Kindle for Android Arrives - Download it Now!

Speculation around the internet was that Amazon would release Kindle for Android around July 21 (when the Samsung Vibrant will hit the market, as it will have Kindle for Android pre-installed). Today, though, seems to be the day for announcements at Amazon and Kindle for Android is now available to download.

Read Kindle books on your Android phone

• Get the best reading experience available on your Android phone. No Kindle required
• Access your Kindle books even if you don't have your Kindle with you
• Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync
• Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible device
• Read in portrait or landscape mode
• Tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages

View larger image

Shop for books in the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone Buy a book from the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone and get it auto-delivered wirelessly Search and browse more than 600,000 books, including 109 of 110 New York Times bestsellers. If you are a non-U.S. customer, book availability may vary Find New York Times® Best Sellers and new releases from $9.99 Get free book samples. Read the beginning of books for free before you decide to buy Books you purchase can also be read on a Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible mobile devices Kindle newspapers, magazines and blogs are currently not available on Kindle for Android Kindle for Android is currently available for customers in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States View larger image Technical Details Requires Android OS 1.6 or greater

Kindle Books Add Audio/Video

Amazon has just announced support for embedded audio clips and video in their books. So far, this is limited to books downloaded to your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, excluding those on the Kindle hardware and (inexplicably) those using a PC or Mac to read books. The app was updated a few days ago, but it looks like they held off on announcing the new feature until they had a few books available. The Audio/Video enabled versions of books are quite large - one reason they are only on the Apple platform (so far) is that they only will load via WiFi, rather than being sent via the cellular network. That shouldn't be an issue on Kindle for PC or Mac (or for Android, once it releases), but no word yet on whether these apps will be updated to add this capability.

Downloading Kindle Editions with Audio/Video Due to large file size, Kindle for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch requires WiFi to download this title. You will see your purchase on your home screen, but the download will not begin on these devices until they are connected to WiFi.

Kindle Edition with Audio/Video Incorporates video and audio for a rich reading experience. Only available on Kindle for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch.

There are not a lot of titles available yet (in fact, there are only 13 so far, on the Kindle Editions with Audio/Video page). You'll want to keep an eye out for the text (Kindle Edition with Audio/Video) in the title or the graphic shown on the left, as that will indicate that it is only compatible with the new app. For some books, such as Rick Steves': Florence & Tuscany 2010, you will see two versions - one with (Kindle Edition with Audio/Video) in the title and one without. If you want the book on your Kindle and your iPad, you'll have to either choose the non-enhanced, text & images only edition or purchase both versions.

Here are a few of the more interesting looking titles that are now available. I'm still waiting for my samples to load (so, unless you are on a very high speed network, you might not want to follow my example and grab several samples at once).

Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song ($9.99), by Les Beletsky

Book Description
Drawing from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Songs presents the most notable North American birds, including the rediscovered Ivory-billed Woodpecker, with lavish full-color illustrations and accompanied by their corresponding songs and calls. Renowned bird biologist Les Beletsky provides a succinct description of each of the 250 birds profiled, with an emphasis on their distinctive songs.

In his foreword, North American bird expert and distinguished natural historian Jon L. Dunn shares insights gained from a lifetime of passionate study. Complete with the most up-to-date and scientifically accurate information, Bird Songs is the first book to capture the enchantment of these beautiful birds in words, pictures, and song.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, located in Ithaca, New York, is a nonprofit institution focused on birds and whose mission is to interpret and conserve the earth's biological diversity through research. The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab is the major source of sound recordings of birds for research, education, conservation, the media, and commercial products.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes ($9.99), by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Book Description
At last an all-new, full-color cake lover's companion from Rose Levy Beranbaum, The Diva of Desserts! Rose Levy Beranbaum is a much beloved and widely respected baking legend, "a worshipped woman ... revered by serious cooks and part-timers alike", in the words of USA Today. Eagerly-awaited by her legions of devoted fans, Rose's Heavenly Cakes is a must-have guide to perfect cake-baking from this award-winning master baker and author of The Cake Bible, one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time.

This comprehensive guide will help home bakers to create delicious, decadent, and spectacularly beautiful cakes of all kinds with confidence and ease. With her precise, foolproof recipes, Rose shows you how to create everything from Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake, Golden Lemon Almond Cake, and Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache to Orange-Glow Chiffon Layer Cake, Mud Turtle Cupcakes, and Deep Chocolate Passion Wedding Cake. Everything you need to create heavenly cakes-every time-can be found in this new collection of tried-and true recipes by one of the most celebrated bakers of our time.
Offers over 100 simply wonderful recipes for cakes for every occasion, from exceptionally delicious butter and oil cakes, sponge cakes, and mostly flourless cakes and cheesecakes, to charming baby cakes and elegant wedding cakes.

• Features Rose's trademark easy-to-follow, expertly tested (and retested) recipes for perfectly delicious results every time.
• Features special tips and tricks from a beloved baking expert for creating amazing special effects and beautiful cake decor .
• Contains 100 tempting full-color photos.
• Contains video clips of baking tips featuring Rose

Together We Cannot Fail ($9.99), by Terry Golway

Book Description
An uncommon portrait of Roosevelt's presidency, in words, photographs, and his own voice

This vivid portrait shows a nation at its best and at its worst, through the lens of a president's words during the first presidency truly impacted by the media age. An FDR biography unlike any other, Together We Cannot Fail offers a new view of Roosevelt's transformation of an insular America into the world's most revered and feared superpower. An exclusive accompanying audio integrates with the biography to reveal in his own words how he led the nation through the Great Depression and World War II to its "rendezvous with destiny."

Historian Terry Golway brings alive how Roosevelt saved America from its worst fears and led the nation to victory in a cataclysmic world war and by doing so forever changed how Americans live and view themselves. Crafted from Roosevelt's own stirring words, this unique biography shows how he invented and established the practice of the media presidency with his famous fireside chats, the first presidential speeches broadcast nationally from the White House.

For twelve tumultuous presidential years, Roosevelt regularly spoke to the American people, this man of wealth and privilege giving voice to the downtrodden's American Dream. The first in a long line of media presidencies, Roosevelt's innate ability to connect with the people remains the standard by which even the best of them-Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama alike-are judged. Roosevelt's words would define a remarkable presidency that faced and overcame the country's worst economic crisis and a war to end all wars.

Together We Cannot Fail brings the president and his era to life like no other biography, combining the insight of noted historian Terry Golway with Roosevelt's own voice in audio excerpts from his most memorable speeches and chats.

Kindle Edition with Audio/Video includes audio for 30 famous speeches.

Best of the Beatles for Acoustic Guitar ($9.99), by Wolf Marshall

Book Description
Learn the trademark acoustic guitar elements of rock's most influential band. This audio/ebook by guitar dean, Wolf Marshall, provides in-depth analysis of 21 songs including: Across the Universe, And I Love Her, Blackbird Girl, Here Comes the Sun, Hey Jude, I Will, I've Just Seen a Face, Julia, Norwegian Wood, Rocky Raccoon, Till There Was You, Yesterday, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, and more.

Kindle Edition with Audio/Video includes:

• 21 favorite songs
• Audio included for each song
• Accompanying musical notes and lyrics

Lullaby Baby ($9.99), by Audrey Ficociello

Book Description
Every new parent, whether musical or not, needs a good repertoire of lullabies. Filled with 50 classic songs, this beautiful, lavishly illustrated songbook lets parents learn each song as they sing along with the melody. The unique sound component makes for a unique package, perfect for sitting by the crib, and also works wonderfully on the road, putting little ones to rest anywhere, anytime. A timeless gift, Lullaby Baby celebrates the joy of sharing music with children.

Kindle Edition with Audio/Video includes:

• 50 well known lullabies
• Written lyrics and audio track
• Full color illustrations

Here's the complete press release from Amazon:

Amazon Announces New Functionality for Kindle Apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

Readers can now enjoy embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books on their iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch

SEATTLE, Jun 27, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a new update to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch, which allows readers to enjoy the benefits of embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books. The first books to take advantage of this new technology, including Rick Steves' London by Rick Steves and Together We Cannot Fail by Terry Golway, are available in the Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/kindleaudiovideo.

"We are excited to add this functionality to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch," said Dorothy Nicholls, director, Amazon Kindle. "Readers will already find some Kindle Editions with audio/video clips in the Kindle Store today--from Rose's Heavenly Cakes with video tips on preparing the perfect cake to Bird Songs with audio clips that relate the songs and calls to the birds' appearances. This is just the beginning--we look forward to seeing what authors and publishers create for Kindle customers using the new functionality of the Kindle apps."

"We are truly excited to have collaborated with Amazon to launch Kindle Editions with audio/video," said Peter Balis, Director, Digital Content Sales, Wiley. "Innovations like these represent the advantages that digital can offer. Advancing our content in this manner is important for our authors and our readers and it will raise the bar on what digital reading can offer for years to come."

"In the new Kindle Edition with audio/video of Rick Steves' London, the embedded walking tours allow customers to listen to Rick as they explore the sites of London," said Bill Newlin, publisher, Avalon Travel. "Rick's narration adds depth to the reader's experience, while listeners can follow the routes more easily with the text."

Kindle Editions with audio/video are available now with the latest Kindle App on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Kindle for iPhone is now optimized for iPhone 4's retina display. For more information, go to http://www.amazon.com/kindleapps.

Handel for $1.99

In another great deal for those who load classical music onto their Kindle for listening while reading, Amazon has the MP3 download version of The 99 Most Essential Handel Masterpieces currently marked at $1.99. I'm not going to list the cuts included, as there are (obviously) 99 of them, totaling just under 5 hours of music. The orchestras appear to be heavily eastern European, mostly from the area from Munich to Russia, with a few Japanese cuts (and what appears to be a few from an Italian orchestra).

Indie Book Roundup

A few sale and free reads this morning, all from indie authors.

The Last Angel ($0.99), by Steven Savile

Book Description
Gabriel Rush takes a photograph of a beautiful sad-faced hooker in a down town bar and is stunned by what he sees when the picture is developed. At first he thinks it is a flaw in the photograph, but then he recognizes it for what it is, the mark of the Trinity Killer. It is the same mark that scars the faces of mutilated corpses that are turning up all over New York City.

Racing to warn the woman, Gabriel instead finds himself haunted by visions and fighting against time to save his future, the woman he loves, his friends, and - when the killer's identity is finally revealed - his own sanity.

Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help (Extended Edition) ($1.99), by Douglas Anthony Cooper. Milrose has returned to the Kindle store, this time in an extended and rewritten edition aimed at a more adult audience (but still suitable for children). I expect the price to go back up around the end of the month (it started at $4.99, before the sale price hit).

Book Description
Milrose Munce is still alive. Which is more than you can say for most of his friends. No, his friends died, some time ago, mostly in gruesome accidents in the school science lab. Bored Beulah, for instance, fell asleep into a vat of hydrochloric acid. Toasted Theresa caught fire - and roasted for some hours - in the chemical store room. Neither of these girls is very pleasant to look at, but Milrose is extremely fond of them. His mentor is Deeply Damaged Dave, who was carrying a vial of something combustible in his pocket, which - sad to say - combusted. Dave is a master of all things dangerous, and specializes in Milrose's favorite activity: the staging of unwise and magnificent explosions.

Milrose is the only one, as far as he knows, who can see these ghosts. This causes some trouble: the teachers witness him talking to the empty air in front of him, and laughing at jokes that nobody else can hear, and slapping non-existent friends on the back. For this Milrose is sentence to receive Professional Help, a nasty business administered by the unhinged Massimo Natica in a hidden room in the school: the loathsome, perilous Den. He and his fellow captive, Arabella, soon discover that they have in fact been caught up in a vast and unspeakably evil plot, which threatens the lives and deaths of everyone they know. Luckily, they have an army of ghosts at their disposal.

Critics in the UK and Canada have compared Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help to the twisted masterpieces of Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl. While readers as young as eight have loved the book, this dark comedy has an equally large following among adults, and has been the #1 bestseller on the Kindle store in both Children's and Adult books.

Life...With No Breaks ($0.99 Kindle), by Nick Spalding, is free to download today at Smashwords, using coupon code VX29W.

Book Description
"I'm Nick Spalding and I had an idea. What if I tried to write a book about life...with no breaks? An entire book, in one go. Could I do it? And how would it turn out?"

Join author Nick Spalding as he wends his merry way through an odyssey of non-stop writing, covering a variety of subjects in a selection of riotous anecdotes, comedy asides and humorous stories...dredged up from a brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.

The book is written as a conversation with YOU, the reader...and with Nick you'll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, death, sex, money, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (amongst other things).

After you've read 'Life...With No Breaks', there's a very good chance you may never look at the world again the same way!

The Risen Short Stories, by Jan Strnad, are free at Smashwords. These are companion stories to the novel The Risen ($4.95).

Book Description
One autumn week in the small Midwestern town of Anderson, the dead began to rise. They appeared, not as shambling corpses, but in a state of perfect resurrection. Were the Risen the work of God or the Devil? Opinion divided sharply. Many stories emerged during this singular week. Here are five of them.

Dust, a short story by Robert Williams, is free at Smashwords.

Book Description
Billionaire adventurer Stan Owens has everything, success, fame, all the luxury money can buy... until a plane crash leaves him stranded in the desert. Alone in a hostile environment, he makes a horrifying discovery in the desert wastes. This is a frightening new short story by Robert Williams, the acclaimed author of "Peculiar, MO." ($1.09 Kindle, $1.29 Smashwords)

We Don’t Plummet Out of the Sky Anymore, by M. David Blake, is free at Smashwords.

Book Description
Stan wanted a flying car. No, that wasn't quite accurate... Stan wanted a nice flying car, and the quantities of bliss that purchase would bring. Stan desired bliss. Fortunately, Bliss also desired Stan.

The American Vegetarian Cookbook

The American Vegetarian Cookbook from the Fit for Life Kitchen, by Marilyn Diamond, is currently marked down to $1.99 in the Kindle and other ebookstores. Originally published twenty years ago, some of the early information is a bit dated (and the sample never gets past the intro info) and the product description at Amazon leaves a bit to be desired. The customer reviews, on the other hand, are positively glowing and you can use the search inside on the (now out of print) hardcover edition to check out the recipes. As it turns out, my mom has a signed copy, so I'm heading over to skim thru it before grabbing my copy.

Book Description
Over 500 mouth watering recipes designed to keep you and your family satisfied and enthusiastic.

Click HERE to get the book from Kobo.

Click HERE to get the book from Sony.

So far, this one isn't available from B&N.