It looks like my earlier find of Coldplay's
Mylo Xyloto (Amazon/
Google) is going to be today's 25 cent album. The movie rental today is
American Psycho ($2.99 Amazon;
$0.25 Google), starring Christian Bale, Justin Theroux.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (
$0.25 Kindle;
Google), by Lionel Shriver, is today's 25 cent book special from Google. Amazon has already price matched, but don't expect it to last more than a day. It looks somewhat interesting and at a quarter, I'm grabbing to to look thru later on.
Book Description
That neither nature nor nurture bears exclusive responsibility for a child's character is self-evident. But generalizations about genes are likely to provide cold comfort if it's your own child who just opened fire on his feellow algebra students and whose class photograph—with its unseemly grin—is shown on the evening news coast-to-coast.
If the question of who's to blame for teenage atrocity intrigues news-watching voyeurs, it tortures our narrator, Eva Khatchadourian. Two years before the opening of the novel, her son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and the much-beloved teacher who had tried to befriend him. Because his sixteenth birthday arrived two days after the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is currently in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York.
In relating the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses her estranged husband, Frank, through a series of startingly direct letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son became, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general—and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault?
We Need To Talk About Kevin offers no at explanations for why so many white, well-to-do adolescents—whether in Pearl, Paducah, Springfield, or Littleton—have gone nihilistically off the rails while growing up in the most prosperous country in history. Instead, Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story with an explosive, haunting ending. She considers motherhood, marriage, family, career—while framing these horrifying tableaus of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
Today's 25 app is
Paper Camera (Amazon,
Google). This would be a lot more fun if the Kindle Fire had a camera, but it works fine on my phone and tablet (both of which have cameras).
App Description
Paper camera offers a camera filter that transforms your reality into more than just a photo. Using your camera video feed, view the world just the way an artist would recreate it--all in real time. Like what you see? Take a picture; it lasts longer.
What You See Isn't What You Get
Upon launching Paper Camera, immediately see what's in front of you through the video feed, but expect it to look like a cartoon world, artist's sketch, or unique digital creation. Scroll through the many lens filters and experience your reality like you've never seen it before.
Life as Art
Watch the world as you know it transform. Choose from unique camera filters not typical in a camera app such as, Granny's Paper, Pastel Perfect, Comic Boom, Sketch Up, Acquarello, Old Printer, Neon Cola, Con Tours, Bleaching, and Gotham Noir.
Through a Paper Frame
The camera options are displayed along the wrinkled edge of your Paper Camera screen. Use the sketched arrows to move through your many filter options, and watch as each alters your reality in real time. Use the sliding scales to adjust the contrast, brightness, and lines to create the exact look you prefer.
Capture and Share a New World
Take multiple photos in as many filters as you like by tapping the red camera sketch in the lower right-hand corner. Each shot is automatically saved to your device's photo gallery after a brief display on the screen. Choose the small share icon in the upper right-hand corner to share the last photo taken. Enjoy your creative quest through the lens of a paper camera.
