Thousands of books are published every day somewhere in the world, as ebooks and, to a lesser extent, paperbacks. I know lots of people love the feel of a book in their hands, and the smell of books. I used to be one of those but these days I prefer ebooks. I can change the font and the size of the print to make it easier on elderly eyes and then, of course, there’s the much greater portability. Your ereader can store thousands of books and takes up less room than a paperback.
But what do I do when a publisher refuses to produce an ebook for a title I lust after?
Village in the Sky and Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt have been released in epub – but I can’t buy them in Australia. I mean, really??? Why? It’s because of territorial rights granted to publishers but these days surely that’s stupid. By the way, they’re not available from my local library in ebook, either. I’m frustrated and unhappy.
Moving right along, I’m glad to read that genuine climate scientists are becoming alarmed at some of the over-the-top rhetoric being spouted by people who should know better. Here’s an example.
“The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record.” [source]
Not all scientists agree. Journalist Adam Creighton spoke to Cliff Mass for an article titled Top climate scientists rubbish claims July was the hottest month ever.
“Cliff Mass, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at University of Washington, said the public was being “misinformed on a massive scale” following a deluge of news reports that summer heatwaves in the US and Europe had pushed July’s average temperature above 17 degrees, and allegedly to the highest level in 120,000 years.
“It‘s terrible. I think it’s a disaster. There’s a stunning amount of exaggeration and hype of extreme weather and heatwaves, and it’s very counter-productive,” he told The Australian in an interview.”
In the same article John Christy, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alabama at Huntsville said, “I haven‘t seen anything yet this summer that’s an all time record for these long term stations, 1936 still holds by far the record for the most number of stations with the hottest ever temperatures,” he told The Australian, referring to the year of a great heatwave in North America that killed thousands.
Despite that, we’re still crippling our economy, and the most vulnerable of our population, by trying to meet an absurd ‘net zero’ target which will not affect the global emissions one iota. It makes us angry.
On a more serious note, a serial paedophile has been charged with over 1,600 child abuse offences – including rape of pre-pubescent girls. This despicable individual hid his activities very well. He worked for fifteen years in child care centres, mainly in Brisbane but also New South Wales and overseas. He had passed all the checks required to allow him access to children. This is called Blue Card vetting and there’s an explanation here. He was eventually caught because he couldn’t resist the temptation to show off his exploits on the dark web.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the parents of these little girls to learn their children had been molested. They had entrusted their kids to facilities which were supposed to look after them and keep them safe. We don’t have the death penalty in Australia but I believe prison inmates tend not to like child molesters. Stick him in jail without any special protection and let nature take its course.
On the reading front, I’ve downloaded quite a few cheap books via Bookbub and not found many I cared to read past a chapter or two. I’ve resorted to re-reading some blasts from the past, including a couple of Agatha Christies I read at least thirty years ago. I remember getting peeved with The Mystery of the Blue Train back then. But this time I thoroughly enjoyed the complex plot.
Apart from that, I’m re-reading for the nth time my paperback copy of Infinity Beach (for some reason the title is Slow Lightning in Australia but I re-bought the book via an American site). I love that book. You’ll find my review here.
I suppose I’ll have to buy Village in the Sky and Octavia Gone in paperback as well.
- Illustration via Midjourney
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