Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Gregor the Overlander ($1.99), the first title in The Underland Chronicles, a middle-grade series by Suzanne Collins. This one isn't an Agency publisher, so it's a bit of a coincidence that it is also the Nook Daily Find for Families today.

Despite being written for a younger audience than her bestselling Hunger Games series, many of the reviews are from adults who have read and enjoyed the series. If you think you'll read the entire series, though, grab Gregor the Overlander Collection (Books 1-5) instead; it's $19.22, but that works out to under $4 per volume and you have the entire series, in order, with only one entry on your Kindle home page. For those who need EPUB, it's a bit more over at Kobo, but you can use a coupon code there to get it even cheaper.

Book Description
This irresistible first novel tells the story of a quiet boy who embarks on a dangerous quest in order to fulfill his destiny -- and find his father -- in a strange world beneath New York City. When Gregor falls through a grate in the laundry room of his apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland, where spiders, rats, cockroaches coexist uneasily with humans. This world is on the brink of war, and Gregor's arrival is no accident. A prophecy foretells that Gregor has a role to play in the Underland's uncertain future. Gregor wants no part of it -- until he realizes it's the only way to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance. Reluctantly, Gregor embarks on a dangerous adventure that will change both him and the Underland forever.

Grade Level: 4 and up

The Secret Olympian: The inside story of the Olympic experience ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), an anonymous account by Olympic athletes, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.66).

Book Description
The vast majority of us can only dream of being an Olympic-level athlete - but we have no real idea of what that means. Here, for the first time, in all its shocking, funny and downright bizarre glory, is the truth of the Olympic experience.

It is an unimaginable world:

• the kitting-out ceremony with its 35kg of team clothing per athlete
• the pre-Olympic holding camp with its practical jokes, resentment and fighting, and freaky physiological regimes
• the politicians' visits with their flirty spouses
• the vast range of athletes with their odd body shapes and freakish genetics
• the release post-competion in the Olympic village with all the excessive drinking, eating, partying and sex (not necessarily in that order)
• the hysteria of homecoming celebrations and the comedown that follows - how do you adjust to life after the Games?

The Secret Olympian talks to scores of Olympic athletes - past and present, from Munich 1960 right through to London 2012, including British, American, Australian, Dutch, French, Croatian, German, Canadian and Italian competitors. They all have a tale to tell - and most of those tales would make your eyes pop more than an Olympic weightlifter's.

Total Recall ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), a short story by Philip K. Dick, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. This particular story doesn't appear to be in the public domain (although several are, which you can get free from Feedbooks), having appeared in numerous collections after it's original magazine publication. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has this one marked at $4 list price, so I'd grab it now if you want to read it (although it will be one of the stories included in The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, which should be released as an ebook next April).

Book Description
The inspiration for upcoming film, Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale, and directed by Len Wiseman. This ebook only edition of Philip K. Dick’s classic short story tells the story of Douglas Quail, an unfulfilled bureaucrat who dreams of visiting Mars, but can't afford the trip. Luckily, there is Rekal Incorporated, a company that lets everyday stiffs believe they’ve been on incredible adventures. The only problem is that when technicians attempt a memory implant of a spy mission to Mars, they find that real memories of just such a trip are already in Quail's brain. Suddenly, Quail is running for his life from government agents, but his memories might make him more of a liability than he is worth. Originally published as "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale."