The Kindle Chronicles

Author of Think Like Amazon: 50 ½ Ideas To Become a Digital Leader Interview starts at 2:38 and ends at 35:46 “I don’t think that part of the story of Amazon and Bezos gets told enough, about how he bet on himself and on the idea of Amazon. They stuck with it when everybody was a naysayer. They stuck with it for a long period of time when the stock was flat and there was no wealth being created. I think it’s really the all-American dream, how Amazon has progressed. I don’t think that story gets told enough. ” News “Amazon debuts a new Echo Show amid Alexa privacy concerns” by Lauren Goode at Wired - May 29, 2019 Echo Show 5 available for pre-order at Amazon.com Interview with John Rossman Rossman Partners Think Like Amazon: 50 ½ Ideas to Become a Digital Leader by John Rossman Jeff Bezos’s 2018 Letter to Shareholders Comments Mark Isero’s Kindle Classroom Project War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and The Mueller Report The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Fut

Amazon’s Head of Product for Kindle Reading Interview starts at 18:29 and ends at 47:37 News “How creepy is your smart speaker” in The Economist - May 11, 2019 Alexa Guard “Amazon Alexa’s New ‘Guard’ Can Help Keep Your Home Safe While You’re Away” by Emily Price at Fortune - May 15, 2019 Interview with Tracy Schultz Upcoming Shows Next Week: John Rossman, author of Think Like Amazon: 50 ½ Ideas to Become a Digital Leader TKC 566 on June 7, 2019: My report from Amazon’s re:MARS conference to be hosted by Jeff Bezos in Las Vegas 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.

Peter Tighe, my cousin who lives in Austin Interview starts at 11:09 and ends at 38:27 News Amazon updates the Fire 7 Tablet - press release on May 16, 2019 Tech Tip Nadene Laird’s review of the MobiScribe E Ink tablet Interview with Peter Tighe Aira web site “Aira at SXSW” - March 8, 2019 at Aira website 2019 Interactive Innovation Awards Winners at SXSW Aira Pricing Plans “Get Paid to Help the Blind from Home: Aira Seeks Part-Time Agents in San Francisco” at Lighthouse - May 16, 2019 Voice Dream Scanner app for iOS Comments Amazon’s information on eTextbooks Kindle eBooks for teams and groups Upcoming Shows Next week: Tracy Schultz, Senior Manager of Product Management - Kindle Reader TKC 564 on May 31, 2019: John Rossman, author of Think Like Amazon: 50 ½ Ideas to Become a Digital Leader TKC 565 on June 7, 2019: My report from Amazon’s re:MARS conference to be hosted by Jeff Bezos in Las Vegas Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version

Editor of The Amazon Chronicles newsletter Interview starts at 16:32 and ends at 49:27 “You can imagine an Amazon without Alexa that is still very successful, but Alexa is a huge key to Amazon’s future.” Intro Aira glasses for the blind News “Assisted Living Community Gives Every Resident ‘Alexa’ to Help Keep Their Independence” at CBS13 in Sacramento - May 7, 2019 Eskaton communities Echo Dot on sale for $29.99 Amazon.com (regular price $49.99) “Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is back on sale for $40 off” by David Carnoy at CNET - May 5, 2019 Kindle Paperwhite at Amazon.com (Using this link to buy one benefits TKC with Associates commission - thank you!) Kindle Paperwhite Essentials bundle (includes leather case and power adapter) on sale for $150 - $60 off Interview with Tim Carmody The Amazon Chronicles newsletter Articles by Tim Carmody published in Wired Magazine Noticing newsletter by Tim Carmody at kottke.org “Unlocking the Commons” by Tim Carmody at Nieman Lab Inside Amazon newsletter KUOW’s Primed Podc

Author of Keep Going at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver Dialog starts at 5:33 and ends at 40:34 “So we all like to think that if we could just change our circumstances we’d be more creative. I could just move to Paris, rent a light-filled studio, maybe buy a beret, fall in with a gang of misfits.Then I could really paint my masterpiece. But we know this is wishful thinking, that everything we need to make our good work is here. We just have to pay more attention to it.” News “Amazon plans to create 400 tech jobs in Denver with new office expansion” by Lauren Feiner at CNBC - April 30, 2019 Amazon press release on Denver expansion Tech Tip Kindle firmware updates Links related to Austin Kleon’s presentation Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver Robert Creeley Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping

Graduating senior in mechanical engineering at Saint Louis University Interview starts at 5:57 and ends at 28:32 News “Elizabeth Warren’s really simple case for breaking up big tech” by Zack Beauchamp at Vox - April 22, 2019 “Amazon says its private labels are only 1% of its business, but new data shows some are seeing huge growth” by Dennis Green at Business Insider Amazon earnings report at The Washington Post - April 25, 2019 Interview with Sarah Rock Saint Louis University Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) Go Baby Go Arduino Kaitlin Gallatin, Luke Vest, and Paul Richard (starts at 25:35 and ends at 35:47) Matthew O’Brien (starts at 35:49 and ends at 42:55) 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 down

Amazon’s Director of Sales & Marketing for Kindle eReaders & Fire Tablets Interview starts at 15:36 and ends at 46:17 “We find that customers--whether it’s our entry Kindle, our Paperwhite, our Oasis program--you can find voracious readers on any of those devices, reading many, many books a month and really enjoying their devices and consistently using them every day. ” News “The Inner Bezos” by Chip Bayers at Wired Magazine - March 1, 1999 Jeff Bezos 2018 Letter to Shareholders Interview with Allen Hughes Harry Potter: The Complete Collection (1-7) on Kindle by J. K. Rowling Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport 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! Righ

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Interview starts at 12:02 and ends at 52:12 “We used Future Fitness to describe this concept, because we wanted to make it clear that it is not measuring a fixed attribute. This is not a personality trait. In fact, we avoid the word ‘trait’ deliberately, because although there are traits obviously related here, almost everything that we’re measuring is something that you can change--if you want to. If you want to become more future fit you can.” News Press release announcing all-new entry-level Kindle - March 20, 2019 All-New Kindle at Amazon.com 2018 Letter to Shareholders from Jeff Bezos Interview with James McQuivey “Introducing Forrester Future Fit: Are You Fit Enough to Share in a World of Intelligent Technologies?” by James McQuivey at Forrester.com - April 1, 2019 My previous conversation with James on TKC 538 in November, 2019 The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress by Virginia Postrel To t

Author of the Legends of the First Empire and Riyria series Interview starts at 10:01 and ends at 43:57 On writing fantasy: “The world should just build in the background. You should get to know it by experience, not by having to be told in page after page and getting a whole world history, because that’s boring. People tend to skim that kind of stuff. I like to try and write so if people skim they’ll totally ruin the book, and I try to make everything entertaining enough that they won’t want to.” News “Amazon is Making a Rival to Apple’s AirPods as Its First Alexa Wearable” by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg - April 4, 2019 “Jeff Bezos, in divorce settlement, retains 75 percent of the Amazon stock he held with his now ex-wife MacKenzie” by Craig Timberg and Greg Bensinger at The Washington Post - April 4, 2019 Interview with Michael J. Sullivan Age of Legend Kickstarter project Books by Michael J. Sullivan at Amazon.com Next Week’s Guest James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, who wil

Founder and CEO of IMDb Interview starts at 14:54 and ends at 52:50 “In 1990, if you’d have said to me ‘You know the service that you’ve just launched, one day you’ll be able to interact with that by voice with a device that’s this big in your kitchen.’ I’d be like, ‘Really?’ Now it’s kind of like an everyday experience.” News Fire HD 10 tablet on sale for $100 - a price cut of $50 Kindle Voyage - $130 on Amazon’s Woot site ($90 off) “Open road Integrated Media Shows 36% YoY Revenue Growth in January 2019” - press release March 26, 2019 Association of American Publishers stats for January 2019 Tech Tips reMarkable tablet ($599) versus Rocketbook ($30) versus MobiScribe ($214) Kindle for Mac update (1.25.2) Kindle sort by unread and read coming (Good E-Reader) Interview with Col Needham IMDb “Behind the Scenes at IMDb” by Elias Wolfberg at Amazon’s Day One blog - February 28, 2018 Next Week’s Guest Michael J. Sullivan, author of the Riyria fantasy series. Music for my podcast is from an original Thelon

Author of Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad “When I first started out, if you had told me that my books were going to be shelved in Self Help, I would never have believed you. And when I first got started I had no idea there was such a thing as an illustrated gift book. I just didn’t know that those genres existed in publishing. The really fun thing for me about doing this kind of book is that it allows me to be as weird as I want to be in a mainstream format.  That is the great gift that these books have given to me.” Links related to my interview with Austin Kleon: Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon - Available for pre-order with release on April 2, 2019 Other books by Austin Kleon at Amazon.com “The Gulp” at Austin’s blog - March 18, 2019 My interview with Austin Kleon on TKC 295 - March 26, 2014 Austin’s book tour schedule starting April 2, 2019 Next Week’s Guest Col Needham, founder and CEO of Amazon’s IMDb, the number one movie website i

The Gaming Hall at South By Southwest On this last of my TKC updates from South By, I will tell you why I'm not going to sell my small stake in Bitcoin any time soon. Also, a tourist's view of the high-energy gaming track at SXSW.  Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.  

Len on the main escalator at the Austin Convention Center Neil Pasricha, director of the Institute for Global Happiness Neil Pasricha’s books at Amazon “Four Ways of Looking at South By Southwest” by Len Edgerly at Medium - March 14, 2019 The Texas Tribune John Hickenlooper and Pete Buttigieg websites CNN Town Hall with Pete Buttegieg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXD8uFU-xgM CNN Town Hall with John Delaney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HxWAL5RDMM “Nothing to Be Written” VR project by the BBC Next Week’s Guest Austin Kleon, author of Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad - available for pre-order with delivery April 2, 2019 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 comp

This is the view from the big escalator at the Austin Convention Center, where I am attending a session about the Hope and Hype of Blockchain. Also in this TKC Extra I share an unusual experience I had yesterday while visiting senior living communities with my cousin Peter, who is blind. Thanks for listening! Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

I plan to upload brief segments each day this week from Austin, where I am attending South By Southwest through Sunday. So much to learn! Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Author of Winter World Interview starts at 17:30 and ends at 43:00 “My books almost always deal with an extinction-level event or the pushing of humanity to the brink at times.” Comments Mark Isero’s Kindle Classroom Project Kindle Direct Publishing eBook Quality Dashboard Interview with A G Riddle A G Riddle’s books at Amazon.com My interview with A G Riddle in July, 2018 on TKC 520 News Amazon to stop selling its Dash buttons - Fast Company and BBC Last-Ditch effort to save NYC Amazon Jobs - The Hill “How Amazon Taught the Echo Auto to Hear You In a Noisy Car” by Dhananjay Motwani at Wired - March 4, 2019 “How Amazon’s Algorithms Curated a Dystopian Bookstore” by Joel Saget at Wired - March 5, 2018 “Amazon to reportedly close all of its 87 pop-up stores in the US beginning in April” by Todd Haselton at CNBC - march 6, 2019 “Health Venture of Amazon, Berkshire, JP Morgan Has a Name: Haven” by Anna Wilde Mathews at The Wall Street Journal - March 6, 2019 (Note: My audio erroneously says the third part

Len teaching a creative writing class at Belmont Hill School Audio starts at 12:59 and ends at 54:39 News “Amazon Alexa and the Search for the One Perfect Answer” by James Vlahos at Wired - February 18, 2019 Tech Tip “How to hear (and delete) every conversation your Amazon Alexa has recorded” by Natt Garun at The Verge - February 28, 2019 Audio from my presentation at Belmont Hill School Blue Yeti microphone - $103 at Amazon.com Libsyn.com Wattpad Medium MailChimp Tech Tonic podcast with John Thornhill Evil Genius podcast with Dave Slusher Pardon My Take podcast The Joe Rogen Experience podcast Next Week’s Guest AG Riddle, author of Winter World, released February 26, 2019 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

Executive Director of Two Lions and Amazon Crossing Kids Interview starts at 23:18 and ends at 43:02 “We would really love to discover books from all over the globe, especially from diverse regions that may not be as well-known to a young English readership. We want the list to be dynamic and really showcase every possible language and culture that we’re able to.” News “How New York Lost Amazon” on The Daily podcast - February 21, 2019 “Amazon’s grave HQ2 mistake: The political landscape changed but the company’s playbook didn’t” by Jason Del Rey at Recode - February 15, 2019 “Amazon Go and Scan-&-Go Detractors Need to Stop Burying Their Heads in the Sand Like Ostriches” by Chris Walton at Forbes - February 15, 2019 “Amazon’s Echo Wall Clock is back on sale after connectivity fix” byAJ Dellinger at Engadget - February 18, 2019 Echo Wall Clock at Amazon.com - $29.99 Tech Tips AmazonBasics Microwave with Alexa - $59.99 at Amazon.com Wait Wait Quiz skill for Alexa Vintage Radio skill for Alexa “Alexa C

Author of Early Riser: A Novel Interview starts at 11:47 and ends at 39:00 News Amazon to buy Eero - in Wired and Yahoo Finance Amazon drops plans for HQ2 in New York (Washington Post) Tech Tips VoiceBrew podcast on Alexa tips (via Bradley Metrock’s This Week in Voice podcast) Interview with Jasper Fforde Early Riser: A Novel at Amazon.com Early Riser web site and “What’s the book about?” Shades of Grey: A Novel Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker Three episodes of the Bonanza TV series - free on Prime Video The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde Comments Classical music list from listener John Aga: Leonard Bernstein's Young People’s Guide to Classical Music available through YouTube: They are broken into 95 easily digestible clips over many public concerts. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Ode To Joy portion) as done by a musical flash mob. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. https://youtu.be/cH2PH0auTUU Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite Number 1. https://youtu.be/dyM2AnA96yE

Author of Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Every Day Interview starts at 18:16 and ends at 42:30 “I wanted to demystify the music itself, and I wanted to humanize the people who created it, because I think we often think about classical composers being these dead, white European guys invariably from Germany and Austria somewhere in the 18th century maybe with a frock coat, maybe with a powdered wig, definitely on some kind of pedestal occupying a lofty, elevated  space that has no bearing on real people’s everyday lives. What’s incredibly humbling when you start to get to know these composers is that they’re just human beings like you and me, just trying to survive their lives, to express themselves through this particular art form.” News “No thank you, Mr. Pecker” by Jeff Bezos at Medium - February 7, 2019 "Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders N.Y. headquarters site, two officials say" by The Washington Post - February 8, 2019 Kindle Paperwhite on sale for $100 - $30 off Tech Tip MobiScribe E-in