Kindle WiFi $114

There is a very odd listing for the Amazon Kindle, Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology in the Amazon store tonight. The price is $114, but there is no mention of Special Offers, no picture and no description. Rumor has it that it is a no-ad Kindle and the only thing missing is a power brick (so, it's likely an international Kindle; as that is the only difference between the US and non-US models). If you've been wanting that lower price, but no ads, it might be worth taking a chance and ordering it. You should get the same warranty as with a Kindle purchased on a regular order page. If it turns out to be an edition you don't want, you can always send it back.

Two Free Books and Three Free Songs

Update: 6/15/11 Ten Moments That Shook The Sports World is now free in the US Kindle store.

First, the nook only title from this morning, The Last Boy, is now free from both Amazon and Apple, both the same a/v enhanced titles that B&N will only let you see on the nookColor (Apple limits you to the iPad or iThing; Amazon's works on any Kindle device or app).

Second, Ten Moments That Shook The Sports World ($5.39 US), by Stan Isaacs, is free for UK and EU customers in the Kindle store. I expect the US to follow by tomorrow morning. (UK link/DE link)

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

Last, but not least, zip over to the iTunes store to check out this week's free songs, which includes Forward to Love ($0.99 Amazon), by Ziggy Marley. This is a cut off of his newly released album, Wild And Free. Click HERE to get it free in iTunes.

Back in the Amazon store, Barry Manilow has a new album and a cut from it, Now It's For Real, is free to download, as is Coney Island Winter, by Garland Jeffreys. That's three songs and three completely different genres, so there should be at least one of interest in the bunch.

New Kindle Game - Futoshiki

Futoshiki ($0.99) is a new logic game for Kindle from Braintonik Games, the makers of Strimko. I have to admit I am a sucker for this type of game, so I've already downloaded it and played thru one game. It's a lot like Sudoku (but with a field of 5 or 7 and only one square), but with additional rules, where some blocks must be greater or lesser than the ones immediately adjacent to them. Definitely worth a buck and I've got 29 puzzles to go, just on the easy mode.

Book Description
Futoshiki is a Japanese number logic puzzle.

The rules of Futoshiki are deceptively simple but the game is challenging and addictive. Each row and column must be filled with unique numbers. However, Futoshiki has a twist. It adds greater-than or less-than signs between some cells. You must honor these signs in order to solve and complete the puzzles.

This collection of 120 puzzles is grouped into four different sets ranging from easy to expert. The grids are 5x5 in easy, medium, and hard modes. Expert mode holds thirty 7x7 puzzles. The game features annotations to help you keep track of possible solutions, and a hint function to help you keep playing if you get stuck.

Free Audiobook - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Tantor Audio has a new free download this month: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They are also having a 50% off sale on their site to celebrate Audiobook Month -- to make things simple, they just marked down every title on the site, including the CD's (not just MP3 downloads) and pre-orders!

Book Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are overshadowed by the event with which they close---the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. When "The Final Problem" was first published, the struggle between Holmes and his arch nemesis, seemingly to the death, left many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes, but it also led to his immortality as a literary figure. The stories that precede it included two narratives from Holmes himself---on a mutiny at sea and a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house---as well as a meeting with his brilliant brother Mycroft.

Included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are "Silver Blaze," "The Yellow Face," "The Stock-Broker's Clerk," "The 'Gloria Scott,'" "The Musgrave Ritual," "The Reigate Puzzle," "The Crooked Man," "The Resident Patient," "The Greek Interpreter," "The Naval Treaty," and "The Final Problem."

Click HERE to get the free download from Tantor. You'll need to log in before you see a download button; once you do, return to this same page and refresh - you should now see "CLICK HERE" where it did say "Log in to Download" (in red, above the title). You won't get the companion PDF ebook with the free download, but you can pick this classic book up free in the Kindle store (and elsewhere), if you like to read along.

Free Backlist Books

I've tracked down a few backlist titles that authors are now self-publishing, which are free in the Kindle store or elsewhere. The formatting isn't always up to professionally published standards, but at least you know that a publisher at one time thought these would sell to the mass market (and some did quite well in paperback).

Chasing Eden, by B.K. Sherer and Sharon Linnea, is the result of teaming up a mystery writer and an active duty US Army Chaplain. Good reviews in paperback, this is one that will definitely be in my TBR list.

Book Description
Modern-day Iraq: During a raging sandstorm in a war zone, army chaplain Jaime Richards is shocked to be reunited with her old friend Adara Dunbar--and devastated when, in the midst of an ambush, a black-robed man murders Adara in cold blood. But not before she delivers a final message to Jaime--one important enough to die for...and obviously to kill for. Why Adara? And how did her assassin know Jaime's name?

Jaime's quest for answers will lead her into danger beyond anything she's experienced on the battlefield. At an ancient site, she meets a stranger who reveals astounding truths about Adara's mission--and the war itself--that are impossible to ignore. For the roots of this war reach back to a time and place fixed in the history of civilization. Many have searched for the Garden of Eden before, because to find it is to unlock a power beyond human comprehension. Now, for Jaime, the chase is on--and the fate of the world hangs in the balance...

Through A Dark Mist ($2.99 Kindle), the first title in Marsha Canham's Robin Hood Trilogy, is free on Smashwords. Oddly enough, this title is not only in the Kindle store as a self-published book, but is also for sale from the publisher at a higher price.

Book Description
The author of The Blood of Roses presents the dark forests and royal intrigues of medieval England. En route to her wedding, Lady Servanne's party is attacked by notorious Black Wolf and his band. Her kingdom's future is changed forever when she and Black Wolf submit to their growing passion, and he claims to be the true heir to her future husband's title.

Marrying Miss Shylo ($2.99 Kindle), by Sharon Ihle, is also free on Smashwords. EPUB is the best choice there, as it's easily converted for the Kindle using Calibre (if you don't have Calibre, then grab the PDF or RTF (save it as DOC) to email to Amazon for conversion).

Book Description
PASSIONATE DECEPTION: Shylo McBride never thought her little fib about being related to the president would result in a proposal from Dimitri Adonis. He certainly was as stunningly handsome as his Greek god namesake, but Shylo had no real desire to marry—all she wanted was a ticket out west so she could find her mother.

Dimitri had his own less than noble motives for posing as a wealthy aristocrat and seducing an American debutante. While he and Shylo struggled with their tangled web of lies, they discovered that beneath their deceptions lay true love’s sweet embrace.

Letters from the Lost: A Memoir of Discovery (Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters) ($24.95 Paperback), by Helen Waldstein Wilkes, is free as an ebook, direct from from her publisher, in celebration of the book winning the Alberta Reader's Choice award. Once on their website, click on the 'ebook' tab, then 'download the entire book. It's in PDF format, but there is no DRM, so it's easily converted for the Kindle.

Book Description
On March 15, 1939, as Hitler's army rolled into Prague, Helen Waldstein's father snatched the last exit visa from a distracted clerk and fled with wife and child. Only letters from the rest of their family could follow as the Nazis closed in. Through the war years, letters kept coming to the southern Ontario farm where Helen's small family learned to speak English, to be Canadian farmers, and to forget they were Jewish.

Helen did not notice when the letters stopped coming, but they surfaced intermittently until she couldn't ignore them anymore. Reading the letters changed everything. As her past refused to keep silent, Helen followed the trail of letters back to Europe to find living witnesses of what the letters related. She has here interwoven their stories and her own in an engrossing narrative of suffering and rescue, survivor guilt and overcoming obstacles to intergenerational dialogue about a traumatic past.