Kindle Bargain Ebook Roundup - Sports/People/TV

Don't Hassel the Hoff ($1.87), by David Hasselhoff

Book Description
The Los Angeles Times called him a "counterculture icon" and iTV Guide dubbed him one of TV's Ten Most Powerful Stars, but true aficionados simply call him "The Hoff." Don't Hassel the Hoff follows David Hasselhoff's phenomenal career, from his earliest childhood role in Peter Pan to his latest adventure, starring in Mel Brooks' Tony award-winning musical, The Producers. There is no better time to celebrate Hasselhoff's life and a career that continues to grow and thrive. As the star of the extremely popular classic television shows, Baywatch and Knight Rider, Hasselhoff is an international mega-star, with platinum album sales and starring roles on Broadway and London's West End. As this fascinating memoir reveals, there's more to this handsome superstar than great hair, and legs that look good while running down a beach. "The Hoff" is also a smart, caring man with a huge heart. "This book is my opportunity to print something from my heart, to tell the truth about what happened to me on the long and winding road from Baltimore to Baywatch to Broadway -- and beyond. And the truth is not to be found in tabloid stories but in my actions: I am a good father and tried to be a good husband. I love people and the emotional rollercoaster that goes with human relationships. I love all the bewildering, crazy and wonderful things that life has to offer. This book is about my successes and my failures, my strengths and my weaknesses. And, above all, it is about the hope contained in the Knight Rider slogan: 'One man can make a difference.'" --David Hasselhoff

Full of behind-the-scenes looks at Hasselhoff's television series, celebrations of his proudest moments, and the truths about his struggles with relationships and alcohol, Don't Hassel the Hoff is both highly entertaining and deeply personal, making this an engrossing page-turner from start to finish. Long live "The Hoff."

Bases Loaded ($4.10), by KIRK RADOMSKI

Book Description
On a quiet street on Long Island early on a December morning in 2005, more than fifty federal agents stood outside a lovely new home waiting for the front door to be opened. When it did, there stood the central figure in one of the biggest scandals in sports history: Kirk Radomski. Radomski was a regular New York kid who, from the age of fifteen had the amazing fortune of working in the Mets clubhouse. The focus of his job was to give the players whatever they wanted or needed -- he got their uniforms ready, packed up their homes at the end of the season, cashed their checks, and helped them beat the drug tests that would have led to suspension. And at the end of the 1986 season he even led the World Champions down Broadway during their victory parade. Eventually, he graduated to helping in other ways: providing them with steroids and human growth hormones. By the time the Feds knocked on his door, he was the main clubhouse supplier of performance-enhancing drugs to almost three hundred baseball players. Under threat of a long prison sentence - and after being identified by players he'd helped - he cooperated with Senator George Mitchell to produce the Mitchell Report, providing names and dates. Now he's ready to tell the whole story to the world. Radomski made little money from these transactions, and in this stunning book he will recount what baseball knew about the problem, his life since the report came out, and who took what. This is the tale of a young man seeing his heroes turn into clay, and the degradation of a once great sport into the drug-addicted spectacle it has become. About the Author Kirk Radomski worked in the New York Mets clubhouse for a decade. In 2007, the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball drew heavily from his testimony in revealing the names of players who took performance-enhancing drugs.

The Lost Men ($3.29), by KELLY TYLER-LEWIS

Book Description
The untold story of the last odyssey of the heroic age of Antarctic explorationSir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic endeavor is legend, but for sheer heroism and tragic nobility, nothing compares to the saga of the Ross Sea party. This crew of explorers landed on the opposite side of Antarctica from the Endurance with a mission to build supply depots for Shackleton's planned crossing of the continent. But their ship disappeared in a gale, leaving ten inexperienced, ill-equipped men to trek 1,356 miles in the harshest environment on earth. Drawing on the men's own journals and photographs, The Lost Men is a masterpiece of historical adventure, a book destined to be a classic in the vein of Into Thin Air.

Labor of Love ($2.89), by Thomas Beatie

Book Description
Thomas Beatie electrified the world in April 2008 with his announcement that he was seven months pregnant. He recounted his amazing story on The Oprah Winfrey Show, drawing her single largest TV audience of the year. While the news reached headlines across the globe, it is only one chapter in a fascinating saga. Labor of Love chronicles Thomas Beatie's unique life experiences: his less-than-idyllic childhood in Hawaii; his transition from female to male; his marriage to his wife, Nancy; his legal battles to live as a man; his fight to conceive a child; and the birth of their daughter, Susan, in late June. Labor of Love is a groundbreaking book because it tackles social, political, and legal questions about gender, marriage, and family. Thomas and Nancy's uphill battle to have a baby is both fascinating and touching. They are a normal couple who wanted a family, and yet the circumstances surrounding their desire to get pregnant and their journey to get there are truly extraordinary. Labor of Love is much more than the story of a unique pregnancy and birth-it's a beautiful and controversial love story, a story of going against the tide, and a powerful and important statement about the evolution of family in the new millennium.

Michael Phelps: The Untold Story of a Champion ($2.54), by Bob Schaller

Book Description
Michael Phelps is an American sports hero, perhaps the greatest Olympic athlete the world has ever known. His unprecedented eight gold medals in the 2008 Summer Olympics have made him a superstar. But his journey to Olympic immortality is every bit as compelling as his achievements in the pool. From learning to cope with ADHD to the story of how Phelps became the greatest swimmer ever, Phelps' tale is told in full detail here for the first time.

The author, Bob Schaller, has known Phelps and his coach for more than eight years, and has extensively interviewed him, along with his mother, sisters, coach, and teammates. Filled with revelations, career statistics, photographs, and insightful analysis of how Phelps achieved the seemingly impossible, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn the complete story behind the legend.

Far Afield: A Sportswriting Odyssey ($3.30), by S. L. Price

Book Description
A Year in Provence . . . in sweats

Some people would consider writing for Sports Illustrated a dream job. Others fantasize about living idyllically in the South of France. S. L. Price got to do both. Assigned by Sports Illustrated to cover sports in Europe, Price relocated his family to a small hamlet in Provence, and then set out to uncover the soul of world athletic competition.

In an attempt to comprehend the planet's most intense and bloody sports, he immersed himself in the cricket rivalry between India and Pakistan. He spent time with Lance Armstrong as the cyclist fended off rumors of performance-enhancing drugs. He argued politics with Olympic athletes in Athens, covered Austria's beer-drenched version of the Super Bowl, and caught basketball fever in Belgrade—as he, his wife, and children tried to adjust to life in a Europe convulsed by terrorism, anti-Americanism, and George Bush's war in Iraq.

Far Afield is an extraordinary memoir of growth, family, and games people play worldwide.

The Science of Heroes ($2.84), by Yvonne Carts-Powell

Book Description
A fun, fact-filled examination of the science (or lack thereof) behind the hit television series Heroes.Ordinary people with extraordinary powers populate the world of the hit television show Heroes, where characters exhibit such abilities as flight, telepathy, tissue regeneration, prognostication, invisibility, and teleportation through space and time.The Science of Heroes explores these superpowers and many more through real-world research into the potential of human physical and mental capabilities. Citing the work of renowned scientists and engineers, Yvonne Carts-Powell reveals that even the least likely of powers has been studied-and in some cases, even developed. From the wonders found in nature and cutting-edge technological achievements to the latest discoveries in genetics and mutations, humanity might just possess the knowledge to achieve the extraordinary.

Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World: One Sportswriter's Eyewitness Accounts of the Most Incredible Sporting Events of the Past Fifty Years ($1.50), by Stan Isaacs

Book Description
Want to know what really happened? Stan Isaacs knows. He was there!

"The Shot Heard Round the World," in 1951. "The Fight of the Century," in 1971. The horror of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Secretariat's legendary win at the 1973 Belmont Stakes. Stan Isaacs saw them all live. Isaacs covered thousands of sports stories in his more than fifty years as a journalist. But ten moments stand out in his memory. Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World offers Isaacs' eyewitness accounts of the events that changed sports history. This collection offers those old enough to remember these events a chance to relive them, and younger sports lovers will get to hear this history from someone who was there. Isaacs makes sports history live again.

Almost Free Book - On the Heels of Evil

On the Heels of Evil, by D.E. Daum, is currently on sale for one penny. Only one review, but looks like an honest one -- for a penny, I'll take a chance on it, as the story line shows promise.

Book Description
Does Kelly Rogers have a relationship with The Almighty? Perhaps. One could interpret the fact that he lives as corroboration of a Godly connection. On the other hand, his survival may be an aberration-an uncanny twist of fate, that has propelled him in the position to be the greatest single fighter of world terrorism. That is the question that author, D.E. Daum, makes his readers wonder, repeatedly, while reading this fast-paced action thriller.

Our protagonist, covert agent, Kelly Rogers, begins to believe it and why shouldn-t he? He was dead, practically cut in half by an assassin-s bomb, but awoke in the hospital as Saleem Rhamsy. Yes, through some inexplicable reason, he now occupies the body of Rhamsy-his double-crossing Arab interpreter.

Kelly, who is by all appearances Saleem Rhamsy, is now in the pre-eminent position to monitor the upcoming plans for terrorist events planned by the most active world wide terrorist organizations and as a bonus inherits Rhamsy-s former beauty queen wife, Mariam.

Working for a secret unit of the CIA, Kelly and his superior, the indomitable Jane DeJong and later his wife, go on to fight not only radical Muslim terrorists, but a troublesome group of Neo-Nazis, who have sponsored many of the terrorist activities, including a nuclear bomb planted in a major American city.

Kindle goes International!

It looks like the temporary issues some international customers had with ordering their Kindle books over the weekend were a test of some new location detection system that Amazon needed before introducing their International Kindle, which you can pre-order as of this morning for $279.

It looks like they'll start shipping on October 19th and if history is any indication, they'll be sold out from the minute they are available. Those that order right away reserve a place in line (and if you don't pay for 2nd day or overnight delivery, even that place will probably be a week after launch). Here's the big difference for those looking at the US versus the International units. Both have:

3G Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle; no annual contracts, no monthly fees, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

but the International adds:

International Coverage: Enjoy 3G wireless coverage at home or abroad in over 100 countries

Internally, they've added/changed the cell chip, most likely using the empty slot previously discovered by some of those who have disassembled their Kindles (which I don't recommend); for those technically inclined, it's a HSDPA modem (3G) with a fallback to EDGE/GPRS. The international coverage, however, isn't free (understandable, given the vast difference in how cell plans work in other countries, compared to the US), so you'll want to make extra certain that you have the cell connection turned off when you aren't planning on spending more money than usual:

When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items for a fee of $1.99

Cell coverage for this Kindle is via AT&T, not Sprint, so that may mean a much lower coverage area inside the US (especially if you believe those Verizon ads running these days). So those outside the US will still want to mainly use their USB cable, but now have a cellular option. There is still no wi-fi, which will no doubt lower their technical support costs, since connecting to a hotspot can be tricky. Adding this option might be their next evolution and it's one that international customers (and US with poor cell coverage) would welcome, at least for those savvy enough to be able to hook up to their home networks and the free hotspots that are starting to blanket the world (and every bookstore, now that Borders has joined Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million in giving away wi-fi to promote ebook sales on the new Sony units they'll be selling this year).

The only other change that I could see was that the 2-year extended warranty sold by Amazon is for US customers only (but works on either Kindle, just only inside the US), while those outside the US (and yes, you can order one and have it shipped anywhere) get the same one-year warranty as any other Kindle customer.

The price on the US version of the Kindle, in the meantime, is $259, with refurbished units at $219 (those $199 units went fast). It looks as though they still have to be shipped to a US address, but if you don't want to risk that $2/book wireless fee, they are still a good option even for international customers or those that travel. On the other hand, if you are out of the country often and must download those books while trapped in yet another airport, the international version will provide more entertainment, almost instantly, for as little as two bucks - a deal which can't be beat, in that situation.

Kindle Bargain Ebook Roundup - History/Military

Miracle at St. Anna ($2.70), by James McBride

Book Description
James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, was a literary achievement that topped bestseller lists for more than two years. Now McBride turns his extraordinary gift for storytelling to fiction. Miracle at St. Anna is a tale of courage and redemption inspired by the famed Buffalo soldiers of the 92nd Division and a little-known historic event in a small Tuscan village at the end of World War II-the massacre at St. Anna di Stazzema.

The acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture directed by Spike Lee, coming to theaters Sept. 28.

The Raiders: Sons of Texas($4.79), by Elmer Kelton

Book Description
In 1816, Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson's Indian campaigns and battles against the British, moves his family into the western Tennessee canebrakes. But Mordecai, a born wanderer, is not satisfied with farming, and with his sons Michael and Andrew and some other backwoodsmen, he leads a foray into Spanish-held Texas to hunt wild horses and return the mustang herd to sell in Tennessee.

Crossing the Sabine River, Mordecai's party encounters a Spanish patrol determined to repel all American invaders. After a bloody skirmish leaves their father dead, Michael and Andrew find their way back to their Tennessee farm.

Five years later, after the Spanish government in Mexico City has agreed to permit 300 American families to settle in Texas, the Lewis brothers have their opportunity to re-enter Texas. They ride to the frontier town of Natchitoches, Louisiana, where Michael falls in love with Marie Villaret, daughter of a wealthy French landowner, then cross the Sabine to find Stephen F. Austin, a Missouri entrepreneur in charge of the new American colony.

But the Lewises are considered interlopers and horse thieves and are dogged by a patrol led by the same ruthless Spanish offer who killed their father five years before.

Sons of Texas is the first volume in a trilogy that follows the lives and adventures of the Lewis family through the era of the Alamo and Texas Independence under Sam Houston.

The Warrior ($2.54), by FRANCES RICHEY

Book Description
A heart-rending memoir-in-verse that speaks to a mother's love for her son. When Frances Richey's only child, Ben, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a Green Beret, went on the first of his two deployments to Iraq, she began to write the twenty-eight unflinching poems that make up The Warrior. This urgent and intensely personal collection describes the world of those who wait while their loved ones are in combat or perilous situations; it is universal in its expression of the longing, anguish, love, and hope that constitute close relationships.

Thugs: How History's Most Notorious Despots Transformed the World through Terror, Tyranny, and Mass Murder ($2.42), by Micah D. Halpern

Book Description
From Hitler to Hussein, Napoleon to Pol Pot, Alexander the Great to Idi Amin, this is a trenchant look into the lives, politics, and horrible deeds of history's most notorious world leaders-and how they shaped our world for the worst.

Slavery, Resistance, Freedom ($3.54), by Gabor S. Boritt & Scott Hancock (Editors)

Book Description
Americans have always defined themselves in terms of their freedoms--of speech, of religion, of political dissent. How we interpret our history of slavery--the ultimate denial of these freedoms--deeply affects how we understand the very fabric of our democracy.

This extraordinary collection of essays by some of America's top historians focuses on how African Americans resisted slavery and how they responded when finally free. Ira Berlin sets the stage by stressing the relationship between how we understand slavery and how we discuss race today. The remaining essays offer a richly textured examination of all aspects of slavery in America. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger recount actual cases of runaway slaves, their motivations for escape and the strains this widespread phenomenon put on white slave-owners. Scott Hancock explores how free black Northerners created a proud African American identity out of the oral history of slavery in the south. Edward L. Ayers, William G. Thomas III, and Anne Sarah Rubin draw upon their remarkable Valley of the Shadow website to describe the wartime experiences of African Americans living on both borders of the Mason-Dixon line. Noah Andre Trudeau turns our attention to the war itself, examining the military experience of the only all-black division in the Army of the Potomac. And Eric Foner gives us a new look at how black leaders performed during the Reconstruction, revealing that they were far more successful than is commonly acknowledged--indeed, they represented, for a time, the fulfillment of the American ideal that all people could aspire to political office.
Wide-ranging, authoritative, and filled with invaluable historical insight, Slavery, Resistance, Freedom brings a host of powerful voices to America's evolving conversation about race.

SUMMER OF THE DRUMS ($0.92), by T. V. Olsen

Book Description
An innocent family becomes embroiled in the turbulence of the Black Hawk War. Living in Wisconsin territory in the 1830's, fifteen-year-old Kevin and his family try to remain neutral in the increasingly violent war between the Sac Indians and the white settlers.

Kindle Bargain Ebook Roundup - Romance

Dark Summer ($1.85), by Iris Johansen

Book Description
It begins with a single shot.

Devon Brady is a devoted veterinarian working in a makeshift hospital on a remote search and rescue mission. When a man arrives with his wounded black Lab named Ned, Devon has no idea that she’s about to be plunged into a whirlwind of terror and destruction…

Jude Marrock is out for revenge—and he has no choice but to involve Devon in a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game with an escalating body count. She doesn’t trust Jude one bit… but when the shots start flying and friends start falling, Devon finds herself with nowhere else to run. And there are innocent lives, both human and animal, at stake, including Ned and his mysterious pack. Is Jude her salvation or her damnation? Are the secrets he’s protecting worth killing for—or dying for?

Woman in Red ($2.32), by Eileen Goudge

Book Description
A powerful story of love and redemption, and what one woman will do to overcome the buried secrets of her past.

Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son. Now she's returned home to Gray's Island to reconnect with the son she left behind. Her boy, Jeremy, now a sullen teenager, is wrongly accused of rape, and mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence. She's aided by Colin McGinty, a recovering alcoholic and 9/11 widower, also recently returned to the island in the aftermath of his grandfather's death. Colin's grandfather, a famous artist, is best known for his haunting portrait, "Woman in Red," which happens to be of Alice's grandmother.

In a tale that weaves the past with the present, we come to know the story behind the portrait, of the forbidden wartime romance between William McGinty and Eleanor Styles, and the deadly secret that bound them more tightly than even their love for each other. A secret that, more than half a century later, is about to be unburied, as Alice and Colin are drawn into a fragile romance of their own and the ghost of an enemy from long ago surfaces in the form of his grandson, the very man responsible for sending Alice to prison.

Redemption ($2.48), by Karen Kingsbury

Book Description
When Laura Baxter Jacobs finds out that her husband is involved in an adulterous relationship and wants a divorce, she decides she will love him and remain faithful to her marriage at all costs. This book shows how God can redeem seemingly hopeless relationships, and it illustrates one of Gary Smalley's key messages: Love is a decision.

Redemption is the first book in the five-book Redemption series that Gary and Karen will write about the Baxter family--their fears and desires, their strengths and weaknesses, their losses and victories. Each book will explore key relationship themes as well as the larger theme of redemption, both in characters' spiritual lives and in their relationships. Each book includes study questions for individual and small-group use as well as a "teaser" chapter of the next book in the series.

Just Sex ($2.79), by SUSAN KAY LAW

Book Description
Ellen just got handed the dream of half of the wives in America-her husband told her to have an affair.With her CEO husband, her kids, and her house keeping her busy, passion was never Ellen's first priority. But somehow her husband managed to make time in his schedule for it-with other women. Now he wants Ellen to believe that his reckless liaisons were nothing more than "just sex." In fact, he's so desperate to prove his point that he's challenged her to find out for herself.After so many years, Ellen is hauling out her rusty flirting skills and following her free-spirited best friend into a world she thought she'd left behind at the altar. She might not have any more faith in this marriage, but she's about to find some in herself-and what starts out as "just sex" might end up being a second chance to find something better.

A Game of Chance ($3.60), by Linda Howard

Book Description
On the trail of a vicious criminal, agent Chance Mackenzie found the perfect bait for his trap: Sunny Miller. So Chance made himself the only man she could trust-and then arranged for her long-missing father to find out about them. What Chance hadn't foreseen was that Sunny had reasons of her own for hiding from her father-and now Chance's deception had brought them both one step closer to the end of everything they held dear.

Loving Evangeline ($3.60), by Linda Howard

Book Description
How to describe successful tycoon Robert Cannon? "Cool, ruthless and with a hint of cruelty," said his enemies. "Seductive, passionate and charming," claimed the women he dated. But what would Evangeline Shaw think when she became Robert's next target -- in both ways?