Jim Wood - Thirty Words

Thirty Words is a concept-driven product readers will find engaging, enjoyable, and thought-provoking. It is a “One Sitting Wonder” readers will share with friends and family and regularly revisit. Left on a coffee table, it could spoil a dinner party; guests won’t want to put it down. Author Jim Wood is a cofounder of and contributor to Marin Magazine (where his wife Nikki is the publisher). 

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ABOUT THIS EVENT

• This event will be hosted by Book Passage at our Corte Madera store.
• Free Admission / Open Seating
• Following the presentation, there will be a signing line or a meet-and-greet.
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It’s doubtful there’s ever been a book like Thirty Words – Photos Taken Over 50 years that Define 30 Words. It is a “One Sitting Wonder” readers will share with friends and family and regularly revisit. Left on a coffee table, it could spoil a dinner party; guests won’t want to put it down.

You could say it took 50 years to create THIRTY WORDS. Yet author Jim Wood is adamant in saying: “Between 1975 and 2025, I never shot a photo with a book in mind. I’m not a photographer, I’m a ‘point and shoot’ kind of guy; my cameras were always on ‘automatic.’” Still, Wood’s photos are stunning—and his brief captions are insightful and enlightening.

THIRTY WORDS resulted from Wood finding over 2,400 Kodachrome slides—many from a distant past—while cleaning his garage. After almost throwing them out, he selected 196 of the best photos and organized them into this one-of-a-kind creation.

Among pictures taken in 1975 are two of Wood’s daughters that personify the words Love and Happiness. Taken 50 years later are pictures of New York City’s skyline and the allure of Central Park that bring to mind the words Gotham and Trees.

The attention-getting cover of THIRTY WORDS features a pooch pleasantly perched on a torn couch in the South Bronx of 1981. Wood believes this photo exemplifies Serenity. His 146-page soft-covered book measures 11” x 8.5” and was designed by artist Don McCartney, whose 54-year career includes spells as production artist for Rolling Stone Magazine and as art director of the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle.

Author Jim Wood is a cofounder of and contributor to Marin Magazine (where his wife Nikki is the publisher). He is an active 60-year-old look-alike who was in fact born 90 years ago (May of 1936).

THIRTY WORDS is a concept-driven product readers will find engaging, enjoyable, and thought-provoking.

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What can be said with certainty about Thirty Words author Jim Wood is that he’s been around for a long time. Yet THIRTY WORDS is Wood’s first real chance of getting a book published.

Wood, who just turned 90, is an energetic resident of California’s Marin County, where he and his wife Nikki founded the acclaimed and enduring Marin Magazine. Wood is a “high contact gardener” which means he works on steep terrains, whacking away waste, high weeds, and laboring long hours in warm weather. He does this both on his own property and with a group of volunteers who develop and maintain community beautification projects.

Wood’s business card identifies him as a “Weeder and Reader.” Books are his passion. His recent readings include Buckeye; Theo of Golden; A Life of Paul Gauguin and A Marriage at Sea. In addition to reading and gardening, Wood’s interests include art of all forms, country music, vintage toy cars and fitness.

For the past 40 years Wood has practiced the yoga routine called Tibetan Rites or, The Ancient Secret to the Fountain of Youth. Jim Wood’s appearance belies that of his age. His recent physical exam ended with his doctor declaring, “You’re in great shape . . . for a sixty-year-old.” As for his disposition? That depends on the football fortunes of his alma mater, UCLA.

Following graduation Wood spent the early 1960s as a U.S. Navy aviation intelligence officer. He then built and sold a Southern California real estate business before marrying Nikki and devoting four decades to writing for magazines the two have owned and published. The couple moved to Northern California in 2002.

Jim Wood - photos courtesy of the author