Free Book (ADE/PDF) - The Bourgeois Virtues

The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce ($13.50 Kindle), by Deirdre N. McCloskey, is free from the University of Chicago this month.

Book Description
For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned the bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues, a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us.

McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations.

High Noon, Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. The Bourgeois Virtues is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.

Click HERE to sign up for the free book. You'll need to enter your email address, then check your email for the link to download the book. Mine arrived within seconds and it appears I have an entire year to download the book (you get a .ACSM file, which, when opened, will load the PDF book inside of Adobe ADE). This is a DRM'd PDF that is not compatible with the Kindle.

Free Book (nook) - Under the Black Ensign

Under the Black Ensign ($3.19 Kindle), by L. Ron Hubbard, is free in the Barnes and Noble store. I expect it will be free in the Kindle store as well, later this month.

Book Description
Tom Bristol barely escapes an unjust death sentence aboard the British HMS Terror when the ship is overtaken by pirates. Soon enough, Bristol is stranded on a desert island for stopping a pirate mutiny. When Lady Jane Campbell joins Tom at sea, things really set sail in this swashbuckling adventure.

Click HERE for the free download from B&N.

Free Book (nook) - Jenna's Cowboy

Jenna's Cowboy ($9.99 Kindle), by ($9.99 Kindle), by Sharon Gillenwater, is free courtesy of Christian publisher Revell, in the Barnes and Noble store.

Book Description
Jenna Callahan has a young son and rewarding work on her father's ranch. She's content. But she never expected to see Nate Langley back in town--the first guy she noticed, the one her father sent away all those years ago. And she never thought the attraction they felt would be as strong as ever. Jenna's cowboy has some healing of his own to do, though, after two tours of duty in the armed forces. With the help of good friends, strong faith, and a loving family, he hopes to put the horrors of the past behind him--and become the man Jenna deserves. With an emphasis on simple acts of love, Jenna's Cowboy gives romance readers what they want most: a love story with a Texas touch.

Click HERE for the free download from B&N.

Book Review: Under Witch Moon

One of the books I've read recently is Under Witch Moon, by Maria E. Schneider, and it had me laughing out loud (much to the consternation of the non-reader driving the car). The story was one it took me a few pages to get into, as I had not been reading much in this genre lately, but once I did, I raced right thru it, past all the twists and turns until the very end. I'm glad to see this one marked as part of the Moon Shadow series, which means, I hope, that I'll be reading more about Adriel in the future.

For a limited time, you can pick this one up at Amazon for $3.99 and those of you with other readers (or who want more format choices and easier access to updates, if they occur), can get it on Smashwords for the same price, using coupon code AC78A. Grab this one before it goes up (although if you miss it, it'll only be going to $4.99)!

Book Description
Adriel should have known that with a werewolf, it never stopped with just one body. She would have gone to the police after witnessing Dolores' death, but she wasn't certain the killer she saw was responsible for the other murders. Besides, the police didn't believe in werewolves, and they weren't going to believe she was a witch either so what could she tell them?

She kept her eyes and ears open while she tried to help her latest client escape the clutches of a voodoo witch, but things went from bad to worse when more bodies turned up. She was greatly relieved when she met White Feather, an undercover cop. Unfortunately, he wasn't convinced she was innocent of all wrong-doing.

It was going to take every spell she knew and a few she hadn't tried to solve the murders and stay alive.

A review copy of this book was provided by the author.

Late Nite Treat for Halloween Readers

Here's a late night freebie for those of you still haunting the internet tonight. Gryphonwood Press's Dark Places- A Gryphonwood Anthology is $0.99 in the Kindle store and is free at Smashwords tonight, using coupon code AD94N during checkout.

Book Description
Dark Places is a collection of short stories with a dark twist. Featuring contributions from Alan Baxter, Jim Bernheimer, Terry W. Ervin II, David Debord, Sherry Thompson, John E. Bailor, Ryan A. Span, and David Wood, Dark Places will take you for a walk on the dark side of fiction.

I just found this free music sampler tonight, as well: Experience Halloween: A Tunecore Music Sampler. I'm not sure how good it is, but is anything scarier sounding than Someone Gave Me Health Food On Halloween?

Darkness Under the Sun ($1.59), by Dean Koontz, is a novella that offers a glimpse of the killer in his upcoming What the Night Knows ($13.61 pre-order).

Book Description
The chilling account of a pivotal encounter between innocence and ultimate malice, Darkness Under the Sun is the perfect read for Halloween—or for any haunted night—and reveals a secret, fateful turning point in the career of Alton Turner Blackwood.

There once was a killer who knew the night, its secrets and rhythms. How to hide within its shadows. When to hunt.

He roamed from town to town, city to city, choosing his prey for their beauty and innocence. His cruelties were infinite, his humanity long since forfeit. But still . . . he had not yet discovered how to make his special mark among monsters, how to come fully alive as Death.

This is the story of how he learned those things, and of what we might do to ensure that he does not visit us.