Free Reads - H.G. Wells

To celebrate the birthday of H.G. Wells (21 Sept 1866) BooksOnBoard is offering The Time Machine for free - in ePub, ADE and Mobi formats. You'll need to set up an account, but should not need a credit card for these formats. There doesn't appear to be any DRM on the files, so the Mobi version should work on the Kindle.

Book Description
The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, is a novella, written in 1895, that sparked the idea of a usable vehicle that allows its operator to travel through time. Wells’ protagonist, the Time Traveler, sees time as the fourth dimension, meaning it could be as travelable as any of the other dimensions. He ends up in the year 802,701 A.D. and discovers a human-esque race called Eloi. Wells’ The Time Machine explores the utopian existence that the Time Traveler discovers the Eloi living in.

If you don't want to use BooksOnBoard, need another format or just want to check out what a hand-converted public domain book can look like (almost always much better than those poorly formatted gutenberg copies in the Kindle store often are), you might want to check out the free version of both The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds over at mobileread.com. These three are currently at the top of the list of recent uploads, which you can find by clicking HERE.

With either of these two sources, you'll need to make your own backups, since when you delete them from your reader, they will be truly removed. On the other hand, that also means that these books won't be cluttering up your archive forever, either, something that becomes more and more of an issue, as my archive grows and there is no method of organizing two years after the first Kindle shipped.

Free Book from Sony - The Monstrumologist

The Monstrumologist ($9.99 Kindle), by Rick Yancey, is a young adult horror story. To get it free, search for the title in the Sony Ebook Store using the desktop Sony Reader software (it's a free download; with it, you can read books on your PC even if you don't have a Sony Reader).

Book Description
These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.

But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

The one who saved me...and the one who cursed me.

So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

Critically acclaimed author Rick Yancey has written a gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does a man become the very thing he hunts?

B1G1F Game Downloads

Amazon once again has a Buy One, Get One Free Sale going on their game downloads. This one lasts thru the end of the month and you are allowed to choose the first game from anything in the Game Downloads Store other than the free downloads of Big Kahuna Reef or Cake Mania. You can try any (or all) of the games on a 30 minute game-time trial basis and if you buy one of them, you'll get a credit via email for the free game (not a coupon, just a credit). Once you have the credit email, you can buy any other game at the same or lesser price on the sale page, at no charge.

I've picked up a few of the games and they can provide a nice break. Since I usually play them on my netbook, I always use the free trial period, as I've found some of them won't work on it's smaller (shorter than standard) screen. Some of them really need an xternal mouse to work well, also. If only I could get the sprinkler system from Alice Greenfingers to work in Animal Crossing: City Folk (on the WII).

Free game download - Tales of Monkey Island

Today's Video Game Deal of the Day at Amazon is another free game download: Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal - Chapter 1. In addition, by buying this game (at $0.00), you will receive a discount of $2.45 off each of the four other episodes. Limit one per customer. Also presumably not stacked with the Buy One, Get One Free offer running on game downloads this month. This was a favorite game in our family, back in the Atari days and is one I've had on my list to check out or maybe get on the WII (it was $8.95 as a PC download yesterday or $10 as a WII download), so getting it free is a treat. Make sure you don't just get the free trial - the price will only be free today and only until they have given away some preset number of downloads, so you need to complete the purchase before the deal goes away.

Game Description
A new game in the much-loved Monkey Island game series, Tales of Monkey Island is a download-only, single player adventure game for PC. Serialized into five monthly releases beginning in the middle of 2009, the first of these is Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, which follows the continuing adventures of the wannabe pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, his love interest Elaine Marley and their nemesis, LeChuck.

Free Book (PDF) - Investing Made Simple

Investing Made Simple: Investing in Index Funds Explained in 100 Pages or Less, by Mike Piper, is available as a free download this month. The book hasn't yet been released at Amazon, so you get it early; most of his other books are in paper only and in the $11-$13 range.

As the title says, the book explains how to use index funds to simplify your investing (and why you should). It's probably a bit too basic if you have already switched to index funds, but a good intro if you have not (or want a book for your kids to read).

Who This Book is For:

Anyone who has questions about investing, but who doesn’t want to trudge through a 300-page textbook.

What You Will Learn:

• Asset Allocation: What does it mean, why is it so important, and how should you determine your own?
• How to Pick Mutual Funds: Learn how to choose funds that are mathematically certain to outperform the majority of other mutual funds.
• Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA vs. 401(k): What’s the difference, and how should you choose between them? Financial Advisors: Learn what to look for as well as pitfalls to avoid.
• Frequent Investor Mistakes: Learn the most common mistakes investors make and what you can do to avoid them.
• Calculate Your Retirement Needs: Learn how to calculate how much you’ll need saved in order to retire.

What the Book is Not:

• This book is not a great work of literary art.
• This book is not going to make you an absolute expert on the topic, and
• This book is not going to provide you with a way to get rich overnight.

What it will do (hopefully) is provide an easy-to-understand, concise introduction to the topic of prudent investing.

Click HERE for the free download.