So, there’s been a flurry of new editions of the book. The paperback is out in the US today, Turkish and Polish editions are now on the shelves (to supplement the Spanish) and the German edition comes out in April. Oh, and a Dutch edition has just been sold too… so watch out for that…!

Mark’s last talk of the year will be addressing Science Communications students at University College London. It’s been a diverse twelve months with talks to everyone from schoolchildren to CEOs. In the New Year Mark will start writing his next book – but also be appearing in places as far apart as the Copenhagen planetarium and the Columbian book festival…

We’re very happy to announce that the book is now available in Spanish – via the truly fantastic publisher Galaxia Gutenberg – who have created a Spanish web site for the book: http://www.galaxiagutenberg.com/. Mark is currently doing a host of Spanish press interviews in Madrid and Barcelona – and is pleased to report that the League of Pragmatic Optimists (la liga del los Optimistas Pragmaticos) will soon have chapters in Spain….

LOPO came about after Mark became constantly inundated with the question “What can I do?” from people reading his book, or attending talks. He realised there was a huge un-tapped army of critical thinking optimists out there, however a lot them either felt isolated within their organisations or were craving other people to bump ideas together and start actually doing something rather than just thinking or talking about it.

LOPO principles:

• We believe in an unashamed optimism of ambition about the future
• We are pragmatists. We meet to help all of us do. Mouths on legs are discouraged
• We believe in involving ourselves in projects that are ‘bigger than me’
• We believe ideas become more powerful when they are shared, not protected
• Your anecdotes are nice, but your evidence is better
• We all aim to police our own cynicism, and keep it in check
• Making mistakes is OK, but not trying is irresponsible
• LOPO is a-political. All stripes welcome as long as you’re not here to promote your stripes

Already there are offers to launch chapters in NY, Boston, Princeton and Oxford. Our test event in London is on Oct 12th – already oversubscribed but regular meetings will be in the diary soon…

www.leagueofpragmaticoptimists.com

A substantial book tour of the US is planned for February (including live events at Google HQ, Microsoft HQ and the US Treasury Institute – as well as a host of national press), while UK and European press appearances are shaping up nicely with coverage in The Sunday Times, The New Statesman, Radio London, Brand Eins and the Irish Times to name but a few… We’ll update the ‘Events’ and ‘Press’ sections when everything is firmed up…