The Amazon Trail Global Warning

Her most recent book, An American Queer, a collection of “The Amazon Trail” columns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthology/Collection Creative Non Fiction. This, and her award-winning fiction, including The Raid, The Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at http://www.boldstrokes-books.com/Author-Lee-Lynch.html.

- Lee Lynch

I used to encourage LGBTQ (aka Q) people to write by telling them, “We need to make sure they can’t burn all the books.” While the burning and banning of books persist in a limited way, now it’s entirely possible to delete every single book.

In terms of personal preference, I read electronic books. With a couple of swipes, I increase the fonts for easier reading. Despite arthritis, I can hold the heaviest of tomes. Health insurance should cover these miracle devices.

At the same time, with a few swipes and clicks, I can remove these books from their electronic pages. How many more strokes would it take to erase my whole electronic library? All the digital books in a public library? All the libraries in the world?

I started thinking about this threat while reading in “The New Yorker Magazine” (July 16, 2018) about a Chinese company, JD.com, which the article described as “…the third-largest tech company in the world in terms of revenue…” Amazon is first in revenue, followed by Alphabet.