Books Monthly
April 2024
Now here's a funny thing...
It will come as no surprise to you that I compile the pages of Books Monthly using publishers' blurbs and cover images from wherever is most convenient, depending on how much creative time I have at my disposal. For a variety of reasons, this month has been a bit tight for time, and I left myself five days to do the five main pages: Fiction, SF and Fantasy, Children's, Nonfiction and Nostalgia. Here we are, Friday 29th March and I still have this page and the nostalgia page to do, along with my review of a couple of books the publishers sent me this month. For speed and convenience, I went onto Amazon for my blurbs and images this month, only to find that they've done something to their book cover images that prevents me from using them. They are in a different format from the usual JPEG images that are used all over the web. For the life of me I can't think of a valid reason why they would do such a thing. I know that various artists protect their paintings so that other web users can't "pinch" them and use them, even for the purpose of paying tribute to them. But publishers' book cover images have always been in JPEG format, and it's not as though they are the intellectual property of Amazon, they have put them through some sort of process to render them unusable for other people, like myself, who make no money from their publication and simply want them for illustrative purposes. This must have cost Amazon time and money, but for what purposes? Instead of using Amazon's images, I simply typed in the name of the books for which I needed the covers, and in seconds was able to track down the covers I wanted (needed!). I can't help but wonder what Amazon were hoping to achieve with this futile exercise. Now to the books in this month's issue. My nonfiction book of the month remains Prof. Alice Roberts's "CRYPT", although my April book of the month is, as you can see, Stephen King's YOU LIKE IT DARKER. I'm hoping that in the next issue I will have something to say about it, but for now, there's the cover image (not from Amazon, of course), and the publisher's blurb is on the fiction page. In the meantime, as always, Happy Reading and see you in April...
The small print: Books Monthly is published by Paul Norman. 2024 is the 26th year of publication. You can contact me at paulenorman1@gmail.com
It will come as no surprise to you that I compile the pages of Books Monthly using publishers' blurbs and cover images from wherever is most convenient, depending on how much creative time I have at my disposal. For a variety of reasons, this month has been a bit tight for time, and I left myself five days to do the five main pages: Fiction, SF and Fantasy, Children's, Nonfiction and Nostalgia. Here we are, Friday 29th March and I still have this page and the nostalgia page to do, along with my review of a couple of books the publishers sent me this month. For speed and convenience, I went onto Amazon for my blurbs and images this month, only to find that they've done something to their book cover images that prevents me from using them. They are in a different format from the usual JPEG images that are used all over the web. For the life of me I can't think of a valid reason why they would do such a thing. I know that various artists protect their paintings so that other web users can't "pinch" them and use them, even for the purpose of paying tribute to them. But publishers' book cover images have always been in JPEG format, and it's not as though they are the intellectual property of Amazon, they have put them through some sort of process to render them unusable for other people, like myself, who make no money from their publication and simply want them for illustrative purposes. This must have cost Amazon time and money, but for what purposes? Instead of using Amazon's images, I simply typed in the name of the books for which I needed the covers, and in seconds was able to track down the covers I wanted (needed!). I can't help but wonder what Amazon were hoping to achieve with this futile exercise. Now to the books in this month's issue. My nonfiction book of the month remains Prof. Alice Roberts's "CRYPT", although my April book of the month is, as you can see, Stephen King's YOU LIKE IT DARKER. I'm hoping that in the next issue I will have something to say about it, but for now, there's the cover image (not from Amazon, of course), and the publisher's blurb is on the fiction page. In the meantime, as always, Happy Reading and see you in April...
The small print: Books Monthly is published by Paul Norman. 2024 is the 26th year of publication. You can contact me at paulenorman1@gmail.com