Today's Deals

Today is the last day to take advantage of the 30% off headphones KSO offer. I just noticed, too, that this offer (and the more recent ones for Kindle Covers) can be used for more than one item, so long as you add them all to your cart at one time. So, you can get 30% off of several sets of headphones or a mix of those and earbuds, just as you can grab several Kindle covers at 50% off (nice! now I can get one for the baby Kindle and the Touch that I have ordered at the same time).

Right as Rain ($1.99 Kindle; B&N), the first title in the Derek Strange and Terry Quinn series by George Pelecanos and which I picked up last June, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. It's an Agency publisher title, so you can grab it at the same price from Barnes & Noble.

Book Description
Derek Strange is a black ex-cop in Washington D.C. who now makes a living running his own private detective agency. He is hired to investigate the killing of an off-duty black policeman by a white police officer -- a killing that was supposedly accidental, but that has opened difficult questions about racism on the force. In the course of that investigation the white officer, Terry Quinn, becomes Strange's friend and then his partner. Together they try to uncover what really happened that night, when Quinn came upon a confusing and treacherous crime scene. Along the way they confront the kingpins of a flourishing drug trade and some of the most implacable, dead-eyed killers ever to grace the pages of a novel.

The Silent Governess ($3.00 Kindle, B&N), by Julie Klassen, is the Nook Daily Find (and price matched by Amazon). If you've had your Kindle for a while, you may have one or two others from this author, that have been offered free this year and the one before.

Book Description
Believing herself guilty of a crime, Olivia Keene flees her home, eventually stumbling upon a grand estate where an elaborate celebration is in progress. But all is not as joyous as it seems.

Lord Bradley has just learned a terrible secret, which, if exposed, will change his life forever. When he glimpses a figure on the grounds, he fears a spy or thief has overheard his devastating news. He is stunned to discover the intruder is a scrap of a woman with her throat badly injured. Fearing she will spread his secret, he gives the girl a post and confines her to his estate. As Olivia and Lord Bradley's secrets catch up with them, will their hidden pasts ruin their hope of finding love?

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Black Market Billions

Update:11/9/11 Now free from Barnes & Noble

Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Global Terrorists, by Hitha Prabhakar, is free to pre-order in the Kindle store.

Book Description
Organized retail crime is now a $38 billion business. Synchronized global teams are pilfering immense volumes of high-value products, counterfeiting even more — and using the profits to support the world’s most vicious terrorists and criminal gangs.

In this eye-opening exposé, business journalist Hitha Prabhakar connects the dots and follows the money deep into the world’s fastest growing criminal industry. You’ll learn how the Internet, social media, and disposable cell phones have opened the floodgates for a new generation of criminals—and how their multimillion-dollar ripoffs are funding everyone from Al-Qaeda to Central America’s drug lords.

Black Market Billions draws on extensive first person interviews with law enforcement, industry personnel, and the criminals themselves. Prabhakar goes “inside” to reveal why the piracy economy has exploded ... why preventative measures have failed ... and what to expect next, as organized retail crime reaches a terrifying critical mass.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Death by China

Update:11/9/11 Now free from Barnes & Noble

Death by China: Confronting the Dragon - A Global Call to Action, by Peter W. Navarro and Greg Autry, is free in the Kindle store.

Book Description
Bestselling author Peter Navarro (The Coming China Wars) and Greg Autry challenges the dominant paradigm of a "Chinese Miracle" - the one featuring a modernizing, progressive Chinese state heading toward political reform and driving global economic growth with its new found embrace of capitalism and freedom.

Tearing this delusion away, Death by China documents the myriad ways that a powerful, wealthy, and corrupt Chinese Communist Party emboldened by a growing nationalistic frenzy is becoming the biggest threat to global peace, prosperity, and health since Nazi Germany.

From currency manipulation and abusive trade policies, to slave labor and deadly consumer products, China's ruthless rulers threaten the livelihood of the citizens of every developed nation. These thugs have created a frightening amoral society ruled by a constant fear hidden to outsiders and bought off with the ill gotten profits of a myopic quest for economic advantage at any cost - social, environmental, or civil rights concerns be damned. Worse, as with everything else, China is scaling and exporting the model around this world, threatening their neighbors and exploiting developing nations across the globe with a new imperialism.

While America worries that Al Qaeda or Iran may get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction, China is using our Wal-Mart dollars to build them by the score; filling brand new nuclear submarines with missiles aimed at our heartland and building stealth planes designed to obliterate our friends in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

America's policy of appeasement and perpetual bending to Beijing's tacit threat to stop funding our unsustainable consumption based economy and deficit addicted government has left the Chinese people and the world in a frightening position while achieving absolutely nothing. With each new attempt at further "engagement" China simply rounds up more artists, writers, and political dissidents into its gulags and continues its policies of virtual genocide against the peoples of Tibet and the Uighars of East Turkestan. It tightens control over media and the Internet and expands its regional, territorial and resource claims. Laughing at our timidity, it becomes ever bolder in executing its plan to shutter every last manufacturing plant in the West.

Meanwhile, Western turncoat CEO's are content with pumping up one more quarterly report by driving every last high-value manufacturing jobs to Guangzhou or Chengdu. Congress is happy to be re-elected with contributions from those same corporations. Together they are happy to leave the rest of us with a future of low paying service and retail "careers" based on selling junk made in China to each other while accumulating a pile of Chinese debt and building a geopolitical time bomb of epic proportions.

For every American, European, Japanese or Korean reader who wonders where his job has gone and worries about the world his children will inherit, Death by China is a must read. The book features an inspiring Forward by Chinese Dissident, Baiqiao Tang and a brilliant Epilog by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Inspire!

Update:11/9/11 Now free from Barnes & Noble and their edition appears to be the entire book!

Inspire!: Why Customers Come Back, by Jim Champy, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store. When this title was first free, it was clearly labeled as a sample, containing only the intro and first chapter - that wording is now entirely missing (but it appears to be there on the cover image) and the file size seems to be the same. There is another edition with the exact same title and a much larger file size, so I expect this one to just be a sample. I can't really check it, though, since it entered my library as a sample.

Book Description
Jim Champy revolutionized business with Reengineering the Corporation. Now, in Inspire!, the second book in a series about what’s new and really works in business, he takes on the challenge of inspiring customers–even in tough times. In an era of commoditization and ever less loyal customers, this book shows how to keep customers coming back.

Drawing on dozens of original case studies from companies in a variety of industries, new and old, Champy reveals how to define a consistent value proposition your customers will be passionate about–and will stay passionate about. You’ll learn how to engage a new generation of customers who value transparency and authenticity above all...how to reinvigorate your company in the face of brutally tough and creative competition...how to go beyond mere marketing campaigns to lead crusades customers want to join.

Once again, Jim Champy has given businesses actionable solutions to one of the most challenging problems they currently face: making customers stick.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Critical Thinking

Update:11/9/11 Now free from Barnes & Noble

Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, by Richard W. Paul and Linda Elder, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store.

Book Description
Critical Thinking is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. Learn how to translate more effective thinking into better decisions, less frustration, more wealth and above all, greater confidence to pursue and achieve your most important goals in life.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.