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Friday, July 1, 2011

Free Book (EPUB/nook) - The Outsider

The Outsider ($9.99 Kindle), by Ann H. Gabhart, is free from B&N courtesy of Christian publisher Revell. This title has previously been free on Kindle (Jul '10) and is likely to be so again in a day or so.

Book Description
For as long as she can remember, Gabrielle Hope has had the gift of knowing--visions that warn of things to come. When she and her mother joined the Pleasant Hill Shaker community in 1807, the community embraced her gift. But Gabrielle fears this gift, for the visions are often ones of sorrow and tragedy. When one of these visions comes to pass, a local doctor must be brought in to save the life of a young man, setting into motion a chain of events that will challenge Gabrielle's loyalty to the Shakers. As she falls deeper into a forbidden love for this man of the world, Gabrielle must make a choice. Can she experience true happiness in this simple and chaste community? Or will she abandon her brothers and sisters for a life of the unknown? Soulful and filled with romance, The Outsider lets readers live within a bygone time among a unique and peculiar people. This tender and thought-provoking story will leave readers wanting more from this writer.

Click HERE to get the free book from B&N.
Click HERE to get the free book from ChristianBook.

"Upgrade" to a nook and get 30 free books

This morning I went to our local Barnes and Noble to check out their latest in-store deal before I reported it to you. If you bring in any dedicated ereader (not a phone with a reader app), you can get a nook branded microSD card with 30 books on it for free, with the purchase of any nook (original 3G, Wifi only, nookColor or the newest touchscreen nook). You don't have to turn in your existing ereader and you can even use a nook for the "upgrade".

The selection of books is actually quite good (although there are several classics mixed in) and there are three cookbooks included, which look great on the nookColor. However, there is no search facility for books (so, you need good indexes and table of contents in cookbooks) and no back "button" so you can get back to where you were if you click a link (which I did accidentally several times when reading recipes).

More details HERE, but this is an in-store only promotion and only "while supplies last". I know our store had at least a dolly load or two of the nookColors, but don't know how many of the microSD cards are in each store (which is the big limitation of the offer).

If you do decide to take advantage of the deal, consider getting a B&N membership at the same time - it includes a $25 credit on the nookColor (essentially you get the membership for free) and you can then get a discount on cafe, in-store book or online non-ebook purchases for a year.

Here's a list of all the books included (the links are mostly to Amazon paper editions, as I find their reviews better, generally), most of which are nook only in their ebook editions:
  1. The Good Housekeeping Cookbook: 1,275 Recipes from America's Favorite Test Kitchen, From the Editors of Good Housekeeping and Susan Westmoreland
  2. Big Bowl of Love: Delight Family and Friends with More than 150 Simple, Fabulous Recipes, by Cristina Ferrare
  3. Clean Start: Inspiring You to Eat Clean and Live Well with 100 New Clean Food Recipes, by Terry Walters
  4. Country Living The Mom's Guide to Running a Business: Strategies for Work Success and Family Balance, by Michelle Lee Ribeiro
  5. Bedside Baccalaureate: The Second Semester, by David Rubel
  6. AARP® Crash Course in Finding the Work You Love, by Samuel Greengard
  7. The 21st Century Crossword Puzzle Dictionary, by Kevin McCann and Mark Diehl
  8. Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide, by Caroline Adams Miller MAPP and Dr. Michael B. Frisch
  9. Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, by Scott Selby & Greg Campbell
  10. Checkout Girl: A Life Behind the Register, by Anna Sam
  11. Susie's Sun Signs: How to Truly Understand Your Lover, Family, Friends, Pets, and Yourself Using Astrology, by Susie Cox
  12. Soccer: The Player's Handbook, by M. B. Roberts and Ronald C. Modra
  13. It's a Jungle in There: Inspiring Lessons, Hard-Won Insights, and Other Acts of Entrepreneurial Daring, by Steven Schussler and Marvin Karlins
  14. Glory in the Fall: The Greatest Moments in World Series History, by Peter Golenbock
  15. Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, Book 1), by Colleen Houck
  16. Love Virtually, by Daniel Glattauer, Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch
  17. My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me: And Other Stories I Shouldn't Share with Acquaintances, Coworkers, Taxi drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, ... and Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends but Have, by Hilary Winston
  18. The Other Rembrandt, by Alex Connor
  19. The King Whisperers: Power Behind the Throne, from Rasputin to Rove, by Kerwin Swint
  20. Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes, by Evan Dawson and James Molesworth
  21. Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood, by Bunny Crumpacker and Jil Picariello
  22. Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It, by David Gershon and Gail Straub
  23. Know Your Rights: A Survival Guide for Non-Lawyers, by Ronald M. Benrey JD
  24. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe and L. J. Swingle
  25. Don Quixote (Barnes & Noble Classics Series), by Miguel de Cervantes, Tobias Smollett and Carole Slade
  26. Classic Starts™: The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle, John Burrows, Lucy Corvino and Arthur Pober Ed.
  27. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott and Scott McKowen
  28. Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau
  29. The Secret Garden (Sterling Classics), by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Scott McKowen
  30. Aesop's Fables (Illustrated Edition), by Arthur Rackham, V. S. Vernon-Jones and G. K. Chesterton

Free Book (EPUB) - Mutiny

Mutiny ($2.39 Kindle), a novella in the Mystyx series by Artist Arthur, is free as a DRM'd EPUB direct from the publisher, Harlequin, and from Sony.

Book Description
What did I do to end up in this nightmare?

One minute Franklin Bryant is a normal teenager in school with his girlfriend, Krystal. The next, a reaper leaves him in Trance, the place between worlds where his destiny will be decided. Franklin has been summoned by the demon Charon to help destroy the Mystyx, a group of classmates including Krystal, with supernatural powers that can defeat Charon.

Franklin loves Krystal, but he faces an impossible choice: join Charon and be rewarded with powers beyond his dreams, or refuse and die....


Click HERE for the free book from Harlequin.
Click HERE for the free book from Sony.

Free Book (nook) - The Blue Light Project

The Blue Light Project ($9.99 Kindle), by Timothy Taylor, is this week's Free Friday book from Barnes and Noble.

Book Description
Spanning a four-day hostage situation in the not-too-distant future, The Blue Light Project looks on as a city unravels and three lives intersect in unlikely ways.

When an armed man seizes a television studio in the center of town, Thom Pegg, a former investigative journalist turned tabloid reporter, is as surprised as anyone to learn that he is the only person to whom the hostage taker will speak, bringing him inside the studio and in contact with the frightening truth.

From outside, meanwhile, the drama of the enthralled and horrified city is revealed through the eyes of two very different people thrown together by the crisis. Eve is an Olympic gold medalist and local hero. Rabbit is a renegade street artist who has just completed a massive and mysterious installation on the tops of hundreds of buildings throughout the city.

As events churn to chaos, Taylor paints a powerful picture of the sinister side of our interconnected world, taking us on a dizzying journey through black sites, 24/7 media cycles, cults of celebrity, gang stalking, underground art, societal paranoia, and dangerous cynicism. The result is a gripping work of dark brilliance, from which Taylor ultimately surprises us with grounds for hope.


Click HERE to get the free book from B&N.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Free Audiobooks - Little Brother and The Trial

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from the ebook or audiobook version of each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link to get your copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Little Brother ($9.99 Kindle; $31.68 Audible), by Cory Doctorow, read by Kirby Heyborne.

Book Description
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.


The Trial ($9.99 Kindle; $28.95 Audio CD), by Franz Kafka, read by Rupert Degas.

Book Description
Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K. for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.

A successful professional man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. The mysterious court which conducts his trial is outwardly co-operative, but capable of horrific violence. Faced with this ambiguous authority, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure. He consults various advisers without escaping his fate. Was there some way out that he failed to see? Kafka's unfinished novel has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem.

One of the iconic figures of modern world literature, Kafka writes about universal problems of guilt, responsibility, and freedom; he offers no solutions, but provokes his readers to arrive at meanings of their own. This new edition includes the fragmentary chapters that were omitted from the main text, in a translation that is both natural and exact, and an introduction that illuminates the novel and its author.


Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).