The Kindle Chronicles discussion

Firstly, great idea for the group. Thanks for all your efforts Len. Speaking for all of us that are regular listeners I'm sure, your like a member of the family.

As for this move by Amazon, it worries me some. Being a new member to Goodreads, I probably don't have as much street cred as others but I was really excited to join the community. I found that the site was a really well designed platform for just about everything I wanted to do in terms of tracking my reading habits, exploring new reading opportunities, logging my interpretations of the things I read, and even joining some groups such as this to share ideas. For me I was taking the long view that this would be a place where I could leave a footprint of my reading life for those that followed me. I've enticed my son and one of his college buddies to open accounts, and I've invited several others. The fact that it seemed to be a real community not supported by any corporate entity was very appealing to me. Now that Amazon has entered the picture, the guard goes up a little, although I do have a lot of respect for Amazon.

I heard on another Podcast a commentator express that everything Amazon has been involved in has been first rate and I totally agree. It's just that now they have access to something that I was pretty passionate about, so caution has entered. No doubt, future iterations of the Kindle operating system will intertwine Goodreads into it and I'll be interested to see how that looks. I love reading on my Kindle Keyboard. Except for newspapers, it's pretty much the only way I read these days. I'm hoping for the best in relation to this development, but I do have apprehensions. I'd hate for Goodreads to evolve into a more marketing driven enterprise than a readers' community, with spam emails and pop up ads from out of the blue.

Hopefully this comment will initiate some discussion. I'm anxious to hear what others have to say.

Again, thanks for the things you do through the Kindle Chronicles. It's a great medium and a class act.

I'm hoping good things come out of the purchase. I have 1900+ books on my Kindles, I purchased Kindles for my sisters several years ago, friends and my granddaughter are also on my account. I have purchased most of the books, but there is a vast array for many tastes. I hate the Amazon system for organizing books, I have 27+ pages of books on the website, and if I want to page through and send selected books to a new device, every time I send one the website puts me back to page one again. A number of times my Kindle Keyboard has crashed and my organization of collections has been lost.

I use Shelfari for book group to remind me of all the character names.

I like that some of the people I know in real life are joining Goodreads, in the past many have been independent authors trying to sell their books which is not what I am looking for. IMHO 99% of the indie books are desperately in need of an editor or are not of the quality I want to spend my precious reading time on.

Karen Horvath

Nancy Pearl says to give it 50 pages but subtract from the 50 if you are older than 50. I am reading Tender at the Bone, Growing up at the Table by Ruth Reichl for book group, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Flemming, and I just started Kate Atkinson's Life after Life on Audible, it is excellent so far. Happy reading, Karen

I hope the purchase improves amazon's book rating/ranking system as well. One of the reason's I started using goodreads was because the Fire HD forces you to give a review in order to save your book ratings. On my kindle keyboard I used the rating system religiously. I have no desire to do a review, I just want a rating systems to remember what I liked and didn't like. Likewise I have no desire to start seeing more reviews from people that don't take the time to write them well (which is a potential outcome from the forced reviews). Anyway, I hope that Goodreads continues to be a place where you can track your reading and ratings of those books without being forced to "review" if you don't wish to do so.

I'm happy you started a Goodreads group, Len! I've been listening to the Chronicles for a year and I've been on Goodreads for 2.5. I use Goodreads to record and rate what I read. The "My Books" charts are fun when you get a few years to compare. I rarely use it to discover books, I avoid comments pre-reading because there are so many spoilers, but it's great after reading when you want to talk about the book.

I don't understand why so many people feel the character of the reviews will change with Amazon's ownership. They haven't interfered with other acquisitions, such as Audible. I look forward to Goodreads search improvements to level of Amazon.

My concern is one company with so much power and influence in publishing. Consolidation of business into a few giant players in each field (for ex. publishing, wireless, or industrial food) is bad for consumers even as it is great for corporate profit. But I don't have an answer for that.

What a missed opportunity for my 10 minutes of fame! I'm flattered you asked Len.

I couldn't be happier about the Amazon purchase of Goodreads. My thoughts on why membership has increased and that there hasn't been a backlash about the purchase is because for good or bad most people trust Amazon to do the right thing. You can see this by looking at Amazon's purchase of Audible. That service went from being excellent to most excellent after the purchase and I am sure the same will happen to Goodreads. This purchase can't be compared to Facebook purchases which does not seem to have that same level of trust among the public!