The Kindle Chronicles

Latest Episodes:

TKC 463 Jeff O'Neal Jun 16, 2017

Show notes

Executive Editor and Co-founder of Book Riot

Interview starts at 10:10 and ends at 43:25

"If publishers woke up tomorrow and sanely priced e-books, I think it would be different in degree not in kind. I don't think we'd see 10x growth in e-books' market share. Maybe there would be 5, 10 percent [growth in] market share. I don't know."

News

"Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion" by Nick Turner at Bloomberg - June 16, 2071

Press Release announcing Whole Foods acquisition - June 16, 2017

"Cramer: Amazon could dominate food retail within two years" video at CNBC - June 16, 2017

"Amazon will be the first company worth $1 trillion" by Eric Johnson at Recode - June 12, 2017

Jeff Bezos tweet re: philanthropy

The Case for a National Library Endowment via David Rothman

Tech Tips

"How to install Google Play on Kindle Fire (without root) by Olga & Rachel at Love My Fire

Yousician

Interview with Jeff O'Neal

The Reading Ape

Book Riot

Book Riot podcasts: Book Riot, All the Books, Get Booked, SFF Yeah! (science fiction/fantasy), and Read or Dead (mystery/thriller)

Maud Newton's blog

The Elegant Variation

Clinton Kabler, chief operating officer and co-founder of Riot New Media Group

Rebecca Joines Schinsky, executive director of product and ecommerce at Riot New Media Group

Amanda Nelson, managing editor of Book Riot

The New York Times Book Review

Next Week's Guest

David Wright, readers advisory librarian at the Seattle Library

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!

TKC 462 John Mitchinson Jun 08, 2017

Show notes

Co-founder and chief publishing officer of Unbound

Interview starts at 8:56 and ends at 42:25

"It's not so much the elephant in the room. We are the room inside the elephant, if you look at the size that Amazon is growing as an online retailer. That kind of troubles me, because I feel a little bit like when publishing does get round to direct-to-consumer it will already be too late. "

News

"Amazon Will Be the Fifth Largest Bookstore Chain" by Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly - June 1, 2017

Amazon Fresh

"Amazon is going after Walmart with a 45 percent discount on Prime for lower-income shoppers" by Jason Del Rey at Recode - June 6, 2017

Tech Tips

"Amazon Unveils New Kindle Highlight and Note System" by Michael Kozlowski at Good E Reader - June 6, 2017

Interview with John Mitchinson

John Mitchinson on TKC 213 in 2012

Unbound

Unbound co-founders Justin Pollard and Dan Kiernan

QI (Quite Interesting), the BBC quiz show

Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts

Kickstarter and Indiegogo

Unbound books by Jonathan Meades and Jonathan Coe

Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic Books, cofounder of the Literary Hub website (Click here for Morgan's appearance on The Kindle Chronicles in May of 2016 at BookExpo America.)

Unbound's Backlisted podcast hosted by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller (author of The Year of Reading Dangerously) at SoundCloud and iTunes

Unbound Digital books at Amazon.com

A Murder of Crows by Ian Skewis

The Elegant Art of Falling Apart by Jessica Jones - $10.99 on Kindle, or $7.00 at Unbound (.mobi file download)

A Box of Birds by Charles Fernyhough - $7.00 at Unbound

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience compiled by Shaun Usher - $15.39 on Kindle or $22.97 in hardcover at Amazon.com; $15 eBook or $35 special hardback edition at Unbound

The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla (Unbound)

Tatterdemalion by Sylvia Linsteadt, illustrated by Rima Staines (Unbound)

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon

Content

"5 Good Summer Reads" by Bill Gates at Gates Notes - May 22, 2017

Book Riot podcast with mention of Gates's 5 Summer reads

Next Week's Guest

Jeff O'Neal, executive editor and co-founder of Book Riot

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 461 Chris Messina Jun 02, 2017

Show notes

Inventor of the Hashtag

Interview starts at 12:30 and ends at 44:11

"Your pocket is now your garage, right. If one time you used to buy a car to sort of have in the garage to be like, 'Wow. Look at this. I'm just going to go out and look at my baby.' I think that in a similar way Apple thinks very similarly about computer products. And Amazon, meanwhile, is striking a much more ordinary context, like 'Don't think too hard about technology.' But it should be there to enable your life to be easier, be simpler. "

News

"Amazon's stock price crosses $1,000 amid Wall Street love fest" by Ángel González at The Seattle Times - May 30, 2017

"The most bullish Amazon analyst on Wall Street thinks the stock will soar another 47% from here" by Akin Oyedele at Business Insider - May 10, 2016

Echo Look - $200 at Amazon.com

Tech Tips

"Now you can read your Kindle books in Virtual Reality" by Bufo Calvin at I Love My Kindle

Interview with Chris Messina

"Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Amazon's Echo Show" by Chris Messina at Medium - May 11, 2017

"Seeing Genius in Negative Space" by Chris Messina at Medium - May 19, 2015

"Introducing Echo Show" video at YouTube - May 9, 2017

Echo Show product page at Amazon

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Flickr

"Groups for Twitter; or A Proposal for Twitter Tag Channels" by Chris Messina at FactoryJoe.com - August 25, 2007

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2017

Steve Jobs in 1980 comparing computers to car models (YouTube)

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 460 Mark Sullivan May 26, 2017

Show notes

Author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Interview starts at 3:32 and ends at 42:21

"Not only does the guy [Pino Lella] deserve to be noted for what he did, his story is the story of faith, and the ability to endure, and the ability to go on, and the ability to the best and the worst of life in life. And yet still understand that it's a miracle every day. "

News

Amazon Fresh delivery in Denver

Tech Tips

"Amazon's Alexa Calling is Like a Jetsons Version of the Home Phone" by David Pogue (includes video) at Yahoo! Tech - May 19, 2017

Interview with Mark Sullivan

Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel

The Assisi Underground: The Priests Who Rescued Jews by Alexander Ramati (not available on Kindle)

Valchiavenna Ski Area

Alberto Ascari

Con smania

Content

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan (Audible)

Guadacanal Diary and Invasion Diary, A Dramatic Firsthand Account of the Allied Invasion of Italy by Richard Tregaskis.

The Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson. 1. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy2. The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy Book 2)*3. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy Book 3)

Next Week's Guest

Chris Messina, author of "Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Amazon's Echo Show"

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 459 Jennifer Gunnels May 19, 2017

Show notes

Co-founder of Tor Labs

Interview starts at 16:53 and ends at 40:00

"This story is 14 episodes, and it is about security chief Dakota Prentiss and Matt Salem, who are both ex-military, working at a secret military base that happens to have a flying saucer, an alien, and a mysterious thing called the harp. No one really knows quite what it does. They instantly fall in love with one another, but the hitch is that when you sign up for this gig there is an absolute, ironclad no-fraternization policy. "

News

"Amazon Echo Silver" on Saturday Night Live (YouTube video) - May 13, 2017

"8 People Test Their Accents on Siri, Echo and Google Home | Wired" (YouTube video) - May 16, 2017

Seattle Times editorial on Amazon's donation of space to Mary's Place homeless shelter - May 14, 2017

"Why Silicon Valley is All Wrong about Amazon's Echo Show" by Chris Messina at Medium - May 11, 2017

Tech Tips

"Alexa Calling Has a Major Privacy Flaw" by elise oras at Medium - May 12, 2017

"Amazon says caller blocking for Alexa/Echo is coming, amid customer complaints" by Todd Bishop at GeekWire - May 13, 2017

eReaderIQ

Interview with Jennifer Gunnels

"Tor Books Launching 'Tor Labs', a New Serialized Fiction Podcast Imprint" - Tor Books press release on May 1, 2017.

Mac Rogers

Gideon Productions

Arrival and Ocean's Eleven

Arrival (Stories of Your Life MTI) by Ted Chiang

LifeAfter (iTunes)

Felix & Paul Studios (VR)

Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy - available for pre-order with delivery on November 7, 2017

Content

"Amazon Prime Reading Launches in the UK" by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader - May 18, 2017

"Amazon Starts Weekly Bestseller Lists" by Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly - May 18, 2017

Next Week's Guest

Mark Sullivan, author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 458 Peter Costanzo May 13, 2017

Show notes

Digital and Archival Publishing Manager for The Associated Press

Interview starts at 12:51 and ends at 40:01

"I really try to get people to understand that every little basic functionality within e-books that Amazon keeps introducing--whether it's their X-ray feature or Kindle Lending Library or whatever it might be within the e-book world or within the connection with the social-media platform Goodreads--these are all enhancements to your reading experience."

News

Introducing Echo Show

"Amazon's 'Echo Show' gives Alexa the Touchscreen it Needed" by David Pierce at Wired - May 9, 2017

Alexa Calling and Message (Amazon help page)

April Hamilton on Alexa's new calling and messaging

Jeff Bezos at the Internet Association gala (video)

Tech Tips

Apple AirPods

Interview with Peter Costanzo

The Associated Press

Content

Dwight D. Eisenhower: An Associated Press Biography by Relman Morin

Saigon Has Fallen by Peter Arnett

My Time with the Kings: A Reporter's Recollections of Martin, Coretta and the Civil Rights Movement by Kathryn Johnson

Divided America: An AP Guide to the Fracturing of a Nation edited by Jerry Schwartz

Click here for a full list of books published by The Associated Press

Under the Scarlet Sky: A Novel by Mark Sullivan

Next Week's Guest

Jennifer Gunnels, a co-creator of Tor Labs, a new, experimental imprint of Tor Books. Tor Labs's first project will be Steal the Stars, directed by Mac Rogers, whose podcast serial LifeAfter is an amazingly powerful audio drama.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 457 James McQuivey May 06, 2017

Show notes

Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

Interview starts at 11:17 and ends at 36:16

"I don't think they [Amazon] really expect the fashion angle to be a big driver of these [Echo Look] devices. They needed a pretext. They needed a reason to put a camera in your home, to see how comfortable you are with that idea, to test whether or not there's a big social outcry about putting cameras in people's homes, whether they can start connecting what they see with what they know... Eventually that kind of visual intelligence will be a very crucial part of how Amazon builds a deeper relationship with you. But they had to start somewhere, and the closet, I think, was a pretty safe place to start."

News

"Exclusive: This is Amazon's new Echo with a built-in touchscreen" at AFTVnews - May 5, 2017.

"The first photo of Amazon's Echo with a touchscreen may have just leaked" by Antonio Villas-Boas at Business Insider - May 5, 2017

"Amazon's touchscreen Echo leaks again, in two colors" by Ashley Carman at The Verge - May 5, 2017

"Amazon Echo with a built-in screen may be on deck next month" by Ben Fox Rubin at CNET - April 27, 2017

"How eBooks lost their shine: 'Kindles now look clunky and unhip'" by Paula Cocozza at The Guardian - April 27, 2017

Book Riot Podcast episode 207 with Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Joines Schinsky

"Get Ready for Amazon Phone Take 2" by Daniel B. Kline at The Motley Fool - May 4, 2017

"Amazon patent shows how Alexa-powered devices could turn into extension phones" by Alan Boyle at GeekWire - May 2, 2017

Small Business Phone Systems - Voice and Data Cabling patent at Free Patents Online

Tech Tip

"Kindle iOS app gets all-text bold: Can help iPad and iPhone owners, even those with good eyes" by David Rothman at TeleRead - May 2, 2017

Amazon Advertising Preferences page

Interview with James McQuivey

Echo Look

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

The Principles of Neural Science, Fifth Edition by Eric Kandel, James Schwartz, Thomas Jessell et al

Nuance Communications

Comments

"This is what fraud looks like in the age of Artificial Intelligence" by Ben Dickson at The Next Web - May 3, 2017

Next Week's Guest

Peter Costanzo, digital & archival publishing manager at The Associated Press

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 456 Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer Apr 29, 2017

Show notes

Author of The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life and Joie de Vivre

Interview starts at 13:00 and ends at 41:17

"This is also my philosophy of life: I talk about a turtle. A turtle stays in one place--it's safe. Nothing can happen. It carries its house on its back. If that turtle wants to move, it has to take a risk. It has to stick its neck out. And I like that image of the turtle."

Intro

Echo Dot (2nd Generation)

Ask My Buddy skill for Alexa

News

Amazon's first-quarter earnings release - April 27, 2017

"Amazon just turned a profit for the eighth straight quarter" by Jason Del Rey at Recode = April 27, 2017

Introducing Echo Look

This Week in Google episode 402 with Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Stacey Higginbotham (via Overcast, cued up to begin playing at discussion of Echo Look)

Tech Tips

"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Says 'Star Trek' Inspired Alexa and Echo" by Mike Brown at Inverse - May 18, 2016

Vital Signs: Discovering and Sustaining Your Passion for Life by Gregg Levoy, who was my guest on TKC 335

A Book of American Martyrs: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Interview with Dr. Ruth Westheimer

DrRuth.com

"At Home with Dr. Ruth" - 2013 New York Times video

Dr. Ruth's Twitter feed and YouTube Channel

The Doctor is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life, and Joie de Vivre by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer

Leopold by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer (and in paperback)

Sex for Dummies

Dr. Ruth's Sex After 50: Revving Up the Romance, Passion & Excitement!

"The Biggest Names in Sex" by Daniel Radosh at The Daily Beast - January 12, 2009

Helen Singer Kaplan (Wikipedia) and New York Times obituary August 19, 1995

Content

Subscribe with Amazon

Half-price deal on Texture Premium for Prime members

Magazines included in Texture Premium subscription

Next Week's Guest

James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at of Forrester Research. Click here for McQuivey's post, "Alexa Will See You Now: Why Echo Has a Camera"

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 455 Naomi S. Baron Apr 22, 2017

Show notes

Author of Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World

Interview starts at 10:33 and ends at 41:35

"Education increasingly wants to measure finite, little bites of stuff, and the digital technology that we are using in our education--and we do have print--is tailored to these quick wins as opposed to a deeper level of learning."

Intro

My new VR setup: Samsung Galaxy Edge S8 with new Samsung Gear VR + controller

News

"Amazon continues to grow lead over Google as starting point for online shoppers" by Taylor Soper at GeekWire - January 13, 2017

Scott Galloway bio

"How Amazon is Dismantling Retail" - Scott Galloway video - April 17, 2017

Tech Tip

How I improved performance on my Amazon Fire HD 8 6th Generation tablet

Interview with Naomi S. Baron

Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake: A Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

Content

Amazon Publishing's summer-fall 2017 catalog (PDF)

Next Week's Guest

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, author of The Doctor is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life, and Joie de Vivre

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 454 Kes Woodward Apr 15, 2017

Show notes

Painter, art critic and historian

Interview starts at 15:00 and ends at 41:14

"I remember your talking on one of your programs about Jeff Bezos's insisting on a one-second [Alexa] response when his staff said, "We can get this down to three seconds," and he said, "That's not good enough." That makes a huge difference. It shouldn't--we're so impatient, I'm so impatient. But the fact that it is more more conversational and that I don't have to wait and think about the fact that this is a machine processing it, makes it much more real to me."

News

Jeff Bezos's 2016 Letter to Shareholders - and the 1997 letter (PDF)

"Over 550 Amazon Employees Are Pressuring Leadership to Cut Advertising Ties With Breitbart" by Charlie Warzel at BuzzFeed - April 13, 2017

Tech Tips

How to connect Amazon Tap to a new wifi network (Amazon help page)

Ask My Buddy skill for Alexa

Interview with Kesler Woodward

Painting in the North, Kes's web site

Western States Arts Federation

Kes Woodward on TKC 50 - July 1, 2009

iPad Mini 4

Bufo Calvin in VR on TKC 453 - April 7, 2017