Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Real-Life Discipleship

Update: 11/21/11 Now free from Barnes & Noble.

Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples (Main/UK), by Jim Putman, is free in the Kindle store, courtesy of Christian publisher Navpress.

Book Description
Is your church membership dwindling? Are you growing only at the expense of a smaller church?

It’s time to reexamine your methods of discipleship. But how do you effectively disciple an entire body? It’s not about making converts. The responsibility falls to every believer in your fellowship to create intentional followers of Christ, who in turn create other intentional followers.

Real-Life Discipleship explains what should happen in the life of every Christian and in every small group so that the church becomes an army of believers dedicated to seeing the world saved.

With the overriding goal to train disciples who know how to make more disciples, this book offers proven tools and strategies from Real Life Ministries, one of America’s fastest-growing churches.

Discover what the Bible says about true and effective discipleship with these strategies and practices.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Today's Deals

Now free on Kindle:

• Salads for Every Season Kindle/nook/iBooks)

Tamar ($0.99), by Mal Peet, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. This teen/young adult novel won the Carnegie Medal in 2006.

Book Description
When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a century before. His story is one of passionate love, jealousy, and tragedy set against the daily fear and casual horror of the Second World War — and unraveling it is about to transform Tamar’s life forever.

A Visit From the Goon Squad ($2.07 / £1.29 UK), the Pultizer Prize Winner by Jennifer Egan, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US Edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life-divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed up band in the basement of a suburban house-and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, revelling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardour for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang-who thrived and who faltered-and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to Powerpoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both-and escape the merciless progress of time-in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction ($9.99 $3.17 Kindle, B&N), by John Austin, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
With the advent of modern household products and office supplies—binder clips, clothespins, rubber bands, ballpoint pens, toothpicks, paper clips, plastic utensils, and matches and barbeque lighters—troublemakers of all stripes have the components needed to build an impressive, if somewhat miniaturized, arsenal. Detailed, step-by-step instructions for each project are provided, including materials and ammo lists, clear diagrams, and construction tips. The 35 devices include catapults, slingshots, minibombs, darts, and combustion shooters—build a tiny trebuchet from paper clips and a D-cell battery, wrap a penny in a string of paper caps to create a surprisingly impressive “bomb,” and convert champagne party poppers and pen casings into a three-barreled bazooka. Finally, plans are provided for a top secret concealing book to hide your stash, as well as targets—cardboard critters, big-headed aliens, and zombies—for shooting practice. Never let your cubicle, home office, or personal space go undefended again!

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Capitol Reflections

Capitol Reflections, by Jonathan Javitt, is free on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble.

Book Description
When Marci Newman, the best friend of FDA scientist Gwen Maulder, dies mysteriously, Gwen refuses to believe that the cause was natural. Marci was simply too young and too healthy. Gwen makes it her mission to determine why Marci really died, even though her superiors and even her husband implore her to move on. What she discovers is much bigger and much more horrifying than she ever anticipated.

Her efforts will put her in opposition to some very influential people, people who have every reason to prevent her from discovering their secret…and, more importantly, the power to stop her. As people keep dying, Gwen must go underground to find the answers – risking her life and the lives of those she loves in an attempt to prevent a nationwide disaster.

Written by a true Washington insider and brimming with terrifying realism, Capitol Reflections is a stunning medical thriller.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle/EPUB/nook/noDRM) - Before the Season Ends

Update: 11/22/11 Now free from Sony.
Update: 11/19/11 Now free from ChristianBook (DRM-free).

Before the Season Ends, a Regency romance by Linore Rose Burkard, is free on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of inspirational publisher Harvest House.

Book Description
In her debut novel of what she calls “spirited romance for the Jane Austen soul,” author Linore Rose Burkard tells the intriguing story of Miss Ariana Forsythe, a young woman caught between her love for a man who doesn’t share her faith and her resolution to marry only a fellow believer in Christ.

Trouble at home sends the young woman to her aunt’s townhome in the fashionable Mayfair district of London. There she finds worse troubles than those that prompted her flight from home. Ariana is soon neck–deep in high society and at odds with Mr. Phillip Mornay, London’s current darling rogue. Then a scandal changes Ariana forever. Her heart, her faith, and her future are all at stake in an unexpected adventure that gains even the Prince Regent’s attention.

Will Ariana’s faith survive this test? And what about her heart? For it’s Ariana’s heart that most threatens to betray the truths she has always believed in. When she finds herself backed against a wall, betrothed to the wrong young man, how can it ever turn out right?

Jane Austen readers and fans of Regency romances everywhere will love Before the Season Ends.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
Get the free ebook from Sony.

Kindle Book Gifts Now Have Delivery Dates

Amazon was slowing bringing out gifting of Kindle books, but they definitely made the process easy when they finally got it working. There was just one little problem - you had to stay up until after midnight to send the book, if you wanted it to arrive on a specific date (and hope the recipient had already gone to bed, so it was a morning surprise). What every asked for last year was the ability to specify the actual delivery date for the gift. Today, Amazon announced just that feature! You can still send a book immediately - the email here arrived within a minute - but the main addition is that you can pick a date for delivery. I'm including a picture below to show you the screen you now get to fill out. Once you send the gift, you can use the order summary to check the status and even re-send the email to notify the recipient, up until the gift is actually accepted (nice in case the email was lost in a flooded email inbox). As you can see, you can either have Amazon deliver it when you specify, or get the email sent to yourself and then forward to email yourself later on.

The only question I have: What happens if a book is removed from the Kindle store after you send it as a gift, but before the recipient accepts it (or during the time that Amazon is waiting to send the email? Once accepted, it isn't an issue, of course, but during the limbo period between when the sale occurs (you send the gift) and when it is safely tucked away into the recipient's library, it seems that there could be an opportunity for an issue. Also, what if the price goes down during that period (I would not think going up would be an issue - this is essentially a "pre-order", just of an existing product and Amazon never charges more than the original sale price for these). True, if you give a copy of Steve Jobs' Biography, you though it was worth the money when you set up the order; but, if it goes down $5 between now and Christmas Day, you might want a credit for that difference.