I didn't exhaustively scanned each entry, but sampled many (> 15) and one thing that I found to be odd was that all of them were male. I'm not sure if it's cultural but it's quite interesting.
How does this 2014 article by an ex boss of Microsoft, who hasn’t been involved in any day to day activities of it for more than a decade, explain this contract in 2019?
I don’t have any personal objections with how Bezos decides to use his money, but to your point of books — how’s your local library? I recently realized I was spending some non-negligible amount of money on books every month and switched to the local library. It obviously depends on where you live but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It’s a fantastic system of local libraries and they’ve all the titles I want to read. There’s a wait for new titles, like Snowden’s book will need me to wait a couple of months, but anything older than a year is almost always available. As the book loan is for 21 days, it also forces me to finish my reading within this time.
Coincidentally, I watched this vice news documentary earlier today that shows the current situation in China: https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ through undercover reporting.