The Kindle Chronicles

Latest Episodes:

TKC 542 Kovid Goyal Dec 22, 2018

Show notes

Creator of Calibre

Interview starts at 9:53 and ends at 43:03

"So the first and most important thing that is different between a Calibre library and your Kindle collection is that you actually own the books in your Calibre library, whereas you stream them from Amazon for your Kindle collection. "

News

Bradley Metrock on Barnes & Noble

Will Amazon buy Target? Jefferson Graham's Talking Tech podcast (look for episode dated December 18, 2018)

Amazon Treasure Truck

Rocketbook Everlast Smart Reusable Notebook

Tech Tip

How to play Apple Music on Amazon Echo devices - Business Insider

Moby Dick by Herman Melville at Standard EBooks

Vector robot from Anki

Interview with Kovid Goyal

Calibre

Calibre listing of eBooks free of Digital Rights Management

Next Week's Guest

Chris Walton, an original thinker in retail strategy and frequent Forbes contributor

Debut of "Ocean Park Blues"

Click here for a free download of my debut song, "Ocean Park Blues," recorded this week at The Bridge Sound & Stage in Cambridge, Mass. My thanks to Mertz, the sound engineer who did a fantastic job capturing my song in a very presentable form, and to my amazing guitar teacher, Steve Netsky, who helped me bring this song all the way home.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 541 Post-Apocalyptic Author Tom Abrahams Dec 14, 2018

Show notes

TV news anchor and author of the Traveler series

Interview starts at 10:21 and ends at 41:59

"Writing is a muscle, I think. If you don't use it you lose that. Because I write every day both creatively and for my job, I think that's part of what helps me to write as much as I do as quickly as I do. I write under deadline, so creating my own self-imposed deadlines is pretty easy. It's just instead of having a time deadline I have a word-count deadline or a date. I think doing one every day actually helps doing the other every day."

News

"Amazon has Thrown in the Towel on a Third Bookstore" by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader - December 7, 2018

Amazon's physical stores

"Amazon Kindle Audible Bundle is now available" by Michael Kozlowski at Good E-Reader - December 9, 2018

Kindle Paperwhite Audible bundle - $139

Tech Tip

"You can now ask Amazon Alexa to read your email messages and respond by voice--here's how" by Todd Haselton at CNBC - December 10, 2018

Interview with Tom Abrahams

Tom Abrahams author page at Amazon.com

The Traveler (6 Book Series) by Tom Abrahams

The Alt Apocalypse (4 Book Series) by Tom Abrahams

"President George H. W. Bush's aide Jim McGrath reflects on 'perfect' man" - Tom Abrahams story on ABC13 TV - December 2, 2018

Content

"What a 19th-century French novel tells us about Jeff Bezos and Amazon" by Ciara Byrne at FastCompany - December 10, 2018

The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola

Outro

Thanks to Colter and Jaego for closing out this episode with their rousing rendition of the Australian national anthem. Their Dad's podcast is The Sustainability Puzzle by Dan Short.

Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording" CD.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 540 Writer David Hopkins Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

Author of We Miss All the Great Parties

Interview starts at 2:12 and ends at 35:59

"I had this traditionalist view that I wanted to hold the paper book and feel the turning of the page. I was absolutely wrong in my assumptions. Reading on an eReader felt like reading. It was still this sort of cuddly, warm, meditative, reflective experience. I could sit and read for hours on it. It fit in my jacket pocket, and I could take it with me, and I found that I was reading more when I had my digital reader."

News

"Amazon Prime Health is coming, according to an early investor" by Mark Sullivan at FastCompany - November 30, 2018

Morning Consult picks Amazon as the most-loved brand in the U.S.

Interview with David Hopkins

"How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization: The one where we retain our sanity in a stupid world" by David Hopkins at Medium - March 22, 2016

Articles published by David Hopkins in D Magazine

David Hopkins at Medium

"Friends" on Netflix

Pod Save America

"The Unfortunate Appeal of the Heroic Idiot" TEDxSMU talk by David Hopkins - December 9, 2016

Wim Bens, president & Founder of Lakewood Brewing Co.

We Miss All the Great Parties by David Hopkins

Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers

"The Lowest Animal" by Mark Twain (PDF)

Slouching Toward Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion

The Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman

"'Yeah, I'm Not for Everyone.' Lena Dunham comes to terms with herself" by Allison P. Davis at New York Magazine - November 2, 2018

Ask Me Anything

When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning

"Gobble Gobble - What's the Deal with Thanksgiving?"

Next Week's Guest

Tom Abrahams, author of Home: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 1)

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

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TKC 539 Ask Me Anything Dec 01, 2018

Show notes

Host of the Kindle Chronicles

News

"Amazon gets into the blockchain with Quantum Ledger Database & Managed Blockchain" by Sara Perez at TechCrunch - November 28, 2018

Bitcoin Price Plummets

CoinBase (my app of choice for buying Bitcoin)

"Apple Music to launchy on Amazon Echo speakers" by Tim Bradsha at The Financial Times - November 29, 2018

"Introducing medical language processing with Amazon Comprehend Medical" by Dr. Taha A. Kass-Hout and Dr. Matt Wood at the AWS blog - November 27, 2018

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

eBook promotions on Black Friday in Poland

Ask Me Anything (AMA) links

2010 TKC episode recorded at Tau Game Lodge in South Africa (audio only)

TKC 378 Hola from Ecuador!s

TKC 529 interview with author Scott Pratt, recorded at Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, Maine

TKC 336 interview with poet John Ashbery

Next Week's Guest

Tom Abrahams, author of Home: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 1)

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 538 Future-Fitness Buff James McQuivey Nov 22, 2018

Show notes

Vice Principal and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

Interview starts at 2:28 and ends at 38:32

"Nobody can see the future, but what we can see from the past is that it unfolds according to certain properties. What [Virginia Postrel, author of The Future and Its Enemies] wrote that was so compelling was that the best properties to help that unfold in the best way are properties of experimentation, of testing, of openness, of collaboration, of letting people try what people do in an environment where they get feedback from the marketplace and then they can respond."

Interview with James McQuivey

Bradley Metrock's This Week in Voice interview with Brian Roemmelle, starting at Roemelle's estimate that Amazon has 10,000 people working on Alexa. November 15, 2018

Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation by James McQuivey

Paleo cheese puffs by LesserEvil at Amazon.com

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky

The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress by Virginia Postrel

Content

"Ben Sasse: By the Book" in The New York Times - November 21, 2018

Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal by Ben Sasse

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

Moby Dick: or, the White Whale by Herman Melville

Next Week's Show

Since Darlene and I will be traveling next week in Tucson and Denver, I'm thinking of doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) show based on your questions or comments. Please email them to me at podchronicles AT gmail DOT com. Thanks!

Outro

Vector robot by Anki at Amazon.com

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 537 Books Evangelist Chris Schluep Nov 17, 2018

Show notes

Amazon Books Senior Editor

Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 39:11

"We often talk about accessibility. We start there. We talk about quality of writing. The story is important, obviously. Maybe the thing that gets you over the line is your visceral reaction to the book. How much are you willing to argue for it? You win some, and you lose some. Ultimately I think we come up with a great list. Every book on the Top 20 is a great book."

News

Amazon's announcement of HQ2

Jeff Bezos tells employees that one day Amazon will fail. (CNBC)

Author Scott Pratt dies in an auto accident (The Passive Voice)

The Sins of the Mother by Scott Pratt and Mark Stout

Richard Hollick's sensible take on HQ2 (Making Book)

Amazon's Black Friday Week deals

Tech Tip

Amazon Key Home Delivery

Interview with Chris Schluep

Amazon Best Books of 2018 list

The Amazon Book Review Podcast, available via iTunes

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Content

Amazon's Best Books of 2018

Next Week's Guest

James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research

Outro

9News Anchor Steve Staeger interviews me about being Carless in Denver.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 536 Indie Author Michael C. Grumley Nov 10, 2018

Show notes

Author of the Breakthrough series

Interview starts at 9:36 and ends at 40:28

News

Amazon to split HQ2 between two cities (Wall Street Journal)

Amazon announces free shipping with no minimum purchase for the holidays

My video of a dunk test for the all-new Kindle Paperwhite plus Darlene's comments

Interview with Michael C. Grumley

Breakthrough series by Michael C. Grumley: Breakthrough, Leap, Catalyst, and Ripple

Words with Friends

"Could we speak the language of dolphins?" TED2013 talk by Denise Herzing

"Can we really do it? The language of dolphins could be translated by 2012" by Michael C. Grumley - May 8, 2017

Content

Amazon Book Review podcast

The Washington Post recommends 10 books to read in November

Comments

CZUR scanner

Next Week's Guest

Chris Schluep, Amazon's Senior Editor for books, talking about his team's picks for the best books of 2018.

For those interested in our experience with a Tesla Model 3, I uploaded a new episode of The Edge of the Road Podcast detailing some minor problems with the car. I still love it, though.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 535 Macmillan Podcast VP Kathy Doyle Nov 02, 2018

Show notes

Vice President, Macmillan Podcasts & QDT

Interview starts at 9:43 and ends at 40:01

"We can think of podcasting as an entry point to audiobooks. They are less of a commitment, they are free, they can actually give you great insights into book discovery. Podcasts can move at a more rapid pace."

News

Jeff Bezos in Cambridge!

Black Friday deals

Harlequin makes an eReader platform change

4-Star Amazon store coming to Denver

Tech Tip

Live Ballot on Alexa

Interview with Kathy Doyle

Macmillan Podcasts

"How to Listen to a Podcast with Ira and Mary" (YouTube) - October 3, 2014

Grammar Girl

Quick and Dirty Tips

Mignon Fogarty author page at Amazon.com

I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics podcast

Steal the Stars podcast, audiobook, and novel

But That's Another Story podcast with Will Schwalbe

The Savvy Psychologist podcast with Ellen Hendriksen, PhD

How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen, PhD and Audiobook

Dirty John show

Panoply podcast network

Nutrition Diva podcast

The Argument - New York Times podcast

Slow Burn - Slate podcast

Masters of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman

Digital Book World 2019

Comments

Heavenly Body by my sister, Stephanie Edgerly

Next Week's Guest

Michael C. Grumley, author of the Breakthrough series

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

TKC 534 Power Reader Simon Eskildsen Oct 26, 2018

Show notes

Site Reliability Engineering Lead at Shopify

Interview starts at 10:07 and ends at 43:36

"If someone were to come around with some hardware that was even 50 percent worse than the Kindle but was opened up for easy highlight consumption, making it easier to see what highlights my friends have done, and all these sorts of things--I would switch in a heartbeat. "

News

"Amazon Kindle versus iPhone XS Max: choosing the best e-book reader" at AppleInsider - October 24, 2018

"Jeff Bezos wants us all to leave earth--for good" by Steven Levy at Wired - October 15, 2018

Interview with Simon Eskildsen

"How I Read" by Simon Eskildsen at his blog - July, 2018

Shopify

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (not available on Kindle)

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Listen Notes

Readwise

Doing Good Better by William MacAskill