Game of the Day - Bookworm

Bookworm ($12.98), from PopCap Games, is today's Game Deal of the Day at Amazon. It looks like a very interesting word game for the Nintendo DS Lite or DSi and has almost all 5-star reviews. I have the (older) DS Lite and use it for word and number games - it's very portable (even more so than the Kindle) and I can get in a few minutes of play now and then (or during commercials on TV). If I didn't already have a console, I'd be interested in this new White DSi Bundle, which, at $210.75, includes 5 games: Brain Age Express: Math, Photo Clock, Brain Age Express: Sudoku, Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, Clubhouse Games Express: Card Classics.

Book Description

• Boost scores and advance faster with Bonus Words and Reward Tiles and save your high scores and track your progress with the Lex-Ray.
• Form words from 20 themed book collections and unlock 18 rooms to build your customized libraries.
• Flex your lexicon in three game modes ¿ classic, action and wireless multiplayer.
• Pick up and play -- it's easy to start working wordy wonders in seconds.
• Unlimited levels to keep you rising up the ranks in the Hall of Fame.

A high-energy word puzzle game hosted by Lex the bookworm, Bookworm for DS/DSi challenges players use their vocabulary to create words from a play area of cascading individual letters. Time is of the essence though, as the play area contains red glowing letter tiles, that if unused will "burn down" the player's library if they reach the bottom of the screen, ending the game. The DS/DSi version of Bookworm contains the the same addictive action gamers have craved since the game appeared for PC, but also includes improvements like a wireless multiplayer mode and unlimited levels.

Free Book (EPUB) - The Me I Want to Be

The Christian publisher Zondervan is giving away a download of The Me I Want to Be ($9.99 Kindle), by John Ortberg, as part of a promotion for their ChurchSource Small Group Catalog. The only format available is EPUB, but there is no DRM, so it can be converted for most ereaders.

Book Description
God's vision is for each person to grow spiritually toward a life where the Spirit flows through them like a river. The Me I Want to Be guides readers through the great task and joy of becoming God's best version of ourselves. Bestselling author John Ortberg uses Scripture to confirm God's vision for his creation and reassure readers that this is God's project, not our own. Simply follow His lead and stay on task-not always easy for real people living in the real world. But this straightforward guide provides the inspiration and the tools people need for sidestepping the barriers they encounter. It also gives clear, practical instructions for building the skills and practices necessary for sustained spiritual growth.The Me I Want to Be resonates with Christians who are young or old, new or seasoned. It's the ideal guide for anyone who longs to be spiritually mature, fully alive, and more closely aligned with God's perfect vision.

Click HERE to access the catalog and begin your search. You need to find Gertie, the critter peeking out over the catalog in the picture at the right. I found her hanging of the edge of a page (but the location may vary for each person). Once you find her, click on her to start the process of getting the book. You'll have to click on the eBook link on that page, which will take you to a registration page for Zondervan's ChurchSource program. You can actually enter fake information on this page (or just tell them you don't want any follow up emails) and when you submit the info, you'll go to another page with the download code you need and a link on another website (ebits.net) where the book is actually stored. You'll need to create an account there and enter your code before you can download the book. You'll be given several options for where you'll be viewing the book - just choose Computer and EPUB as the format (EPUB is the only option, no matter where you tell it you want to read it), then pop the book into Calibre to convert it to a format you want (such as Mobi for the Kindle).

You can also register your church, HERE, to receive:

• FREE Church Leader Resource DVD—filled with audio, video, and print downloads to help you share with your staff and leadership team.
• FREE Consultation—Have questions about the campaign? Just mark the “contact me” button below and one of our church campaign consultants will help answer all your questions.

Free Game - Cake Mania Back to the Bakery

The free game this week at Sandlot Games is Cake Mania Back to the Bakery ($4.99 Amazon Game Downloads), the first followup game to Cake Mania ($6.99) which, as you may remember, was free at Amazon last September.

Game Description

• 36 all-new, fast-paced levels of baking!
• Help Jill renovate the Evans Bakery
• Customize your kitchen in the shop screen
• Hilarious new seasonal customers

In this all new adventure, Jill Evans™ has decided to renovate her grandparents' bakery in the hopes of winning them a deluxe grand prize - an all-expense-paid Hawaiian luxury cruise. With an all-new bakery to renovate, hilarious new characters, an all-new storyline and 36 levels of fast-paced baking, fans of Cake Mania can enjoy another great baking adventure!

Click HERE to sign up for the free download. For step by step purchase and installation instructions, see this post.

$1.99 Deals from 5 Spot

The publisher 5 Spot has five books marked down to $1.99 this month (Amazon only has one on their Big Deals page), all of which look to be light, humorous reads.

Knitting Under the Influence, by Claire LaZebnik

Book Description
When you're in your late twenties and nothing in your life seems to be falling into place, knitting is an awfully seductive way to spend your free time. After all, as long as you're following the instructions, you can knit row after row with the knowledge that the pattern will emerge and you'll end up with just what you wanted. Life, on the other hand, doesn't come with a stitch counter, so Kathleen, Sari, and Lucy, the heroines of Knitting Under the Influence, just have to figure things out as they go along.

Their weekly Sunday knitting circle is the only thing holding them together as Kathleen is cut off financially by her family and forced to enter "the real world" for the very first time at the age of twenty-seven, Sari finds herself falling for the man who made her life a living hell in high school but who now desperately needs her help, and Lucy finds herself torn between emotion and reason when her lab and her boyfriend are assailed by an animal-rights group.

At their club meetings, they discuss the really important questions: how bad is it, really, to marry for money if you like the guy a lot anyway? Can you ever forgive someone for something truly atrocious that they've done? Is it better to be unhappily coupled than happily alone? And the little ones: Can you wear a bra with a hand-knit tube top? Is it ever acceptable to knit something for a boyfriend? And why do your stitches become lopsided after your second martini?

I'm with Stupid, by Elaine Szewczyk

Book Description
A hilarious tale of girl meets boy, girl falls in lust, girl discovers boy is not playing with a full deck...

When Kas meets William while on safari in South Africa he seems perfect-a gorgeous park ranger, both kind and brave (he saved the tour from certain death by water buffalo). Her two best friends, Max, an endlessly scheming personal trainer, and Libby, a jobless bombshell, would like to get their hands on William...but he's only interested in Kas, an editorial assistant at a struggling New York literary agency who thinks William is out of her league. The two have a fling, and Kas returns home to New York wondering if she'll hear from William again. So when he finally sends an email, she's delighted.

Until she opens it.

The email is not quite the love missive Kas expected. Did she misjudge William? A miscommunication ensues, triggering a rapid-fire series of comic developments that, within days, bring William to New York, now under the impression that Kas has offered him a place to live. As he unveils his big plan to take Manhattan by storm and make his fortune, Kas finally recognizes how limited William's intellectual capabilities are: He makes Kevin Federline look like Albert Einstein.

Readers are along for the outrageous ride as Kas copes with her new roommate's eccentricities, including a preoccupation with the Psychic Friends Network and a passion for collecting Big Apple-themed souvenirs, and the realization that her dream man is a comic nightmare.

The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club, by Jessica Morrison

Book Description
28-year-old Cassie Moore has always played it safe, living life according to a meticulously organized Master Plan. But when she loses her Perfect Job and finds her fiancé in bed with his ex on the same day, it's clear that The Plan has failed her. She awakens the next day from a drunken stupor to discover that she's booked herself on a six-month trip to Buenos Aires. She speaks not a word of Spanish, but she's already emailed the news to everyone she knows, so there's no turning back. Once in Buenos Aires, Cassie is reluctantly seduced by this glorious city. Her exuberant landlady introduces her to the handsome but haughty Mateo, a man Cassie clashes with right from the start. She soon befriends other lovelorn travelers and together, they start a "Brokenhearts Club" at a local bar, attracting a cast of characters that includes Dan, a sweet handsome man who lives as carefully and predictably as Cassie. Before long, Cassie's making a new plan: 1. Learn Spanish. 2. Stop obsessing about impossible Mateo and fall for perfect-on-paper Dan. But staying on track isn't so simple anymore and Cassie finally realizes that sometimes life--and love--defies her best-laid plans.

Conversations with the Fat Girl, by Liza Palmer

Book Description
Everyone seems to be getting on with their lives except Maggie. At 26, she's still serving coffee at The Beanery Coffee House, while her friends are getting married, having babies, and having real careers. Even Olivia, Maggie's best friend from childhood, is getting married to the doctor with whom she lives. Maggie's roommate? Her dog Solo (his name says it all). The man in Maggie's life? Well there isn't one, except the guy she has a crush on, Domenic, who works with her at the coffee shop as a bus boy.Maggie and Olivia have been best friends since they were in grade school. Both fatties, they befriended each other when no one else would. Now grown-up, Maggie is still shopping in the "women's section" while Olivia went and had gastric-bypass surgery in search of the elusive size 2, the holy grail for girls everywhere. So now Olivia's thin and blonde and getting married, and Maggie's the fat bridesmaid. Ain't life grand? In this wonderful debut novel that is sure to remind readers of Jennifer Weiner's Good In Bed, Liza Orr is both witty and wise, giving voice to women everywhere who wish for just once that they could forget about their weight.

Carpool Diem, by Nancy Star

Book Description
Annie Fleming's family has always adjusted well to her hard driving career. How could they not? Annie keeps them in line at home with typed, edited, and proofed to-do and not-to-do lists for her husband, her babysitter, and her daughter. (No TV on a school night, please!) But when an obnoxious co-worker conspires to force Annie out of her job, she finds herself out of work and face-to-face with her family, who, it turns out, isn't quite as well-adjusted as Annie thought. Husband Tim doesn't have near the follow-through that Annie does (ordered to downsize his employees, he can't fire anybody!) And daughter Charlotte doesn't even try to make the local soccer team - a cut-throat, take-no-prisoners system run by Winslow West, a man who dreams of the Olympic gold his young charges will someday win for him.

Here Annie is unemployed and Charlotte's the one with the quitting attitude? Annie doesn't think so. She's determined to get Charlotte on the A team, but finds that the soccer sidelines are more cutthroat than a boardroom ever was.

You can get the same deal on these books in the Sony bookstore and in the Barnes and Noble store:
Knitting Under the Influence
I'm with Stupid
Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club
Conversations with the Fat Girl
Carpool Diem

Fictionwise 100% Rebates: Grafton, Evanovich & Leigh

Fictionwise is running a 100% rebate deal on three authors this weekend: Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich and Lora Leigh. Every one of their ebooks are included and you can use existing micropay to pay for the titles (except for those on the NYT Bestseller list, which require payment by Credit Card or PayPal to qualify for the rebate: Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich and U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton).

Note that all of the titles are available only in DRM'd formats, so are not Kindle compatible. Most are available in Secure Mobipocket and eReader (nook compatible and the FW reader app on the iPhone) and quite a few show an ePub (nook/Sony) or PDF option (Sony). All, of course, have free reader software options for the PC and this is a cheap way to build up your library of these three bestselling authors.

If you don't have any credit there, you could start with the two NYT bestsellers above, then use that credit to buy a couple of books at a time, repeating until you have purchased them all. The deals on Evanovich are set to end today (which often means about 10am EST) and the other two end tomorrow.