I've moved!

I've moved!

Thanks for stopping by, but it appears you are using a (very) old address for my blog. I've moved to a Wordpress site and you'll need to update your bookmarks for Books on the Knob

I've moved!

Custom Search

Monday, October 15, 2012

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Into the Darkest Corner ($1.99), by Elizabeth Haynes.
Book Description
Catherine Bailey has been enjoying the single life long enough to know a catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic and spontaneous, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell.

But what begins as flattering attentiveness and passionate sex turns into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon learns there is a darker side to Lee. His increasingly erratic, controlling behaviour becomes frightening, but no one believes her when she shares her fears. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a meticulous escape.

Four years later, Lee is behind bars and Catherine—now Cathy—compulsively checks the locks and doors in her apartment, trusting no one. But when an attractive upstairs neighbour, Stuart, comes into her life, Cathy dares to hope that happiness and love may still be possible . . . until she receives a phone call informing her of Lee’s impending release. Soon after, Cathy thinks she catches a glimpse of the former best friend who testified against her in the trial; she begins to return home to find objects subtly rearranged in her apartment, one of Lee’s old tricks. Convinced she is back in her former lover’s sights, Cathy prepares to wrestle with the demons of her past for the last time.

Utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, Into the Darkest corner is an ingeniously structured and plotted tour de force of suspense that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More with Less ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Richard Koch, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).
Book Description
A new, updated 10th Annniversary edition of the business classic.

In the ten years since its original publication The 80/20 Principle has become one of the decade’s most original, provocative and powerful books and a business classic and was named as one of GQ’s Top 25 Business Books of the 20th Century. It has sold over 500,000 copies and been translated into 30 languages. This special 10th anniversary edition of the bestselling The 80/20 Principle contains an entirely new chapter, ‘The Yin and Yang of the Principle’, in which Koch responds to the thousands of reader responses to the book – including a rap song! – and uses this new material to reach a new level of awareness and understanding of the true power of the principle. And it is powerful: the 80/20 principle – the fact that 80% of results flow from 20% of causes – is the one true principle of highly effective people and organisations. The 80/20 Principle shows how you can achieve much more with much less effort, time and resources, simply by concentrating on that all-important 20%. The 80/20 principle is the key to controlling our lives. If we can latch on to the few powerful forces within and around us, we can leverage our efforts to multiply effectiveness. Most of what we do has trivial results. A little of what we do really matters. So if we focus on the latter, we can control events instead of being controlled by them, and achieve several times the results.

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Timothy Keller, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.
Book Description
Renowned pastor of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church and author of the forthcoming Every Good Endeavor, Timothy Keller with his wife of 36 years, delivers The Meaning of Marriage, an extraordinarily insightful look at the keys to happiness in marriage that will inspire Christians, skeptics, singles, long-time married couples, and those about to be engaged.

Modern culture would make you believe that everyone has a soul-mate; that romance is the most important part of a successful marriage; that your spouse is there to help you realize your potential; that marriage does not mean forever, but merely for now; that starting over after a divorce is the best solution to seemingly intractable marriage issues. All those modern-day assumptions are, in a word, wrong.

Using the Bible as his guide, coupled with insightful commentary from his wife of thirty-six years, Kathy, Timothy Keller shows that God created marriage to bring us closer to him and to bring us more joy in our lives. It is a glorious relationship that is also the most misunderstood and mysterious. With a clear-eyed understanding of the Bible, and meaningful instruction on how to have a successful marriage, The Meaning of Marriage is essential reading for anyone who wants to know God and love more deeply in this life.

Just as this book is based on his popular sermon series, so will his Encounters with Jesus series, the first of which, The Skeptical Student comes out in December.

Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century ($9.99 Kindle, $3.99 B&N), by Tom Bower, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012. This title is still covered by an Agency agreement, so should be the same in all stores, but hasn't dropped at Amazon.
Book Description
With unparalleled insight into BP and its safety record leading up to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Tom Bower gives us a groundbreaking, in-depth, and authoritative twenty-year history of the hunt and speculation for our most vital natural resource.

OIL

Twenty years ago oil cost about $7 a barrel. In 2008 the price soared to $148 and then fell to below $40. In the midst of this extraordinary volatility, the major oil conglomerates still spent over a trillion dollars in an increasingly frantic search for more.

The story of oil is a story of high stakes and extreme risk. It is the story of the crushing rivalries between men and women exploring for oil five miles beneath the sea, battling for control of the world's biggest corporations, and gambling billions of dollars twenty-four hours every day on oil's prices. It is the story of corporate chieftains in Dallas and London, traders in New York, oil-oligarchs in Moscow, and globe-trotting politicians-all maneuvering for power.

With the world as his canvas, acclaimed investigative reporter Tom Bower gathers unprecedented firsthand information from hundreds of sources to give readers the definitive, untold modern history of oil . . . the ultimate story of arrogance, intrigue, and greed.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Yellow Star ($1.99), by Jennifer Roy.
Book Description
"In 1945 the war ended. The Germans surrendered, and the ghetto was liberated. Out of over a quarter of a million people, about 800 walked out of the ghetto. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. I was one of the twelve." For more than fifty years after the war, Syvia, like many Holocaust survivors, did not talk about her experiences in the Lodz ghetto in Poland. She buried her past in order to move forward. But finally she decided it was time to share her story, and so she told it to her niece, who has re-told it here using free verse inspired by her aunt.This is the true story of Syvia Perlmutter — a story of courage, heartbreak, and finally survival despite the terrible circumstances in which she grew up. A timeline, historical notes, and an author's note are included.

Grade Level: 4th and up