How to connect your Amazon book purchases to Goodreads

I love Goodreads. It has been a great site for me to find books as well as note down my collection. I have even used it to collate and tag the physical books that I have. At one time I had even used the export to note the actual locations of my books 🙂

However some actions are still counterintuitive, specially the one where we can connect our Amazon buys to Goodreads. And having clicked left, right and center for the umpteenth time I thought I would document it for myself.

Where to go?

This is the most confusing part – how it is hidden away (at least it feels hidden away to me, Goodreads please don’t sue me 🙂 )

• Go to Account by clicking on your DP on the top right corner

• Click on Account Settings in the drop down
• Now comes the crazy part. This are the choices we have in account settings :

For the actions we expect to take, which it to connect our book purchase to our Goodreads, I would have expect someone to click on either Book Links or Purchases. Both these choices are incorrect. Probably for valid reasons. Book links are for which site you want your book links to go to and Purchases have something to do with the, and I quote, “Purchase history of book swaps, advertising campaigns, and e-books.” I don’t know what it means 🙂

So where do we need to go for our holy grail? The non intuitive page – apps

• So click on apps

What to do here?

• Go down to where you see Amazon. You can link your Amazon account here.
• Once linked you need to go regularly and click on the Add your Amazon book purchases. (I don’t mind this being a manual activity. I quite like doing it, as long as I can remember how to get here.

• Once you click through you will see a page with all your book purchases which have not already been added to Bookreads. For eg. my page today was,

It is important to note that even my Kindle Unlimited books show up here. (I seem to have been mistaken here. Looks like the Kindle Unlimited books do not show up as a purchase. That is a major bummer for me 😦 )

• The rest is elementary with Goodreads being it intuitive best. You can put it into various shelfs as usual
• Note: If there are books you are embarrassed of, or find no value of it populating your goodread shelfs you can just press on the Do not add and it will not show up again.

Summary

Connecting the books to Goodreads is an easy way to put the books I buy onto my shelf. It also helps me with my TBR list as Amazon’s own content listing is a pain. But I, for one, will surely need to revisit it to remember the path to Apps. Hope it is helpful to anyone reading this post. If anyone from Goodreads is reading this, can we make this a little more easier now that you are in the same company as Amazon. Which also brings up another point, How do i connect Audible purchases as easily?

I do love Goodreads.

Poonawalla, adjuvants and vials in the time of Covid

Yesterday I read two articles about the infrastructure required for any Covid vaccine. Over the last few months, I have been militant about avoiding the news. It seems to me that all news have become tabloid news, with the associated muck. The only reason I picked up these articles was thanks to twitter link shared by Samanth. I am happy I did read them as they are good and informative.

The first article is The World’s Best Hope for Enough Covid-19 Vaccine Comes from India by Ari Altstedter. It is a summary of how the Poonawallas climbed to the top of the vaccine production business. The article also highlights their plan to produce billions of doses of Covid vaccines. For a person like me who only knew the page 3 status of the Poonawallas, it was a good primer on their history. I found the scaling efforts of Mr. Poonawalla instructive and informational. In a surprising way the article actually made me feel optimistic after a long time. Most interesting was the direct connection between stud farms and vaccine production. This was actually a question I had for the longest time but was too lazy to research.

If I could critique any part of the article it would be the last 3 paragraphs. Somewhere towards the end, it shifted to a Page 3 celeb observational piece. It was jarring especially in comparison to the main article itself. I felt like a voyeur which was most unpleasant. What was the intent of this , I wonder?. Did the article expect me to feel jealous of the Poonawallas? Or condemn them for their luxury?

I would still recommend this article for its main body. Let’s forgive the reporter for the ending as the main piece is a well written, fast, and informative read.

The second article I read was “Without Vials and Needles, a Virus Vaccine Is Just a Formula” by Sampath Subramanian. Thanks to The Seen And The Unseen podcast which introduced me recently to Sampath. (The related episode was Episode 183: The Art of Narrative Nonfiction (+ JBS Haldane) ).

I love his writing style and this article was no different. Simple, factual, and straight to the point. Reading it was a pleasure. Along the way, I learned about the needs of the various gear needed to have the vaccines reach the target. I never knew reading about adjuvants, vials and hypodermic would be this interesting. I think I have found my idol to try and mimic in my own writing.

So that’s it. If you have a few minutes read these two articles. Both of them are much better than than the bombast on television.

I must thank the cohort of Clear Writing course assembled by Amit Verma and his The Seen And The Unseen podcast. Thanks to them I am introduced to true journalists, excellent in their profession. I am hopeful that this will rekindle my love and faith in journalism itself.

RIP Rahat Sahab

It has been my lifelong ambition to understand and appreciate poetry. I am still on that journey and am not even halfway through. Yet in this journey there have been poets who, by using accessible language, ensured that I stick to the path. Wordsworth was one such poet for me in English. In Urdu, apart from Bollywood lyrics, it was Rahat Indori; a giant I came to know about too late. In fact, it was last year when I got to know his work, and he soon became one of my favorites.

So it is with a heavy heart that I received the news of his passing away, another victim of this Covid scourge.

राहत साहब का Cardiac Arrest की वजह से आज शाम 05:00 बजे इंतेक़ाल हो गया है…..

उनकी मग़फ़िरत के लिए दुआ कीजिये….

— Dr. Rahat Indori (@rahatindori) August 11, 2020

So it is with a heavy heart that I received the news of his passing away, another victim of this Covid scourge.
I loved his style, his use of language, and his disregard for the institution. My exposure to him were through his presence at various mushairas, thanks to YouTube. What caught my eye (and ear) was the fact that it was not just a rendition of his poetry. It was a full on performance. His ability to hold his fans captive was amazing. As was his style of delivery: very different, almost contemporary.

There are many couplets and ghazals of his that I love, many of them world famous. Some couplets from his book “Do Kadam Aur Sahi”:

हम सुकूं ढूंढ़ने आए थे दुकानों में मगर
फिर कभी देखेंगे इस बार बहुत मेहेंगा हैं

Rahat Indori (Do kadam aur sahi)

उँगलियाँ यूँ न सब पर उठाया करो
ख़र्च करने से पहले कमाया करो

ज़िन्दगी क्या है खुद ही समज जाओगे
बारिशों में पतंगें उड़ाया करो

Rahat Indori ( Do kadam aur sahi)

लोग हर मोड़ पर रुक रुक के संभलते क्यों हैं
इतना डरतें हैं तो फिर घर से निकलते क्यों हैं

Rahat Indori (Do kadam aur sahi)

हमसे पूछो कि ग़ज़ल माँगती है कितना लहू
सब समझते हैं ये धन्धा बड़े आराम का है

Rahat Indori (Do kadam aur sahi)

And a video to showcase his delivery style

The country has lost one more legend.
Rip#RahatIndori Sir., it is sad to learn that Rahat Indori Sahab is no more with us.
RIP #RahatIndori, you will never be forgotten💔 .. pic.twitter.com/7oSBRSRvfa#RestInPeace

— New Age Philosopher (@JaydeepBharat) August 11, 2020

This one was another show where he recites one of his most famous ghazals. He takes that opportunity to unveil his new sher too, as a reaction to people calling him jihadi.

RIP @rahatindori Saab 😢pic.twitter.com/pmTW0VZ1IJ

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) August 11, 2020

The sher itself

मैं जो मर जाऊँ तो मेरी अलग पहचान लिख देना
लहू से मेरी पेशानी पे हिंदुस्तान लिख देना

Rahat Indori

Truly sir, you are Rahat Hindustani for all of your fans

Enjoying a ‘Stay’cation

Sub-title: Journal entry day #3 ( yes i know it’s months later, just go with it please)

Working from home in the shadow of the Covid pandemic has been more taxing on me than expected. So I was looking forward to a one week vacation in August. I think the contemporary word is “Staycation” as I will be not venturing out of my home. It’s day one of the holidays and I am already stressed. Stressed on what to do.

I find myself in the classical Netflix “what am I going to do now” phase. I was looking forward to the vacation with so much excitement to attack so many items on my backburner. But, I find I am unable to focus on any one item to execute.

So I thought I would try and hit the daily journal instead. Writing what I do or at least plan to do.

So my broad plans are:

1. Read.
2. Read some non-fiction.
3. Organize some personal data.
4. Watch some movies and shows.
5. I am tempted to start a youtube channel. I don’t have any specific topic in mind though, so still mulling over that.
6. Write more.

So let’s see how I can both enjoy and be productive in this staycation.

Journal Entry Day #2

Today was a busy Friday catching up with some official paperwork. I did get some reading in through the day through the Audible app. Listening to “Becoming”, the autobiography by Michelle Obama. It is very well written and today I reached the part where she has met and started working with Obama. Looking forward to finishing the book soon.

Later in the night Megz found a Netflix suggestion on her account and called me to watch a light movie. It has been some time since we both found something to watch together so I was game.
After dinner, we watched the movie – The Half of it. It was a sweet, quirky, LGBT friendly coming of age tale. It centered around a nerdy immigrant girl, her female crush, and a jock who also loves the crush. The jock is not good with words and contracts the nerd to write his letters for him, to woo the crush. This is all placed in a backwater town in the US. Yes, it is a simple love story of teenagers in some ways, but the execution was beautiful. It did not go for any great drama or suspense. The story managed to be simple without becoming simplistic. It did not meander unless warranted. The pacing was tight keeping us engaged and invested in the characters lives. Some of the side characters were more like caricatures, but it didn’t matter in the grand scheme. The central trio carried the story well.

It was a simple story with an end that was not the same sappy thing we have seen a thousand times before. It was nice to see a movie deliver exactly what was on the label and still not be a bore. A nice way to end a busy week!