BooksonBoard has put up some info on their erotica policy (which affects the bestselling series Fifty Shades of Grey, which apparently even my own library isn't carrying). Buried in the notice is the news that they are also now discounting by 40% all non-Agency, "backlist" (anything with an ebook date before Jan 1, 2012) fiction titles with a minimum list price of $4.00, plus they are adding an 8% Rewards to all purchases of audio and ebooks "for a limited time." Of course, the controversial title is an Agency title (at least for now - it's Random House and there have been news stories that they are dropping the agency requirement due to the criminal investigations into the entire Agency conspiracy), so isn't covered (and is already priced about 40% below the print cost, anyway), but you may find some other titles there that you are interested in (note that the sale doesn't cover any Kindle titles, as they just link back to Amazon for those formats; almost all of the books they sell are DRM'd EPUB and PDF).
Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Seven Ox Seven; Part One: Escondido Bound: A Story of Some Ways in the West ($1.99), by P. A. Ritzer. Despite it's 672 pages, this is just the first of three volumes in this western epic.Book Description
Seven souls risk everything to seek a home on the West Texas frontier. Will they discover a secret Eden, or have they embarked on a dangerous misadventure? Cowboys Luke Stuart and Tom Schurtz meet in the infamous Dodge City at the end of trail drives in 1877. Back in Texas, Luke and his wife, Elizabeth, divulge a secret plan to Tom. The Stuarts and Tom consequently partner up and venture out, determined to establish an ideal ranch in the canyons region of the Llano Estacado, only recently (and not completely) vacated by the Comanche.They seek the mysterious Canyon Escondido, which may not exist. They have learned of it from the family lore and legends of Apache-Mexican neighbors. In hope, the pioneers drive their herd across rolling plains through notorious settlements and the wanton buffalo slaughter. Various challenges test their determination along the path they have chosen, not least so when they finally face the success or failure of their quest and what must then follow.
Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? ($2.07 / £1.29 UK), by William Poundstone, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99). Subtitled Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You Need ... to Get a Job Anywhere in the New Economy, the book isn't really about having a high IQ so much as it is about creativity and job interviewing at young, mostly high tech companies. Should be a good pre-graduation gift for those who are starting out with interviews, as well as those who perhaps need to groom their online footprint in advance.Book Description
You are shrunk to the height of a ten-pence piece and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of the world s top employers, you ll need to have a convincing answer to this and countless other tricky puzzles. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? reveals the new extreme interview questions in the post-crash, hypercompetitive job-market and uncovers the extraordinary lengths the best companies will go to find the right staff. William Poundstone guides readers through the surprising solutions to over a hundred of the most challenging conundrums actually used in interviews, as well as covering the importance of creative thinking, what your Facebook page says about you, and much, much more.
Gate of the Sun ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Elias Khoury and Humphrey Davies (Translator), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle (careful if searching; there are two editions and only one is on sale).Book Description
Gate of the Sun: Bab al-Shams is the first true magnum opus of the Palestinian saga. Through the passing of the beloved midwife and matriarch of the Shatila refugee camp outside Beirut, the reader enters a world of displacement, fear, and tenuous hope. A doctor tells a story to a man in a coma in an attempt to keep him alive. The patient, Yunes, is from Galilee, where he left Nahla, the love of his life. The novel unfolds at his bedside through Dr. Khalil’s intimate and haunting flights of memory.
Khoury humanizes the complex Palestinian/Israeli -struggle for us, shedding light on the turbulent history with love and empathy. Khoury opens up a whole new territory, envisioning a place where confronting pain and humiliation might lead, if not to reconciliation, then at least to finding an element of the other in one’s self. “Us” and “Them” become inextricably entwined through this realigned 1001 Nights. Originally published in Beirut in 1998, the novel has been a sensation throughout the Arab world, in Israel, and throughout Europe.
Moving Day ($4.49 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in Meg Cabot's Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.Book Description
When nine-year-old Allie Finkle's parents announce that they are moving her and her brothers from their suburban split-level into an ancient Victorian in town, Allie's sure her life is over. She's not at all happy about having to give up her pretty pink wall-to-wall carpeting for creaky floorboards and creepy secret passageways-not to mention leaving her modern, state-of-the-art suburban school for a rundown, old-fashioned school just two blocks from her new house.
With a room she's half-scared to go into, the burden of being "the new girl," and her old friends all a half-hour car ride away, how will Allie ever learn to fit in?
