Book View Cafe has a half-price sale going on for some of their anthologies, which works out to $2.49 apiece. The books are DRM-free, but you have to pick one format for purchase (use MOBI for Kindle, although EPUB can be converted, the font choices are often off).
Books on Board is having another sale, with a net 40%-50% off all eligible titles (non-Agency, over $2.99, classified as Fiction or Non-Fiction, which ends up skipping some titles that are "non-classifiable").
Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The File on H. ($0.99), by Ismail Kadare.Book Description
In the mid 1930s, two young Irish-American scholars voyage to the Albanian highlands with an early model of a marvelous invention, the tape recorder, in hand. Their mission? To discover how Homer could have composed works as brilliant and as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey without ever writing them down. The answer, they think, can be found only in Albania, the last remaining natural habitat of the oral epic. But immediately on their arrival the scholars' seemingly arcane research puts them at the center of ethnic strife in the Balkans. Mistaken for foreign spies, they are placed under the surveillance of a nearsighted informer with a prodigious gift for reproducing conversations he has overheard. He is soon generating a stream of floridly written reports about the visitors' puzzling activities. News of their presence in the provincial town of N------- sets gossip to flying, and while the town's governor speculates on their imminent capture, his pretty wife, from her bath, plots her delivery from a marital ennui worthy of Madame Bovary. Research and intrigue proceed apace, but it isn't until a fierce-eyed monk from the Serbian side of the mountains makes his appearance that the scholars glimpse the full political import of their search for the key to the Homeric question. Part spy novel, part comedy of errors, The File on H.is a work of inventive genius and piercing irony that may be Ismail Kadare's funniest and most accessible to date. From an author who has been called "one of the most compelling novelists now writing in any language" (Wall Street Journal),it is also a profound and eloquent comment on one of the most intractable conflicts of our time.
Diamond Jubilee Edition of God Save the Queen: The Spiritual Heart of the Monarchy ($1.98 / £1.29 UK), by Ian Bradley, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $13.09).Book Description
At a time of renewed interest in the monarchy (stimulated by the marriage of Prince William of Wales and the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II), the institution is analyzed and dissected from almost every point of view apart from the sacred -- which arguably stands at its heart and is its ultimate raison d'etre. Commentators assess the constitutional and philanthropic aspects of monarchy and its tourist potential; gossip magazines report on the Royal Family as a soap opera. This lack of attention is in marked contrast to the sacred origins of monarchy and the manifest importance of religious belief in the life of the present monarch.
Ian Bradley traces the religious dimension of monarchy and argues for its importance as a spiritual force in British life, as well as exploring what this might mean in a society that is both multi-faith and increasingly secular.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), a novel by Ben Fountain, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. This was named one of the Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012.Book Description
A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide Victory Tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys, slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the superstar pop group Destiny's Child.
Among the Bravos is the Silver Star–winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and Support Our Troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the Cowboys' hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family—his worried sisters and broken father—and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy's mind and died in his arms at Al-Ansakar.
Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms—soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.
Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain's reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.
Hailey Twitch Is Not a Snitch ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Lauren Barnholdt, is the Nook Daily Find for Families, price matched on Kindle. If you've been a reader for a while, you should have this one in your library, as it was free in May, 2011.Book Description
Meet Hailey Twitch…
She’s just like you. Well, sort of.
She loves pink sparkly pencils and ice cream. But Hailey also has a secret: she’s friends with Maybelle, a sprite that only she can see.
Hailey and Maybelle are having fun, fun, fun. But they’re also getting into lots of trouble!
Can Hailey keep her friend a secret or will she have to tell?
Grade Level: 2 and up
