, the Houston Chronicle: one on Hurricane Harvey and one on Apollo 11.

But this is the first book where it’s my name on the cover and all my material inside! I’m extremely excited about it!

Now, if you’re interested in ordering a copy, I suggest you do it now: Pediment is offering 25% off for those of you who preorder the book — but that offer expires on Oct. 9: that’s Wednesday!

Preorders are available at Apple.PictorialBook.com

1,000 Further Reviews

... since March, 27th, 2017 -- not counting rerun pages.