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Monday, September 24, 2012

Today's Deals

Today is the last day to take advantage of this KSO deal:

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Mockingbird ($2.99), by Kathryn Erskine.
Book Description
Caitlin has Asperger's. The world according to her is black and white; anything in between is confusing. Before, when things got confusing, Caitlin went to her older brother, Devon, for help. But Devon has died, and Caitlin's dad is so distraught that he is just not helpful. Caitlin wants everything to go back to the way things were, but she doesn't know how to do that. Then she comes across the word closure- and she realizes this is what she needs. And in her search for it, Caitlin discovers that the world may not be black and white after all.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Bewitching ($1.99), by Jill Barnett. Over the summer, the publisher gave those in the UK three of the author's books for free, while the summer before there were three other titles free in various formats. If you enjoyed any of those, you probably will want to scoop up this backlist title, also published by Bell Bridge Books.
Book Description
What's a Duke to do when a carefully selected bride rejects him rather than marry without love? He salvages his pride by marrying the next woman who falls into his arms! Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie bewitched Alec, the Duke of Belmore, the moment she appeared from nowhere and tumbled into his lap. Joy, a witch whose powers of white magic are not always well controlled, turns the life of the most serious and snobbish Duke in England upside down when he decides to marry the beautiful Scottish pixie who has aroused his desire. Even though he knows next to nothing about her or her background. Alec could have forgiven Joy for upending his life and the lives of all at Belmore Park if not for the truth she hid from him. He'd married a witch, who turns him to fire when he kisses her, charms everyone around her, and threatens to destroy both their lives as scandal looms over her. Too late, Joy discovers she's desperately in love and has no idea how to be a proper duchess, control her magic or change what may come. Passion holds them spellbound in an irresistible tale of two enchanted hearts.

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There ($1.61 / £0.99 UK), by Sinclair McKay, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99 pre-order). Those in the UK can now pre-order his new book, The Secret Listeners: How the Wartime Y Service Intercepted the Secret German Codes for Bletchley Park (Main/ UK).
Book Description
Bletchley Park was where one of the war’s most famous – and crucial – achievements was made: the cracking of Germany’s “Enigma” code in which its most important military communications were couched.

This country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside was home to Britain’s most brilliant mathematical brains, like Alan Turing, and the scene of immense advances in technology – indeed, the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were instrumental in turning both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa.

But, though plenty has been written about the boffins, and the codebreaking, fictional and non-fiction – from Robert Harris and Ian McEwan to Andrew Hodges’ biography of Turing – what of the thousands of men and women who lived and worked there during the war? What was life like for them – an odd, secret territory between the civilian and the military?

Sinclair McKay’s book is the first history for the general reader of life at Bletchley Park, and an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties – of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds (a depressed Angus Wilson, the novelist, once threw himself in) – of a youthful Roy Jenkins, useless at codebreaking, of the high jinks at nearby accommodation hostels – and of the implacable secrecy that meant girlfriend and boyfriend working in adjacent huts knew nothing about each other’s work.

The Delta Solution ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Patrick Robinson, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. The story is right out of recent headlines and I'd grab it in a second, if it weren't already in my library.
Book Description
The Delta Solution is an action-packed novel dealing with the Somali pirates operating off the southerly reaches of the lawless East African republic on the Indian Ocean.

For the past three years, these heavily armed tribal brigands have been capturing and holding for ransom massive cargo ships, especially oil tankers, and violently demanding millions of dollars for their return. Pirating out of the tiny Somalian village of Haradheere has become a very lucrative, dangerous business, so much so that the village has its own Stock Exchange with a reputed $78 million cash, all in crisp $100 bills, in the town vault. And each time an owner pays big for the return of their ship, the pirates immediately do it again, enraging the Pentagon more and more by the day.

That is, until the "Somali Marines" make a big mistake, seizing at gun point two United States ships and demanding a $15 million ransom for their return.

Hero Mack Bedford, previously encountered in Diamondhead and Intercept, is deployed to SEAL Team 10 to form The Delta Platoon. His objective: obliterate the Somali Marines in the middle of the Indian Ocean, at all costs, once and for all.

The Great Crash of 1929 ($9.52 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by John Kenneth Galbraith, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012.
Book Description
Of Galbraith's classic examination of the 1929 financial collapse, the Atlantic Monthly said:"Economic writings are seldom notable for their entertainment value, but this book is. Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal of sardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles and the wondrous antics of the financial community." Now, with the stock market riding historic highs, the celebrated economist returns with new insights on the legacy of our past and the consequences of blind optimism and power plays within the financial community.

Widely and admiringly reviewed as a bestseller in 1955, John Galbraith's "skilled chronicle and analysis of the causes of that most memorable year in our economic history, 1929, " (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) put the past in perspective. Now with a new introduction, it has become even more timely in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash.