The Kindle Chronicles

Author of “I Met Jeff Bezos in 1995 When He Had a Lame-Looking Website Called Amazon”  Interview starts at 11:10 and ends at 50:02 “He came in a bit shy and slightly nervous--febrile, slightly feverish is how I described him, and maybe he was. We got right down to business. We talked for a couple of minutes, and he told me about this business and the packing of the books and so on, and how there was this opportunity to sell books. He was already talking about being able to have a better margin, because there were no bricks and mortar. That was his fundamental shaping of it, of what his business was designed to do. We talked for a while. He told me a little bit about his background, and then he showed me his website.”   Links Amazon holiday press release - December 26, 2019 Craig Stoltz at LinkedIn “I Met Jeff Bezos in 1995 When He Had a Lame-Looking Website Called Amazon” by Craig Stoltz at Washingtonian - December 27, 2019 HealthCare.gov Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Retired Science Editor of The Christian Science Monitor Links Cowan honored with Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) - May 31, 2001 Karl Taylor Compton, president of MIT 1930-1948 Agnes de Mille (1905-1993) An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavsky Prince Louis de Broglie, one of the founders of quantum physics Edward Teller, known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb” “A Long-ago moment with Edward Teller” by Robert C. Cowen at The Christian Science Monitor - September 12, 2003 Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

At the Acropolis with Sonja and Anthony Recorded on Crete December 18, 2019 Uploaded from Cambridge December 20, 2019

We are in Malta today. I created and uploaded this episode using my iPhone, which led to numerous unforeseen challenges. I hope you will be able to listen to it.  

--Photo by John Earle Author of Genesis Interview starts at 17:02 and ends at 43:00 Links “Hey Google, play me the news”  by Liz Gannes at Google’s blog Robin Cook TEDx talk (YouTube) at his alma mater, Wesleyan University  - September 17, 2019 Books by Robin Cook: Coma, Cell, Pandemic, Marker CRISPR-Cas9 Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Director, Books PR & Editorial at Amazon.com Interview starts at 11:47 and ends at 48:10 “We really want to choose books that we feel like customers will love or--in a non-pushy way--should love.” Links “Alexa’s voice can now express disappointment and excitement” by Jay Peters at The Verge - November 26, 2019 Alexa Skills Kit Blog post on new Emotions and Speaking styles - November 26, 2019 Sarah Gelman’s posts at The Amazon Book Review Amazon’s Best Books of 2019 (amazon.com/bestbooks2019) South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations by Sean Brock The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Nickel Boys: A Novel by Colson Whitehead Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me by Adrienne Brodeur Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac They Called Us Enemy by George Takei Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson Will the Cat Eat My Eyeballs: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard A Better Man: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins “What I’m reading on my summer vacation” by Sarah Gelman at The Amazon Book Review - July 3, 2019 TV Shows mentioned: This is Us, A Million Little Things, Younger,   Next Week’s Guest Robin Cook, author of Genesis: A Novel, available for pre-order from G. P. Putnam’s Sons, with release on December 3, 2019  Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Amazon’s General Manager of Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading “There are so many types of readers. There are so many reasons, and so what we’re just trying to do is make a service that is valuable and compelling, to delight readers.” Links “Amazon Has Become America’s CEO Factory” by Dana Mattioli at The Wall Street Journal - November 20, 2019 “Amazon’s smart speakers outship Google’s by almost triple, Canalys says” by Corinne Reichert at CNET - November 13, 2019 Amazon Black Friday Countdown deals Amazon press release on Black Friday deals - November 18, 2019 Kindle Unlimited storefront Click here to see your Kindle Unlimited subscription The Weight of Ink and Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story by Rachel Kadish The Forward Amazon Original Stories series, available on Kindle Unlimited Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion Next Week’s Guest:  Sarah Gelman, Director of Books PR and Editorial at Amazon, giving an overview of the Best Books of 2019 Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Author of the new short story collection, Nameless “Once I came to that decision and came to Amazon, it has been so far one of the finest experiences I’ve ever had, working with the people in Amazon Original Stories and Amazon Publishing at Thomas & Mercer. Writers can’t ask for more supportive, more interesting people to work with. So it turned out to be the right decision.” Links DeanKoontz.com Dean Koontz’s author page at Amazon.com The Nameless short story collection at Amazon Devoted by Dean Koontz - Available for pre-order with delivery March 31, 2020 Ricochet Joe by Dean Koontz My previous interview with Dean Koontz on January 13, 2018 - TKC 493 Next Week’s Guest:  Natalia Montuori, GM Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading at Amazon Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Author, Editor, Professor & Speaker Links “The Best Amazon early Black Friday deals: Here’s what’s hot” by Rick Broida at CNET - November 7, 2019 Jane Friedman’s blog and newsletters, Electric Speed (free) and The Hot Sheet (paid subscription) How to Reform Capitalism by The School of Life The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman Next Week’s Guest:  Dean Koontz, author of the six-story Nameless series that will be released by Amazon Publishing on November 12, 2019 Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

The Yorkie Claire June 7, 2005 - October 24, 2019 Links Kindle Kids Edition - $110 at Amazon.com YouTube video of Claire picking John Aga as the winning entry for a Fire Tablet nine years ago Instagram photos of our Yorkie Claire, RIP  All the Dogs of My Life by Elizabeth Von Arnim Video of Claire chasing a ball on Christmas, 2015 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! This episode is dedicated to the memory of our Yorkie Claire, peacefully departed from this world here in Maine yesterday.  Click here to enable my daily Morning Journal flash briefing at the Alexa Skills store. You will then hear each day’s entry by saying, “Alexa, what’s new?” Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.