Kindle News: We have fresh rumors of new student-oriented Kindle models coming as soon as September from Andrea James of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Peter Burrows of Business Week's The Tech Beat.  This led John C. Dvorak to increase the warmth of his Kindle assessment compared with his initial scoffing on This Week in Tech just after the Kindle was introduced.  (Note to social-network savvy Amazon exec if you're listening to this podcast: feel free to call me at 303-919-7187 if you'd like to arrange for The Kindle Chronicles to evaluate a review unit of the any new Kindle...)

LATE-BREAKING REPORT WHICH DIDN'T MAKE THE PODCAST: Via Jim Cheshire, I see the New York Times today is quoting Craig Berman, Amazon’s chief spokesman, as saying, "One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be NO new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest.” I hope that's just smoke.

Tech Tip: Adrienne Cousins on the Yahoo Kindle Korner group has posted several bookmark files which make it much easier to reach web sites on the Kindle. Also, Jim Cheshire of DecodingTheKindle recommends Skweezer to format blogs for quicker and cleaner viewing on the Kindle. Hat tip to Stephen Windwalker for suggesting Adrienne's bookmarks.

The "What's on Your Kindle?" Interview: My guest this week is Randal L. Schwartz of Stonehenge. We met at a photography workshop last week conducted by Chris Marquardt of the Tips from the Top Floor podcast.   Randal recommends Baen Books as a great source of inexpensive quality books for the Kindle, especially in the science fiction category.  A favorite of his is James P. Hogan.

Kindle Quote: "Fear Oratory Will Be Obama's Undoing" by Edward Luce.

Kindle Comments by Bob Boyken, RobinTX and Steven Schwindt.

Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.