I’ve had Apple’s AirPods Max for about five days. My initial impressions are positive:

• The sound is phenomenal. When I get new headphones I listen to my favorite music to compare the sound. The detail and depth of what I hear is like nothing I’ve heard before. I don’t want to stop listening. And I am not a big listener of music. I mainly listen to audiobooks and podcasts. But that may change now that I have these headphones. Apple has really provided immersive sound.
• The noise cancellation is impressive. I have not used the headphones while flying but I…

Stacey Kent is an American jazz singer with a glorious voice. She was born in 1965 in New Jersey and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Her paternal grandfather was a Russian who grew up in France. He later moved to the United States where he taught Kent French. Once she learned French, it was the only language she spoke with her grandfather. Kent travelled to England after college to study music in London, where she met saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, whom she married in 1991.

I have the impression Kent is better known in France than in the United…

The B&H Photography Podcast has an interesting interview with Washington Post photographer Salwan Georges. Georges explains what it’s like to photograph a presidential campaign during a pandemic. He was tested…

If you want to travel in France and learn about French history, the Join Us in France podcast is a superb resource.

The podcast, which launched in 2014, was originally co-hosted by Elyse and Annie. They live in France and know it well. Annie was born in France but has lived in the United States. Although Elyse grew up in New York, she knows the language, the culture and the country’s history inside and out. Elyse, the native American, often seems more French than Annie who was born in France. Go figure. …

The Liberation of Paris is a gripping book that is packed full of interesting details about Nazi-occupied Paris and its last commander Dietrich von Choltitz.

At the end of WWII, Adolf Hitler ordered Choltitz to hold Paris, but if that wasn’t possible, to destroy it. Although General Choltitz had been very loyal to Hitler, he could not bring himself to obliterate the City of Light. He ultimately surrendered Paris to French forces on August 25, 1944. He’s been called the “Saviour of Paris” for preventing its destruction.

Singer Helen Reddy, who was born in Australia in 1941, died in Los Angeles on September 29, 2020 at the age of 78.

I loved her music. Her first hit was a 1971 cover of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” from the award-winning stage show “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Her trademark son — “I Am Woman,” — came a year later. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1972. Reddy was the first Australian-born artist to win a Grammy and the first to make the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Reddy did not have an…

I enjoy keeping track of developments at Amazon.com. My primary source of information is The Kindle Chronicles podcast.

Len Edgerly is the creator and host of the podcast. Len is a bright fellow with a background in journalism. He graduated from Harvard College in 1972 and the Harvard Business School in 1977.

Before retiring he was a business journalist at The Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, an editor of an energy magazine in Casper, Wyoming, and an executive at a natural gas company based in Denver.

Len has been podcasting since 2006, when he launched the Audio Pod Chronicles and Video Pod…