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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Books under a Buck, Part II

These are a bit more expensive than the earlier post, but generally under a buck. Unfortunately for those of us in the US, to get to that price, I had to dig a bit in the international stores and some of the low prices are for international customers only.

Men, Money, and Chocolate ($0.99), by Menna Van Praag, comes from UK publisher Hay House, with stellar reviews, but the price is good in the US.

Book Description
Maya spends each day in her café, dreaming of a perfect life: one filled with love, wealth, and beauty. But she can’t create the life she longs for. She tries to find fulfillment in the pursuit of men and money, and when that doesn’t work, she seeks comfort in chocolate. This just leaves her empty and lost. Then Maya meets a magical stranger who sets her on a path to create the life of her dreams…This sweet and touching true-life tale about love, success, weight loss, and enlightenment will show you what is possible when you listen to your heart, believe in yourself, and take inspired actions in the direction of your dreams. Based on the author’s actual experiences, this is a tale of transformation that reveals how to love another without losing yourself, find work that makes your heart sing, and revel in the delightful decadence of chocolate without guilt or recrimination!

Curious George's Opposites ($0.22), by H. A. Rey, is a familiar children's classic (illustrated, 16 pages).

Book Description
Riding forward and backward on his bicycle and letting pigs in and out of their pen, George, in his typical inquisitive manner, explores opposites in this Spanish translation of a board book favorite.

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever ($0.48), by Benjamin Mee

Book Description
The remarkable true story of a family who move into a rundown zoo–already a BBC documentary miniseries and excerpted in The Guardian.

In the market for a house and an adventure, Benjamin Mee moved his family to an unlikely new home: a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside. Mee had a dream to refurbish the zoo and run it as a family business. His friends and colleagues thought he was crazy.

But in 2006, Mee and his wife with their two children, his brother, and his 76-year-old mother moved into the Dartmoor Wildlife Park. Their extended family now included: Solomon, an African lion and scourge of the local golf course; Zak, the rickety Alpha wolf, a broadly benevolent dictator clinging to power; Ronnie, a Brazilian tapir, easily capable of killing a man, but hopelessly soppy; and Sovereign, a jaguar and would-be ninja, who has devised a long term escape plan and implemented it.

Nothing was easy, given the family’s lack of experience as zookeepers, and what follows is a magical exploration of the mysteries of the animal kingdom, the power of family, and the triumph of hope over tragedy. We Bought a Zoo is a profoundly moving portrait of an unforgettable family living in the most extraordinary circumstances.


Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief ($0.44), by Roger Lundin, has a list price of $25!

Book Description
Garnishing awards from Choice, Christianity Today, Books & Culture, and the Conference on Christianity and Literature when first published in 1998, Roger Lundins Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief has been widely recognized as one of the finest biographies of the great American poet Emily Dickinson. Paying special attention to her experience of faith, Lundin skillfully relates Dickinsons life as it can be charted through her poems and letters to nineteenth-century American political, social, religious, and intellectual history. This second edition of Lundins superb work includes a standard bibliography, expanded notes, and a more extensive discussion of Dickinsons poetry than the first edition contained. Besides examining Dickinsons singular life and work in greater depth, Lundin has also keyed all poem citations to the recently updated standard edition of Dickinsons poetry. Already outstanding, Lundins biography of Emily Dickinson is now even better than before.

Alternate Gerrolds: An Assortment of Fictitious Lives ($0.99), by David Gerrold, is a collection of short stories by this Hugo and Nebula nominated author. Only one review and the one-star was because he wanted the writer to pursue other projects, not because of the content of this book (I say, vote that one down!).

Book Description
David Gerrold takes you on a tour of alternate universes … universes where Santa Claus isn’t nice and the best man is actually elected president; where Ronald Reagan and Gregory Peck command the plane carrying the first atomic bomb and John F. Kennedy stars in the hit show Star Track, where Franz Kafka doesn’t write fiction and the Devil holds educational seminars. Introduction by Mike Resnick.

Lion's Honey ($0.48), by David Grossman and Stuart Schoffman

Book Description
In Lion's Honey, award-winning writer David Grossman takes on one of the most vivid and controversial characters in the Bible. Revisiting Samson's famous battle with the lion, his many women and his betrayal by them all, including the only one he ever loved. Grossman gives us a provocative new take on the story and its climax, Samson's final act of death, brining down a temple on himself and three thousand Philistines. In exhilarating and lucid prose, Grossman reveals the journey of a single, lonely and tortured soul who never found a true home in the world, who was uncomfortable in his very body and who, some might say, was the precursor of today's suicide bombers.

Drawing the Map of Life: Inside the Human Genome Project ($0.05), by Victor K. McElheny, is a no-brainer pickup, if you are at all interested in genetics.

Book Description
Drawing the Map of Life is the dramatic story of the Human Genome Project from its origins, through the race to order the 3 billion subunits of DNA, to the surprises emerging as scientists seek to exploit the molecule of heredity. It’s the first account to deal in depth with the intellectual roots of the project, the motivations that drove it, and the hype that often masked genuine triumphs.

Distinguished science journalist Victor McElheny offers vivid, insightful profiles of key people, such as David Botstein, Eric Lander, Francis Collins, James Watson, Michael Hunkapiller, and Craig Venter. McElheny also shows that the Human Genome Project is a striking example of how new techniques (such as restriction enzymes and sequencing methods) often arrive first, shaping the questions scientists then ask.

Drawing on years of original interviews and reporting in the inner circles of biological science, Drawing the Map of Life is the definitive, up-to-date story of today’s greatest scientific quest. No one who wishes to understand genome mapping and how it is transforming our lives can afford to miss this book.


The Kids are Alright: How the Gamer Generation is Changing the Workplace ($0.93), by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade

Book Description
Think video games are kids' stuff? Think again. According to authors John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade all those hours immersed in game culture have created masses of employees with unique attributes. This new generation that's ninety-million strong has an amazing ability to multitask, solves problems creatively, and brings unexpected leadership to the table. But to tap these skills, we need to understand and appreciate the different ways gamers think and behave. "The Kids Are Alright" dispels common myths about gamers and reveals them as committed, team-oriented people who play to win.

Murder in Clichy ($0.96), by Cara Black, the fifth in the Aimee Leduc Investigations series, continues the sporadic bargains in this series. This edition is mobi formatted, while a second (at the same price is Topaz)

Book Description
Aimée Leduc, private investigator specializing in computer security, has been introduced to the Cao Dai temple in Paris by her partner René Friant. He urges her to learn to meditate: she could use a more healthful approach to life. The Vietnamese nun Linh has been helping Aimée to attain her goal, so when she asks Aimée for a favor—to go to the Clichy quartier to exchange an envelope for a package—René prompts Aimée to agree. But the intended recipient, Thadée Baret, is shot and dies in Aimée’s arms before the transaction can be completed, leaving Aimée with a wounded arm, a check for 50,000 francs, and a trove of ancient jade artifacts.

Whoever killed Baret wants the jade. The RG—the French secret service; a group of veterans of the war in Indochina and some wealthy ex-colonials and international corporations seeking oil rights are all implicated. And the nun, Linh, has disappeared.

Since the incident in which she was temporarily blinded (Murder in the Bastille), Aimée has promised to avoid danger. But somehow, it continues to seek her out.


The Yo-Yo Diet Syndrome ($0.99), by Doreen Virtue, is another bargain book from UK publisher Hay House.

Book Description
How wonderful would it feel to be able to break free from the pattern of yo-yo dieting forever? Recent research suggests that 95 percent of dieters fail to keep the weight off and continually lose pounds on countless occasions but end up putting it (and more) back on, overeat due to stress, depression, boredom, and fatigue, and constantly crave, or binge on, fat- and calorie-laden food. In this revised edition of her landmark book, Doreen Virtue shows you how you can keep the extra weight off—permanently! She presents a wealth of practical information that shows you how to heal your appetite and dieting issues, from the inside out. This book is a must if you want to address the psychological, spiritual, and physiological causes of weight gain, and desire a simple and realistic method for shedding those excess pounds—for good!

Hay House strikes again with Linden's Last Life: The Point of No Return Is Just the Beginning ($0.99), by Alan Cohen

Book Description
Just as down-and-out Linden Kozlowski is about to end it all, he’s intercepted by a monk who convinces him that if he runs away from life, he’ll have to return, and his problems will just get worse. To escape the pain of the world forever, Linden stays alive long enough to make a mystical deal to never be reborn again.

When a strange and unexpected turn of events occurs, Linden has second thoughts about his decision…but can he reverse it? His extraordinary adventure literally takes him to the ends of the earth, where he gathers allies, faces overwhelming forces, and realizes that he must decide if life is worth living and if love is more powerful than destiny.


The Magic Half ($0.48), by Annie Barrows, is aimed at the pre-teen in your life.

Book Description
Miri is the non-twin child in a family with two sets of them--older brothers and younger sisters. The family has just moved to an old farmhouse in a new town, where the only good thing seems to be Miri's ten-sided attic bedroom. But when Miri gets sent to her room after accidentally bashing her big brother on the head with a shovel, she finds herself in the same room . . . only not quite...

Without meaning to, she has found a way to travel back in time to 1935 where she discovers Molly, a girl her own age very much in need of a loving family. A highly satisfying classic-in-the-making full of spine-tingling moments, this is a delightful time-travel novel for the whole family.


No Man Is an Island ($0.95), by Thomas Merton

Book Description
A recapitulation of his earlier work Seeds of Contemplation, this collection of sixteen essays plumbs aspects of human spirituality. Merton addresses those in search of enduring values, fulfillment, and salvation in prose that is, as always, inspiring and compassionate.

The Gathering ($0.84), by Anne Enright, won the MAN Booker Prize in 2007.

Book Description
In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come to the fore. Tempers flare as the family assembles for Liam's wake, and a secret Veronica has concealed since childhood comes to light. Enright skillfully avoids sentimentality as she explores Veronica's past and her complicated relationship with Liam. She also bracingly imagines the life of Veronica's strong-willed grandmother, Ada. A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly.

Rhett Butler's People ($0.27 Canada), by Donald McCaig, is the first of the books that are bargains only for select non-US customers.

Book Description
Fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate, Rhett Butler's People is the astonishing and long-awaited novel that parallels the Great American Novel, Gone With The Wind. Twelve years in the making, the publication of Rhett Butler's People marks a major and historic cultural event.

Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfolds. Through Rhett's eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell's unforgettable pages: Langston Butler, Rhett's unyielding father; Rosemary his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett's best friend and a onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O'Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.

Of course there is Scarlett. Katie Scarlett O'Hara, the headstrong, passionate woman whose life is inextricably entwined with Rhett's: more like him than she cares to admit; more in love with him than she'll ever know…

Brought to vivid and authentic life by the hand of a master, Rhett Butler's People fulfills the dreams of those whose imaginations have been indelibly marked by Gone With The Wind.


Spring's Renewal ($0.95 Canada), by Shelley Shepard Gray

Book Description
Tim Graber arrives in Sugarcreek to help his aunt and uncle with spring planting. At first, Tim doesn't fit in with his many cousins and their crowded lifestyle. But when he meets Clara Slabaugh, the local school teacher, he understands why the Lord brought him to Sugarcreek. Clara is shy and quiet. Scarred from a fire when she was small, Clara has resigned herself to living alone and caring for her mother, who tells her that no man will ever see past her scars, and that Clara needs to keep teaching in order to make ends meet. Her father passed away years ago, and her mother depends on her. But the scars mean nothing to Tim. He appreciates her quiet nature and her wonderful, loving way with children. Yet Tim has a sweetheart back home in Indiana. As these two hearts struggle to determine their path, tragedy strikes, and every other worry seems insignificant in comparison. Though they now face a life they never imagined, will Tim and Clara have the faith to step out and risk everything for a chance at true love?

Glitter Baby ($1.99 Canada), by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, is a good bargain for those who missed the special edition (even if it is more than a buck).

Book Description
Welcome to the world of the Glitter Baby

Fleur Savagar is the most beautiful woman in the world . . . to everyone but herself. With her oversized hands and paddle-boat feet, her streaky blond hair and funny green eyes, she lives a life filled with secrets that began before she was born. That was when her bewitching mother left home to find James Dean and met Errol Flynn instead. Now Fleur has to grow up quickly, and life won't make that easy.

Jake Koranda is both New York's most brilliant playwright and Hollywood's hottest actor. Difficult, talented, and tormented, he has no patience for international glamour girls, not even ones with beautiful bodies and smart-aleck mouths. But there's more to the Glitter Baby than shine, and Fleur's tougher than Jake expects. Even with the odds stacked against her, she's fiercely determined to discover the woman she's destined to be.

An ugly duckling who can't believe she's turned into a swan . . . A tough-guy movie star with a haunted past . . . In a land of broken dreams, can two unlikely lovers trust their hearts?


Coming of the Storm ($0.58 Australia), by W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, reminds me somewhat of Jane Auel's books, but with a more modern setting.

Book Description
From New York Times bestselling novelists W. Michael and Kathleen O’Neal Gear comes the first book in a landmark new series that paints a vivid portrait of the devastating clash of cultures during the blood-drenched years that followed Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s landing in “La Florida” in 1539—as seen entirely through the eyes of two courageous Native Americans.

Black Shell, an exiled Chickasaw trader, is fascinated by the pale, bearded newcomers who call themselves “Kristianos,” and not even the counsel of Pearl Hand, the beautiful, extraordinary woman who has consented to be his mate, can dissuade him. Only after a firsthand lesson in Kristiano brutality does Black Shell fully comprehend the dangers these invaders pose to his people’s way of life. And while his first instinct is to run far from the Kristianos, Black Shell has been called to a greater destiny—by the Spirit Being known as Horned Serpent. With Pearl Hand by his side, Black Shell must find a way to unite the disparate tribes and settlements of his native land and overcome the merciless armies of de Soto. . . .


Digital Fortress ($0.90 Canada), by Dan Brown

Book Description
Before the multi-million, runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown set his razor-sharp research and storytelling skills on the most powerful intelligence organization on earth--the National Security Agency (NSA), an ultra-secret, multibillion-dollar agency many times more powerful than the CIA.

When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage...not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence.

Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

From the underground hallways of power to the skyscrapers of Tokyo to the towering cathedrals of Spain, a desperate race unfolds. It is a battle for survival--a crucial bid to destroy a creation of inconceivable genius...an impregnable code-writing formula that threatens to obliterate the post-cold war balance of power. Forever.


Plum Spooky ($0.52 Canada), by Janet Evanovich

Book Description
Turn on all the lights and check under your bed. Things are about to get spooky in Trenton, New Jersey.

According to legend, the Jersey Devil prowls the Pine Barrens and soars above the treetops in the dark of night. As eerie as this might seem, there are things in the Barrens that are even more frightening and dangerous. And there are monkeys. Lots of monkeys.

Wulf Grimoire is a world wanderer and an opportunist who can kill without remorse and disappear like smoke. He’s chosen Martin Munch, boy genius, as his new business partner, and he’s chosen the Barrens as his new playground.

Munch received his doctorate degree in quantum physics when he was twenty-two. He’s now twenty-four, and while his brain is large, his body hasn’t made it out of the boys’ department at Macy’s. Anyone who says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Munch. Wulf Grimoire is looking for world domination. Martin Munch would be happy if he could just get a woman naked and tied to a tree.

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has Munch on her most-wanted list for failure to appear in court. Plum is the all-American girl stuck in an uncomfortable job, succeeding on luck and tenacity. Usually she gets her man. This time she gets a monkey. She also gets a big guy named Diesel.

Diesel pops in and out of Plum’s life like birthday cake – delicious to look at and taste, not especially healthy as a steady diet, gone by the end of the week if not sooner. He’s an über bounty hunter with special skills when it comes to tracking men and pleasing women. He’s after Grimoire, and now he’s also after Munch. And if truth were told, he wouldn’t mind setting Stephanie Plum in his crosshairs.

Diesel and Plum hunt down Munch and Grimoire, following them into the Barrens, surviving cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, a hair-raising experience, sand in their underwear, and, of course . . . monkeys.


Married by Mistake (FREE India and Asia & Pacific), by Abby Gaines

Book Description
The bride wore a white dress and a look of despair… Do not adjust your set. That really was Casey Greene being jilted by her fiancé on live TV. And that really was Tennessee’s most eligible bachelor who stepped in to marry her instead! Millionaire businessman Adam Carmichael only wanted to help Casey save face. He isn’t prepared for the news that their “fake” wedding is legal and binding. While they secretly wait for an annulment, media and family scrutiny forces them to put on their best loving couple act. Except by now, neither one is quite sure who’s acting…

The Miracle at Speedy Motors: The New Novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series ($2.44 Asia & Pacific / Latin America), by Alexander McCall Smith (works out to equivalent to about a 40 cent book in the US, plus the $2 charge most international books get in the Kindle store).

Book Description
In the latest installment of the universally beloved, bestselling series, Mma Ramotswe discovers the biggest miracles in life are often the smallest.Under the endless skies of Botswana, there is always something Mma Ramotswe can do to help someone and here she finds herself assisting a woman looking for her family. The problem is the woman doesn't know her real name or whether any of her family members are still alive. Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi is the recipient of a beautiful new bed that causes more than a few sleepless nights. And, at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has come under the influence of a doctor promising a miracle cure for his daughter's medical condition, which Mma Ramotswe finds hard to accept. Nonetheless, Precious Ramotswe handles these things in her usual compassionate and good-natured way, while always finding time for a cup of red bush tea.

Little Bird of Heaven ($0.56 Canada), by Joyce Carol Oates

Book Description
Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, romantic, and captivating tale, set in the Great Lakes region of upstate New York—the territory of her remarkably successful New York Times bestseller The Gravedigger's Daughter.

Set in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late-twentieth-century America returns to the emotional and geographical terrain of acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates's previous bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and The Gravedigger's Daughter.

When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects, her estranged husband, Delray Kruller, and her longtime lover, Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers' son, Aaron, and Eddy Diehl's daughter, Krista, become obsessed with each other, each believing the other's father is guilty.

Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is a classic Oates novel in which the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty. By the novel's end, the fated lovers, meeting again as adults, are at last ready to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms with their legacy of guilt, misplaced love, and redemptive yearning.


Ten Degrees of Reckoning: A True Story of Survival ($0.57 Canada), by Hester Rumberg

Book Description
An international bestseller. A remarkable true story of one woman's courage.

In 1993, Judith and Michael Sleavin and their two children set out to sail around the world. Three years into their incredible journey, a nearby freighter altered its course by a mere ten degrees-and everything changed...

After forty-four hours in the icy water clinging to an overturned dinghy, her back broken and paralyzed below the waist, Judith miraculously survived, winding up in a small community on the New Zealand coast. Gripping, unbelievable yet true, Judith's story of courage, survival, and retribution is alternately heartrending and uplifting. It's also a story of unbreakable bonds, of shattering loss, and of one woman reborn through the strength of friendship and the profound love of strangers who became family.


Blow the House Down ($0.12 Canada), by Robert Baer

Book Description
Former CIA operative Robert Baer pushes fiction to the absolute limit in this riveting and unnervingly plausible alternative history of 9/11.

Veteran CIA officer Max Waller has long been obsessed with the abduction and murder of his Agency mentor. Though years of digging yield the name of a suspect—an Iranian math genius turned terrorist—the trail seems too cold to justify further effort. Then Max turns up a photograph of the man standing alongside Osama bin Laden and a mysterious westerner whose face has been cut out, feeding Max’s suspicion. When the first official to whom Max shows the photo winds up dead, the out-of-favor agent suddenly finds himself the target of dark forces within the intelligence community who are desperate to muzzle him.

Eluding a global surveillance net, Max—in the summer of 2001—begins tracking the spore of a complex conspiracy, meeting clandestinely with suicide bombers and Arab royalty and ultimately realizing the Iranian he’d sought for a decades-old crime is actually at the nexus of a terrifying plot.

Showing off dazzling tradecraft and an array of richly textured backdrops, and filled with real names and events, Blow the House Down deftly balances fact and possibility to become the first great thriller to spring from the war on terrorism.


American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WWII Marine Raiders and America's First Special Forces Mission ($0.08 Canada), by John Wukovits

Book Description
Before the Green Berets...Before the Navy SEALs...Before the Army Rangers...There was the Long Patrol.

November 1942: in the hellish combat zone of Guadalcanal, one man would make history.

Lt. Col. Evans Carlson was considered a maverick by many of his comrades-and an outright traitor by others. He spent years observing guerrilla tactics all over the world, and knew that those tactics could be used effectively by the Marines.

Carlson and an elite fighting force-the 2nd Raider Battalion-embarked upon a thirty-day mission behind enemy lines where they disrupted Japanese supplies, inflicted a string of defeats on the enemy in open combat, and gathered invaluable intelligence on Japanese operations on Guadalcanal. And in the process they laid the foundation for every branch of Special Forces in the modern military.

Here, for the first time, is a riveting account of one man, one battalion, and one mission that would forever change the ways of warfare.


Blind Fall ($2.05 Asia & Pacific), by Christopher Rice

Book Description
John Houck became a Marine to become a hero. But his life changed when he failed to notice an explosive device that ended up maiming the captain of his Force Recon Company, a respected Marine who nearly sacrificed himself to save John's life.

Home from Iraq, John pays a visit to his former captain, only to discover the captain has been gruesomely murdered. John pursues a strange man he sees running from the scene, but he discovers that Alex Martin is not the murderer. Alex is, in fact, the former captain's secret male lover and the killer's intended next victim.

When it becomes clear that local law enforcement has direct connections to the murder itself, John realizes that to repay his debt of honor, he must teach Alex Martin how to protect himself, even if that means teaching Alex to kill. In the process, John confronts the painful truth about the younger brother he was unable to protect and the older sister he always felt he failed.

Blind Fall is a story of honor and integrity, of turning failure into victory. It is a stunning departure for Christopher Rice: the story of two men, one a Marine, one gay, who must unite to avenge the death of the man they both loved -- one as a brother-in-arms, one as a lover -- and to survive.


Enemy Women ($0.88 Canada), by Paulette Jiles

Book Description
For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee.

The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women's prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.

Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise ... seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.


Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line ($0.92 Canada), by Martha A. Sandweiss

Book Description
The secret double life of the man who mapped the American West, and the woman he loved

Clarence King was a late nineteenth-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as "the best and brightest of his generation." But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life-the first as the prominent white geologist and writer Clarence King, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. The fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common-law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed. In Passing Strange, noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the dramatic, distinctively American tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race- a story that spans the long century from Civil War to civil rights.


How to Rule the World from Your Couch ($$2.10 Asia & Pacific / Latin Americas), by Laura Day

Book Description
In her new book, How to Rule the World from Your Couch, Laura Day teaches you or your company how to create success in any area by using your brain in unique and compel-ling ways so that your innate intuition can propel you ahead to successful solutions.

The step-by-step exercises included -- many of which can (and should!) be done from the comfort of your couch -- will show you how you can:

  • Find and secure your dream job
  • Maintain solid relationships, even at a distance
  • Lose weight by reclaiming the body you were meant to have
  • Know how to spot your perfect mate
  • Make better investments and business decisions
  • Negotiate differences in the workplace
  • Have an understanding relationship with your child
  • Identify which opportunities will pan out
  • Project a desirable image for yourself or your product
  • Anticipate and resolve difficult conflict before you walk into a situation
Laura's work has helped demystify intuition and demonstrate its practical, verifiable uses in the fields of business, science, medicine, and personal growth. Her list of clients and students includes doctors, financial investors, scientists, engineers, and celebrities. Day has shown that 98 percent of success is planning and that you, therefore, have the power to transform your life.

Spring Breakdown ($0.95 Canada), by Melody Carlson, is another bargain from Christian publisher Zondervan, but only for those north of the border.

Book Description
The six Carter house girls plan to join Mrs. Carter in Florida for a 'quiet' spring break, but quiet is impossible when Harry and his guy friends stay in a condo nearby. Focused on her newfound faith and sobriety, Taylor is trying to behave, but Eliza has no such intention. In an attempt to win Harry back, Eliza continues to push the envelope and her partying spins out of control. When Eliza goes missing, everyone is left worried and afraid for her safety. Will Eliza wake up and see that her life is built on sinking sand? Or will this quicksand claim her instead?

The Open Road ($0.44 Canada), by Pico Iyer

Book Description
For over three decades, Pico Iyer, one of our most cherished travel writers, has been a friend to the Dalai Lama. Over these years through intimate conversations, he has come to know him in a way that few can claim. Here he paints an unprecedented portrait of one of the most singular figures of our time, explaining the Dalai Lama's work and ideas about politics, science, technology, and religion. For Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life and the daily challenges of this global icon.

Books under a Buck

Happy Mother's Day!

Fixing Freddie is now free in the US Kindle store and from Sony, so grab it while you can. To go with it, below you'll find a number of books, all under a dollar. These appear to all by Amazon marked down titles, so the prices could change at any time. Already, one deal from this morning changed while I was writing this post. If you buy every single title in today's post, you'll have change left over from a two dollar bill!

Where is your "immediate grab" point if the price isn't quite free? A penny? A nickel? A dime? Maybe it's 25 cents? In any case, there should be several there you absolutely must have, a few that you want and perhaps some that are just "too much" (or they really, really don't appeal). I strongly recommend using gift certificates, so that your credit card company/bank doesn't get a false positive fraud alert due to a number of extremely small transactions; for those having to use currency exchange on their credit cards, this can drastically lower those fees, as well.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp ($0.01), by Rick Yancey, is aimed at the older teen/young adult market.

Book Description
Alfred Kropp is the last person you’d think could save the world. But when this oversized underachiever gets roped into a suspicious get-rich-quick scheme, his life takes a turn for the extraordinary. Little does Alfred know he has been tricked into stealing Excalibur–the legendary sword of King Arthur–and the most powerful weapon ever wielded by man.

With an ancient order of knights in hot cars, thugs on motorcycles, and a mysterious international organization following his every lumbering step, Alfred undertakes a modern-day quest to unravel a thousand-year-old mystery and return the sword to its rightful place.


An Oprah selection from 2000, I immediately replaced my paper copy of Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage ($0.01), by Robert Morgan, with this bargain.

Book Description
There is a most unusual woman living in Gap Creek. Julie Harmon works hard, "hard as a man," they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. She is just a teenager when her little brother dies in her arms. That same year she marries and moves down into the valley where floods and fire and visions visit themselves on her, and con men and drunks and lawyers come calling.

Julie and her husband discover that the modern world is complex and that it grinds ever on without pause or concern for their hard work. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep chaos and madness at bay.

Robert Morgan's latest novel, Gap Creek, returns his readers to the vivid world of the Appalachian high country. Julie and Hank's new life in the valley of Gap Creek in the last years of the nineteenth century is more complicated than the couple ever imagined. Sometimes it's hard to tell what to fear most-the fires and floods or the flesh-and-blood grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate themselves into their new lives. Their struggles with nature, with work, with the changing century, and with their disappointments and triumphs make this a riveting follow-up to Morgan's acclaimed novel, The Truest Pleasure.


Master of the Delta ($0.01), by Thomas H. Cook

Book Description
In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father’s Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school.While conducting a class on evil throughout history, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father’s crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie’s lineage can’t. But when the investigation turns in an unexpected direction, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie’s motives—and his own.

As the deadly consequences of Jack’s actions fall inescapably into place, Thomas H. Cook masterfully reveals the darker truths that lurk in the recesses of small-town lives and in the hearts of well-intentioned men.


Love Springs/Prelude: Two Inspector Monde Tales of Strange and Terrible Adventures ($0.01), by John Booth, is the 5th of 7 titles in the The Inspector Monde Tales series. Both are short stories, but they only cost you a half cent each (or half that, if you still have a penny from the $20 for $10 KSO deal).

Book Description
Love Springs
A woman, a man, each searching for the other, fear etched in their eyes as Inspector Monde seeks to understand. Only he knows if the bridge will reveal their secrets.

Prelude
An invitation, a warning, a clue. An old case that still haunts Inspector Monde resurfaces and he suspects revenge. Even Cervantes and his kind flee the evil that postures and taunts and lures Inspector Monde to a place of such corruption that the unthinkable becomes real.

Inspector Monde walks the dark side of Paris where the supernatural can be found. Every police force has an Inspector Monde though they try to deny it. When the blood chills and the hairs on the back of the neck rise they send for him and don't look too closely at what he does. For the Inspector does not particularly believe in the Law but will fight for Justice to his last breath.


Many Ways to Say I Love You: Wisdom for Parents and Children from Mister Rogers ($0.01), by Fred Rogers. Many of you probably grew up watching Mister Rogers (I was a bit too old to watch him when he was first popular ... personally, I found his show a bit creepy).

Book Description
Words of wisdom and inspiration on parenting from the beloved Fred Rogers. These excerpts from previously published as well as never-before-published works show appreciation for parents whose children are fully-grown as well as give advice to those parents raising young ones.

The book is a collection of segments from never-before published speeches and observations from his years of working with parents and children, as well as other materials from books, songs, TV commentary, and more. Using stories from his own life, Rogers discusses the importance of children and the role of parents.


The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople ($0.01), by Stephan Schiffman

Book Description
Now you can join the hundreds of thousands of salespeople who have followed Stephen Schiffman's advice and watch your performance soar. Schiffman lets you in on the industry's best-kept secrets. If you're a salesperson looking to succeed, this is the book for you! This new edition includes:
  • New examples using the latest advances in sales presentation technology
  • Up-to-date cases of these successful habits in action
  • Five bonus habits showing readers how to overcome mistakes, set sales timetables, and reexamine processes to shore up weaknesses

Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess ($0.05), by Steven Curtis Chapman, is short (64 pages), so likely has several illustrations or photos to add up to it's 773KB size.

Book Description
As the clock strikes midnight, remember . . .

Each moment we have to spend with our children is a blessing from above. But as we cherish this chapter of life, we realize the pages of time will keep turning. Alternating between the voices of a father and his daughter, Cinderella celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love and life. You will be enchanted by this modern fairytale that teaches us how to hand our own Cinderella her glass slippers and let her go.


I had to grab The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2: Love Bites ($0.05), edited by Trisha Telep, since I already had Volume 1! (and, I paid considerably more for it, although less than two bucks).

Book Description
A wonderful variety of compellingly original vampire stories, many of them wholly unexpected, from award-winning, New York Times bestselling authors. There are typical vampires who would be right at home in a horror story or a gothic romance; historical vampires; contemporary, gritty, urban vampires; fang-in-cheek comedy; boy-meets-girl sweetheart stories (if a little bloodier!); and erotic tales of inhuman passions and midnight pleasures. Look out, too, for stand-alone stories relating to existing series and characters of contributing authors, or stories which develop more fully characters who have only walk-on parts in those authors' longer fiction. Includes writing by big-name authors such as Jennifer Ashley, Kim Harrison writing as Dawn Cook, Caitlin Kittredge, Diane Whiteside and Eileen Wilks.

Defining Twilight: Vocabulary Workbook for Unlocking the SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT ($0.05), by Brian Leaf, looks to be a rather unique method of studying for college prep exams.

Book Description
Can you resist the allure of Edward’s myriad charms—his ocher eyes and tousled hair, the cadence of his speech, his chiseled alabaster skin, and his gratuitous charm? Will you hunt surreptitiously and tolerate the ceaseless deluge in Forks to evade the sun and uphold the facade? Join Edward and Bella as you learn more than 600 vocabulary words to improve your score on the *SAT, ACT®, GED®, and SSAT® exams!

Use this workbook side-by-side with your own copy of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight!

  • Each chapter of the workbook gives you eight words taken from Twilight, with page references for you to read the words in the context of your favorite novel
  • Define the words on your own before turning back to the workbook for their actual definitions
  • At the end of each section you’ll take SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT drills and quizzes to review and integrate what you’ve learned
  • Plus, you’ll learn synonyms, Latin word parts, and memorization tools throughout the workbook

Sexy in 6 ($0.06), by Tracey Mallett. Six minute workouts, six week program, six tiny cents!

Book Description
Don’t have hours to hit the gym? You can get a bikini body in just six weeks...in your spare time! From Tracey Mallett, BabyCenter.com’s prenatal expert and Hot Moms Club fitness authority, Sexy in 6 offers a fun, motivating method of super-fast workouts and a diet plan with nutrition-packed recipes, easy to squeeze into a busy day. Split into 6-minute intervals, the plan uses a unique blend of Pilates, yoga, cardio, and strength training for head-to-toe toning-even exercises to make sex better. Countless women have used Tracey’s plan to drop up to 25 pounds and sculpt their problem zones. Sexy in 6 helps readers find the time, lose the weight, and regain confidence-in a program that’s simple and maintainable for life.

Ten Years Thinner ($0.06), by Christine Lydon, is another six week program at a penny a week.

Book Description
What if you could have slimmer hips, firmer thighs, flatter abs, more defined arms, and clearer, younger-looking skin in just six weeks? Based on years of her groundbreaking research and four clinical trials, Dr. Christine Lydon has developed an innovative diet and exercise regimen to burn fat and alter one’s body chemistry, resulting in rapid, dramatic results that you will begin to see and feel within the first week. Governed by ten simple dietary guidelines and ten easy, at-home exercises, Ten Years Thinner emphasizes healthy eating from protein, carbohydrate, and fat sources and demands only twenty to twenty-five minutes of hand-weight exercises a day. There is no calorie counting, messy measuring, or complicated points to calculate; the program requires very little initial physical fitness and promises no more boring and time-consuming cardio workouts. With more than thirty-five delicious recipes and sixty-five easy-to-follow exercise photos, Ten Years Thinner is a simple, sustainable road map to the physique you’ve always dreamed of having!

The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia ($0.07), by Andrew Lih, costs you a penny for each day of the week that you (or your kids) looks something up there.

Book Description
With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with access to a computer, this impressive assemblage of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how it all happened--from the first glimmer of an idea to the global phenomenon it's become.

Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted user who is granted access to technical features) at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site's inception in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth, while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions. Wikipedia is not just a website; it's a global community of contributors who have banded together out of a shared passion for making knowledge free.

Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia creation.


Comes a Horseman ($0.10), by Robert Liparulo

Book Description
The ancients saw Death as a blazing figure on horseback, swift and merciless. Those facing the black chasm often mistook their pounding hearts for the beating of hooves.

Now, two FBI agents pursuing a killer from a centuries-old cult realize they have become his prey.


The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea ($0.13), by Sebastian Junger, is another where I replaced my paperback copy (it'll go off the used book store or a veteran's home).

Book Description
It was the storm of the century -- a tempest created by so rare a combination of factors that meteorologist deemed it "the perfect storm." When it struck in October, 1991, there was virtually no warning. "She's comin' on, boys, and she's comin' on strong," radioed Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrea Gail from off the coast of Nova Scotia. Soon afterward, the boat and its crew of six disappeared without a trace.

Sebastian Junger takes us on a real-life thriller, deep into the heart of the storm. He recreates the last moments of the Andrea Gail crew and the heroic acts of the National Guard rescue team; he weaves together the history of the New England fishing industry, the science of storms, and candid accounts of the people whose lives the storm touched.

The Perfect Storm is a stark and compelling journey into the dark core of nature that leaves listeners with a breathless sense of what if feels like to be caught, helpless, in the grip of a force beyond understanding or control.


Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve ($0.14), by Christopher Andersen

Book Description
He was a hero in every sense of the word--the chiseled-from-granite star of four blockbuster Superman films and the romantic classic Somewhere in Time who, after being paralyzed in a freak horseback riding accident, became a symbol of hope for millions. Dana Reeve was no less heroic, standing steadfastly by her husband's side until his surprisingly sudden and unexpected death at age fifty-two. When Dana, a non-smoker, passed away from lung cancer just seventeen months after Chris's death, she left behind their thirteen-year-old son, Will, to be raised by friends and family. Dana was only forty-four years old.

That fate could have dealt such a cruel hand to this golden couple seemed unfathomable. That they could endure it all with grace, courage, and humor defied belief.

Yet for all the millions of words that have been written about their public causes and private struggles following Chris's accident, little is known about the lives they led as passionate young lovers. Now, in the manner of his poignant-yet-stirring bestsellers Jack and Jackie, Jackie After Jack, An Affair to Remember, The Day Diana Died, After Diana, and The Day John Died, No. l New York Times bestselling author Christopher Andersen draws on those who knew them best to examine in touching detail the Reeves' unique partnership and the romance, faith, and fortitude that defined it.

Sometimes heartbreaking, often uplifting, always compelling, Somewhere in Heaven is more than just a portrait of a marriage. It is the profoundly human story of two souls whose brief lives made a difference, a bittersweet saga of tragedy, triumph, and loss, and--above all else--a love story for the ages.


Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security--From World War II to the War on Terrorism ($0.15), by Julian E. Zelizer

Book Description
It has long been a truism that prior to George W. Bush, politics stopped at the water’s edge—that is, that partisanship had no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer shows this to be demonstrably false: partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign policy and the issue of national security has always been part of our domestic conflicts. Based on original archival findings, Arsenal of Democracy offers new insights into nearly every major national security issue since the beginning of the cold war: from FDR’s masterful management of World War II to the partisanship that scarred John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, from Ronald Reagan’s fight against Communism to George W. Bush’s controversial War on Terror. A definitive account of the complex interaction between domestic politics and foreign affairs over the last six decades, Arsenal of Democracy is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of national security.

Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/ Fake Food World ($0.40), by David Ludwig and Suzanne Rostler, should appeal to anyone with kids or who has been watching Jamie Oliver's series on school lunches.

Book Description
In a world dominated by fast food and fake food, establishing healthy eating habits in children is one of the greatest concerns for parents -- and potentially one of the greatest challenges. Fortunately, the renowned physician Dr. David Ludwig developed a proven lifestyle plan that has benefited thousands of families. Here he shares his nine-week program, offering the tools -- including tasty recipes, motivational tips, and activities -- that can help families prevent the kitchen table from becoming a battleground.

The Superfoods Rx Diet: Lose Weight with the Power of SuperNutrients ($0.46), by Wendy Bazilian, Steven Prat and Kathy Matthews, finishes off today's bargain posts.

Book Description
Rather than concentrating on the balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, The SuperFoodsRx Diet utilizes the incredible benefits of micronutrients - vitamins, minerals, bioflavonoids, fiber, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals - to burn calories. These powerhouse nutrients found in the 14 SuperFoods actually boost your body's metabolism, and the specific combinations in this plan will give you the best results possible.

Based on extensive research and studies with real people, The SuperFoodsRx Diet will help you reach your optimum weight by showing you:

  • how to lose up to one inch off your waist and up to 5 pounds during your very first week;
  • which SuperFoods may reduce cravings;
  • why SuperFoods dieters get to eat more food while losing weight;
  • how the built-in flexibility of this plan and the delicious, simple recipes will make The SuperFoodsRx Diet your lifelong guide to good, healthy eating.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Free Books (nook) - Secret Garden

Barnes and Noble is giving away two versions of the classic Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, as this week's Free Friday nookBook. First, the Classic Starts illustrated edition (cover shown here), which is only available as a $5.95 paperback from Amazon. Second, their annotated Barnes & Noble Classics series edition (which has previously been free at B&N.

The Secret Garden (Classic Starts Series), by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lucy Corvino (Illustrator), Abridged by Martha Hailey DuBose and Arthur Pober (Afterword)

Expertly retold to appeal to second to fourth graders, as well as older reluctant readers, each of the beautiful, high-quality books in the Classic Starts series is a literary treasure.

Secret Garden (Barnes & Noble Classics Series), by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Jill Muller

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras.

Though Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote more than forty books, none remains so popular as her miraculous and magical masterpiece, The Secret Garden. Has any story ever dared to begin by calling its heroine, the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen and, just a few sentences later, as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived? Mary Lennoxis the little pig, sent to Misselthwaite Manor, on the Yorkshire moors, to live with her uncle after her parents die of cholera. There she discovers her sickly cousin Colin, who is equally obnoxious and imperious. Both love no one because they have never been loved. They are the book s spiritual secret gardens, needing only the right kind of care to bloom into lovely children.

Mary also discovers a literal secret garden, hidden behind a locked gate on her uncle s estate, neglected for the ten years since Colin s birth and his mother s death. Together with a local child named Dickon, Mary and Colin transform the garden into a paradise bursting with life and color. Through their newfound mutual love of nature, they nurture each other, until they are brought back to health and happiness.

With Charles Robinson's original illustrations.

Jill Muller was born in England and educated at Mercy College and Columbia University. She currently teaches at Mercy College and Columbia University. She is the author of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Victorian Catholicism, in addition to articles on Joyce, Newman, Hopkins, and the medieval women mystics.

Free Book (EPUB) - Bridge To Happiness

Bridge To Happiness ($8.59 Kindle), by Jill Barnett, is free in the Kobo eBookstore. This book has previously been free on Kindle (Feb '11).

Book Description
From the luxury of San Francisco's famous hills to the wild freedom of the majestic snow-covered Sierra Mountains, BRIDGE TO HAPPINESS is the intensely dramatic story of one woman's life, the idyllic moments, her humanity, her love, and finally, the difficult road she must walk alone...to discover the strong woman she is destined to become. When March Randolph meets Mike Cantrell, she has no idea how her life will change, and how time will change her. For over three decades she and Mike forge a marriage, a family and a business together, helping to make snowboarding into a popular, worldwide winter sport, and raising four strong-willed and independent children into a adulthood, never once fearing the future won't be as golden as their past. In a heartbeat everything changes, and March and her family suffer a tragic change, one that drives a schism into her once perfect life, and will test the bonds of love and family far beyond any definition of recovery. Suddenly March is stuck in the past, unable to move forward, and only if she, alone, finds the strength and will to move on, can any of the Cantrells have a single, glimmer of hope at a new life of happiness.

Click HERE for the free book from Kobo.