Amazon’s error

On July 9, activist Mark Lynas’ book The God Species inexplicably went off Amazon’s list.

The UK author, who has attracted the ire of greens for his support for nuclear energy, suspected censorship. But the book was restored on in half a day. Lynas wrote on his website, “... the complaints received about the book, which resulted in it being taken offline, may have been regarding its description as ‘hardback’ when in fact the copies sold are in the ‘trade paperback’.” Amazon apologised.

But the author did note its explanation seemed odd as the screenshot of the page when the book was offline shows it listed as “paperback”. “This does perhaps illustrate the dangers of market concentration when a single online bookseller now controls 70 per cent of the UK market,” he wrote.