Free Audiobook: So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church

ChristianAudio has another free download this month, So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church (Unabridged) by Leonard Sweet (Paperback, $11.55). After adding the audiobook to your cart, enter the coupon code APR2009 during checkout. Once your order is complete, you can download in either WMA or MP3 format. To use on the Kindle, download the MP3 files and copy them to the audible\ directory on your Kindle (or the SD card for the Kindle 1).

What is commonly known as DNA today was called "...so pretty!" when it was discovered years ago, and over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God's blueprint for the church.

In addition, there are a number of other free downloads featured there. I don't know how long they will last, but currently I see:

Cherub Wings: Special Easter Episode (Unabridged) by Cherub Wings
Cherub Wings: Episode 1 (Unabridged) by Cherub Wings
God's Story: As Told By John (Unabridged) by Crossway
The With-God Life (Unabridged) by Renovare International Conference
The Future of the People of God (Unabridged) by N.T. Wright
A Whisper Revival (Unabridged) by Timothy Williams
DG-Prayer, Meditation, and Fasting (Download) (Abridged) by John Piper
Even the Demons Believe (Unabridged) by Timothy Williams

There is also a link a the bottom of the page that will search for other free content on the site.

New Release Tuesday

BoneMan's Daughters by Ted Dekker ($9.99; Hardcover $16.47).

They call him BoneMan, a serial killer who's abducted six young women. He's the perfect father looking for the perfect daughter, and when his victims fail to meet his lofty expectations, he kills them by breaking their bones and leaving them to die. Intelligence officer Ryan Evans, on the other hand, has lost all hope of ever being the perfect father. His daughter and wife have written him out of their lives. Everything changes when BoneMan takes Ryan's estranged daughter, Bethany, as his seventh victim. Ryan goes after BoneMan on his own. But the FBI sees it differently. New evidence points to the suspicion that Ryan is BoneMan. Now the hunter is the hunted, and in the end, only one father will stand.

Leaping Beauty by Gregory Maguire ($4.79)

Who better to wreak havoc with eight beloved fairytales than Gregory Maguire, the brilliantly funny author of the adult novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as of the hilarious middle–grade series, The Hamlet Chronicles.

Zany animals of all species run through these fractured tales with alarming speed and dexterity. Who would have thought that Sleeping Beauty, that most regal of all fairy– tales, could be twisted into the story of a frog with a most unusual and promising dance career? Get ready to meet a gorilla queen and a psycho chimp, seven giant giraffes; and one very bad walrus.

Saying Grace by Beth Gutcheon ($9.99)

Rue Shaw has everything--a much loved child, a solid marriage, and a job she loves. Saying Grace takes place in Rue's mid-life, when her daughter is leaving home, her parents are failing, her husband is restless and the school she has built is being buffeted by changes in society that affect us all. Funny, rich in detail and finally stunning, this novel presents a portrait of a tight-knit community in jeopardy, and of a charming woman whose most human failing is that she wants things to stay the same.

Saying Grace is about the fragility of human happiness and the strength of convictions, about keeping faith as a couple whether it keeps one safe or not. Beth Gutcheon has a gift for creating a world in microcosm and capturing the grace in the rhythms of everyday life.

Brimstone Kiss by Carole N Douglas ($7.99)

Paranormal Investigator Delilah Street--in her quest to identify the long-buried embracing skeletons she and sexy ex-FBI agent Ricardo Montoya discovered-- has to deal with a lecherous vampire, a ghoulish producer, celebrity zombies from classic films, a mysterious albino rock star who bestows addictive kisses on his groupies, and a dead girl in her mirror--and those are just her clients! Post-Millennium Revelation Las Vegas is teeming with supernaturals and run by a werewolf mob, but even the unhumans can't conceive of what Delilah discovers hidden under its damnable desert sands: unspeakably powerful evil rooted in ancient Egypt...

Two free Audiobooks

To get either of today's free audiobooks, first log into to your Audible.com account, then click the links below to add the free audiobook to your cart, then check out. It's probably best to order one at a time, but you should be able to get both for free (I did).

Audible.com, possibly in an effort to boost its chances of winning a Hugo Award for its 2008 audio anthology METAtropolis, has released the entire audiobook for free to NORTH AMERICAN audible customers (sorry Europe and the rest)! All you’ll need is an audible account and to follow the link.

METAtropolis (Amazon $19.79)
By Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, and Karl Shroeder
Read by Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, and Stefan Rudnicki
FREE DOWNLOAD (for a limited time) - 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008

Publisher's Summary

Welcome to a world where big cities are dying, dead - or transformed into technological megastructures. Where once-thriving suburbs are now treacherous Wilds. Where those who live for technology battle those who would die rather than embrace it. It is a world of zero-footprint cities, virtual nations, and armed camps of eco-survivalists.

Welcome to the dawn of uncivilization.

METAtropolis is an intelligent and stunning creation of five of today's cutting-edge science-fiction writers: 2008 Hugo Award winners John Scalzi and Elizabeth Bear; Campbell Award winner Jay Lake; plus fan favorites Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder. Together they set the ground rules and developed the parameters of this "shared universe", then wrote five original novellas - all linked, but each a separate tale.

Bringing this audiobook to life is a dream team of performers: Battlestar Galactica's Michael Hogan ("Saul Tigh"); Alessandro Juliani ("Felix Gaeta"); and Kandyse McClure ("Anastasia 'Dee' Dualla"); plus legendary audiobook narrators Scott Brick (Dune) and Stefan Rudnicki (Ender's Game).

John Scalzi, who served as Project Editor, introduces each story, offering insight into how the METAtropolis team created this unique project exclusively for digital audio.

Marley & Me (Kindle $6.39, Audible $12.16 - $15.73) by John Grogan

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wriggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.

Marley quickly grew into a barreling, 97-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, and stole women's undergarments. Obedience school did no good, Marley was expelled.

And yet his heart was pure. Just as Marley joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. A dog like no other, Marley remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

Enjoy Marley & Me as Free download courtesy of Garmin!

Free with purchase on Kindle: More Money, More Political Will

For today, April 13th only, purchase the Kindle edition of Lords of Finance (The Bankers Who Broke the World) ($9.99) and receive a free Kindle edition of Liaquat Ahmed's Op Ed, More Money, More Political Will, at no additional charge. The second title will be wirelessly downloaded to your Kindle (and does not appear to be available separately, at least at the current time).

Synopsis

With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth centuryIt is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person?s or government?s control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the xenophobic and suspicious ?mile Moreau of the Banque de France, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose fa?ade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear?that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation? and by a common vision that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard.For a brief period in the mid-1920s they appeared to have succeeded. The world?s currencies were stabilized and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boom-town prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression.As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.

About the Author
With degrees in economics from the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard, Liaquat Ahamed has witnessed at close hand the way countrys' economic policy is made and executed as a professional economist at the World Bank during the 1980s. He has since worked as an investment manager, with a ring-side seat at a sequence of financial crises, from the collapse of the European Monetary System in the 1990s to the current 'sub-prime' economic downturn. This is his first book.

Action Games

I mentioned last week that action games increase the ability to perceive changes in shades of gray up to 58 percent, which in turn improves your ability to read or drive in low light conditions. This week Amazon's Buy One, Get One Free Sale on Game Downloads is all about action games.

Two sequels to the previously free Build-a-lot are included in the sale (Build-a-lot 2: Town of the Year [Game Download] and Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe [Game Download]), although I'm not sure I'd have classified either one as an action game. Like many of the games on the list this week, there is a bit of planning (puzzle-solving) to the game. This seems to be true of Stand O' Food and Garden Dreams, as well. Hopefully the first will convince you a career in fast food isn't the loftiest of goals, while the latter might spark an interest in growing your own food, albeit with a must more instantaneous gratification than the real thing can provide -- our paw-paw tree, for example, had it's first fruit last year, after growing for 10 years and is covered with blooms this year (OK, I'll admit it's one of the slowest possible fruits to grow) and our figs and kiwis are not an every year occurrence (we are at the northern edge of their growing zone), but we can depend on all the fresh asparagus and rhubarb we want every spring, along with a dependable supply of tomatoes, peppers and squash (and many other things).

For more traditional arcade type action, check out Alex Gordon, Ballhalla, Ballhalla or Archibald's Adventures. Three of the more intriguing titles are Granny In Paradise (Super Granny is back, and she's ready to rumble. While on a well-deserved vacation, Granny's kitties are abducted. Run, dig, climb, swing, float and tumble through 5 worlds and over 170 levels, as you rescue Granny's missing cats and outwit the minions of the nefarious Dr. Meow.), Super Granny 3 (After her troubled tropical trip, Super Granny is dropped into her most ambitious adventure yet, a run-down European theme park where she must rescue her arch-nemesis, the evil Dr. Meow, from the clutches of his even-more dastardly master, Mr. Fang.) and Super Granny 4(Join Super Granny and her friends, Kamila and Margaret, as they set out to rescue their missing kitties in this all-new, globe-trotting adventure!). Who knew Granny and her cats were having so much fun when you weren't around?

Just to recap: the way it works is you buy one title (the most expensive of the two you want) and within two (business) days you get a credit to your account and can then come back and buy the second title at no charge. You have until May 31 to purchase your second game, which must come from the same list as the first selection. Just like Kindle books, Game Downloads all come with a free sample - except in this case, it's the entire game and it's generally free for 14 days (however, this sale changes each week, so don't take that long to make up your mind). It's a good idea to use the trial, as game downloads are non-refundable, unlike Kindle books.