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Outside Temperature: 24 °F
Outside Relative Humidity: 81%

Sunrise: 7:05 AM EST

December 26, 2021 - Falmouth, MA
In this issue:
The Turning Earth
What are you reading?
Residential Ventilation Handbook V3
Annie's Book Stop
Benjamin Bunny & The Rabbit Hole
PHR Books
PHR Work In-Progress

The Turning Earth -
Maybe I'm just impressed by seemingly small stuff like the earth going around and around on its axis and moving around the sun. Today this newsletter will go out before the sun rises at about 7 AM EST here on Cape Cod. Way back last June 27th the sun

rose at 5:10 AM EDT. Of course people notice that it is darker in the morning and darker in the evening, but I don't think many people actually think about what TIME the sun rises each day. And in my building science classes, students are amazed when I ask them where the sun rises, and I tell them it's not always due east. A couple of days a year the sun rises and sets in direct line with the cross streets in Manhattan in NYC. That happens around December 5th and January 8th because Manhattan was laid out on a slightly off east/west axis so it doesn't happen quite in harmony with the solstice. But still ...
Those changes of sun position and angle make a world of difference in solar gain in houses, how overhangs effect shading, and how the Anasazi knew how to build their homes that were shaded and protected by cliffs. If we are going to live in harmony with this earth, we have to see it - every day and not take it for granted. As James Taylor said, "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."
Stay well,

Paul@paulhraymer.com

What are you reading?

I just finished reading Beyond the First Draft by Laurel Yourke. This is an excellent resource for getting the words in the right places in your novel.

And I decided that I needed to read John Steinbeck's East of Eden to get a picture of an evil character - Cathy Ames.
These are the books that I have reviewed in this newsletter over the past year:

Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
Color of Blood - Keith Yocum
Roseanna - Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo
17 Church Row - James Carol
House by the Sea - Louise Douglass
One Last Lie - Paul Doiron
In the Ground - Jeff Carson
Universal Baseball Association - Robert Coover
Claire DeWitt and The City of the Dead - Sara Gran
Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
How to Write a Novel - Grant Richards
Roget's Thesaurus - Roget
The Searcher - Tana French
The Red Lotus - Chris Bohjalian
A Whisper Came - Keith Yocum
Out of the Woods - Troy Clarkson
Private Viewing - Geoff Palmer
Unfinished Business - J.A. Jance
Joie de Vivre - James Weber
Man in the Middle - Jim Nelson
The End of Everything - Megan Abbott
Dead by Dawn - Paul Doiron
Murder for a Worthy Cause - Neal Sanders
The Locker - Ted Nulty
Exit - Belinda Bauer

I would welcome your thoughts on what you are reading or have been reading. And if you have thoughts on any of these worthy works, let me know.

Residential Ventilation Handbook V3

Work with me here. Version 2 of my Residential Ventilation Handbook was published in 2017 - almost five years ago. The physics of moving air around a house don't change much. But the technology does. Certainly the issues of the pandemic have focused our attention on air movement. In fact, one of the "stay healthy" suggestions besides wearing a mask is to open a window. That was a mandate from the 1918 pandemic in New York City and why the steam radiators there are so oversized.

Anyway, I digress. I am planning on issuing a new edition and updating stuff. Updating the codes from the 2015 editions would be helpful (I personally find that a very useful part of the book.) I also want to increase the information about balanced ventilation which is becoming a very popular topic. It is important to design, install, balance and commission the systems. They're not simple to get installed for optimal performance.

I have also been asked to put in more information about existing building work. Putting ventilation into existing buildings is no easy task, but there are a lot of existing buildings out there that need help.

So here's what I'm asking: there are a lot of very smart and very experienced readers of this newsletter. Many of you have worked with a lot of ventilation systems. Most of you have lived with mechanical ventilation systems. I would welcome your input. If you have read the book (Residential Ventilation Handbook), are there elements that you would like to see amplified or changed or deleted? If you haven't read the book, just send me some anecdotes about your experiences with fans or ventilation systems. (Of course you could buy the book and start from there!)

Bookshop.org supports local bookshops and writers. They have raised over $18 million for bookshops! Click the link below to visit the books I have reviewed in this newsletter. Thank you.

Click for books and bookshops mentioned here

Annie's Book Stop

Come in to Annie's to see our great selection of New Releases as well as those 'old familiars' in our pre-read sections. A little something for everyone!

CO-JEAN PLAZA
575 SOUTH STREET WEST
RAYNHAM, MA 02767
508-823-9696

Benjamin Bunny & The Rabbit Hole

Publisher Rocket: I have just started using this one - an end-of-the-year-deal. I am not a big fan of marketing. I've had to do a great deal of it in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean that I enjoy it. Some people are naturals at sales. Publisher Rocket promises to take a lot of the hassles away so I "can spend less time marketing and more time writing". It is specifically talking about marketing through Amazon and Amazon advertising. Since I am about to embark on the promotion of Second Law, I need all the marketing help I can get.

Vellum: Vellum formats and transports your Word document to any platform. When I finished writing Death at the Edge of the Diamond, I struggled to figure out how to move to an Epub or Mobi file format. I bought formatting software. I sampled Adobe for the conversion to PDF. I worked with Calibre, but none of it worked smoothly and easily and the final result was not satisfactory. Vellum does it all in a breeze. And there is very little to learn. Feed it your Word document, do a few tweaks, and bingo you have a professional looking final product. I can't recommend it too highly.

Sleep: This is not an app, but it is a great article by my friend and colleague, Rick Karg. Most of us practice the art of sleeping every single day for as much as 8 hours. You would think that we would have developed the skill to perfection. But maybe we're missing something. (I, for one, am determined to keep practicing until I get it right.)

PHR Books
Residential Ventilation Handbook V2
Recalculating Truth
Death at the Edge of the Diamond
Also available on-line and in fine bookshops.

PHR Work In-Progress
Second Law is still in the editing garage. Closing in on six months to launch! These are new steps for me. Read a bunch. There's a lot of advice out there. Stay tuned.

Click for the Wonderful Winter Fiction Giveaway

If you enjoyed this issue, please share it. "Thank you for the privilege of your time!" - Jose Diaz-Balart

Forward

Salty Air Publishing Newsletter is a free, bi-weekly newsletter from Paul H. Raymer that launched in 2020. More than 1,000 subscribers receive it. Knowing that you are giving me your time to read these words, it is my goal to be as interesting and helpful as possible.

Thank you! You can support it by giving me feedback and sharing the newsletter with friends and colleagues.