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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Today's Deals

Diane Duane has a post-Labor Day sale on the complete 9-book set of the Young Wizards novels at 50% off, for those that haven't bought this bundle in the past. That should work out to about $20 for the set, using coupon code MORNINGAFTER (once again, you enter the code AFTER you've signed in to PayPal or entered your credit card info). Like all the books in her store, you get a DRM-free download, with both MOBI and EPUB, so you can use it on the reader of your choice.

For my Australian readers that might be looking to pick up a Kindle Keyboard, check your local Woolworths - apparently some of them (at least Milleara S/C in Victoria) have them out on sale for $69 (less than half the regular price).

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Two Mitch Albom Books for $1.99 apiece.

Have a Little Faith: A True Story
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together

In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere.

Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.

In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story.

Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.
For One More Day
"Every family is a ghost story . . ."

Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one

As a child, Charley "Chick" Benetto was told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both." So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother--who died eight years earlier–-is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.

What follows is the one "ordinary" day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.

Through Albom's inspiring characters and masterful storytelling, readers will newly appreciate those whom they love--and may have thought they'd lost--in their own lives. For One More Day is a book for anyone in a family, and will be cherished by Albom's millions of fans worldwide.

A Kind of Loving ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Stan Barstow, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US Kindle edition, but on Audible it's $11.95).
Book Description
Stan Barstow's landmark 'Brit-Lit' novel of the sixties immortalized Vic Brown, the amiable working class lad from the North and led the way for author's like Nick Hornby writing similar slice-of-life drama. Still as fresh and alive today, it spawned two sequels: The Watchers on the Shore (1966) and The Right True End (1976). First published in 1960, it has long been used as a set text in British schools. It has also been translated at various times into a film starring Alan Bates (1962) of the same name, a television series (1973) starring Clive Wood, a radio play and a stage play. A Kind of Loving was the first of a trilogy, published over the course of sixteen years, that followed hero Vic Brown through marriage, divorce and a move from the mining town of Cressley to London.

The Grifters ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Jim Thompson, is the Nook Daily Find; despite being an Agency publisher, this ones isn't price matched yet on Kindle.
Book Description
To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars--the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life--until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.

THE GRIFTERS, one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, is an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for Stephen Frears' and Martin Scorsese's critically-acclaimed film of the same name.

The 39 Clues: The Cahill Files #3: The Redcoat Chase ($3.03 Kindle, $3.35 B&N), by Clifford Riley, is the Nook Daily Find for Families; once again, it doesn't appear to have dropped in price at all at B&N and is lower on Kindle. If it keeps this up, I'll be dropping this item from the Daily Deals posts.
Book Description
A brand new adventure from the world of The 39 Clues!

After 500 years, the Cahill family's most dangerous secrets are about to be revealed. Read at your own risk . . .

With the British marching on Washington under the command of a Vesper General, it's up to a young Madrigal in 1812 to save a treasure hidden in the White House. However, the enemy will stop at nothing to seize the artifact, even if it means burning the city to the ground.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Princess Academy ($1.99), by Shannon Hale; this was supposed to be the Nook Family Find yesterday, but the price never dropped.
Book Description
Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. Sent to an academy to learn how to become a princess, Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and even bandits intent on kidnapping the future princess.

Grade Level: 5 and up