Who Do I Contact?

[vulcan42]

I recently bought a book regarding the atomic age through the history of 6 nuclear disasters. There is a factual mistake in it so who would I contact to rectify this, the publishers, the author- or both? Some might say don't bother but as it stands it's rewriting history.

[Peter Pedant]

author
keep it straight - he may just have got that bit wrong, rather than, as happens so often on B, he was trying to mislead

and send him a list of typos - they are always grateful for that.

what was it by the way

[ToraToraTora]

what is the factual error?

[davebro]

It's out there - you can't rectify it in any meaningful way.

[douglas9401]

An all too familiar situation, davebro.

[ToraToraTora]

I read this book the other day where it is claimed that this bloke turned water into wine! How do we get that corrected?

[jno]

author or publisher. They won't be able to anything instant about it but if there's a second edition they can correct it.

Or if you write a review on Amazon or similar site, point it out there.

[ToraToraTora]

as a matter of interest what are the 6? I can think of only 3. 3 mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukishima. I also thought of windscale but that wasn't really a disaster as such.

[bhg481]

I wrote to the author c/o the publisher when I found an error in a book. I got a chatty reply from the author thanking me for pointing it out and saying it would be corrected in later editions.

[TheWinner]

The publisher. Find their customer service page and their contact details should be on there. They will then contact the author. The following is just an example.
https://harpercollins.co.uk/pages/customer-service

[jno]

is it Atoms and Ashes?

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Hymie]

Worryingly, Wikipedia lists 28 nuclear disasters that either resulted in loss of life and/or loss of over US$100 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

[douglas9401]

Whatever it is, it seems like a secret.

[vulcan42]

Sorry douglas, I didn't realise there was a time limit for answering. Thank you all for your replies and suggestions. Yes, the book is Atoms and Ashes by Serhii Plokhy. In the great scheme of things the mistake isn't large but I believe that if you're going to write a factual book at least get the facts right. On Page 128 he writes " The weapon was dropped off the tip of Christmas Island, Britain's usual testing ground in the Indian Ocean off the Australian coast, by a British bomber at 8:47 pm local time on Friday, November 8, 1957."

Britain's nuclear testing was on Christmas Island (now Kiritimati) in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles south of Hawaii and about 4 thousand from Australia. The Americans also carried out a series of tests there in 1962 under operation Dominic.

[jno]

wrong Christmas Island? Well, let them know at least.

[davebro]

Reminds me of the BBT:

Sheldon - who do I see about reserving this table for my Thursday hamburger?

Penny - I don't know, a psychiatrist?