Free Book (Kindle/nook/EPUB) - Remembering Christmas

Update: 11/28/11 Now free from Sony; no longer free on Kindle or B&N.

Remembering Christmas (US/UK), by Dan Walsh, is free in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of Christian publisher Revell.

Book Description
Rick Denton lives his life on his terms. He works hard, plays hard, and answers to no one. So when his mother calls on Thanksgiving weekend begging him to come home after his stepfather has a stroke, Rick is more than a little reluctant. He's never liked Art and resents the man's presence in his life, despite the fact that his own father abandoned the family when Rick was just twelve. When what was supposed to be just a couple days helping out at the family bookstore turns into weeks of cashing out old ladies and running off the homeless man who keep hanging about, Rick's attitude sours even more.

Still, slowly but surely, the little bookstore and its quirky patrons--as well as the lovely young woman who works at his side each day--work their magic on him, revealing to Rick the truth about his family, his own life, and the true meaning of Christmas. With skillful storytelling, Dan Walsh creates a Christmas story will have readers remembering every good and perfect gift of Christmas.

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

Another of Dan Walsh's novels, The Deepest Waters, is currently on sale for $2.99 (Kindle, B&N).

Book Description
What began as a fairytale honeymoon in 1857 for John and Laura Foster aboard the steamship SS Vandervere becomes a nightmare when a hurricane causes their ship to sink into the murky depths of the Atlantic. Laura finds herself with the other women and children aboard a sailing ship while John and a hundred other men drift on the open sea on anything they could grab as the Vandervere went down. Suspecting her John is gone but still daring to hope for a miracle, Laura must face the possibility of life alone--and meeting her new in-laws without their son if she ever reaches New York.

Readers will be holding their breath as they sail through this emotional and honest story of hope, faith, and love in the face of uncertainty. Talented author Dan Walsh skillfully tells an epic story through an intimate focus on two lost lovers. Inspired by real events, this moving novel will capture the hearts of all who dive into its pages.

Today's Deals

Today is the last day to take advantage of these KSO deals:

• Get one of a thousand Kindle books for $1
• Save an extra 10% on Halloween video games

Additional formats on free books:

• Liberation of Alice Love (Kindle/nook/EPUB/PDF)

Mother Night ($0.99), by Kurt Vonnegut, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. This is a great price on the edition from RosettaBooks (I paid $3.99 and thought it was a good deal) and the Random House edition is $12.

Book Description
Best known now by the Nick Nolte 1996 film of the same title, MOTHER NIGHT (1961) is a dazzling narrative of false or shifting identity. The odyssey of its protagonist, Howard Campbell, Jr. is a paradigm of conflicting loyalties, ambiguous commitment and personal compromise. Campbell is an American emigre in Germany at the time of Hitler's ascension; he is married to a German, his relations with the Nazi regime are excellent and he agrees to spy for them and to become a broadcaster serving the regime but then, increasingly disaffected, becomes a double, then perhaps a triple-agent sending coded messages to the Allies. After the War he is tried for war crimes but is exonerated. The novel is written in the form of a memoir as the exiled Campbell, indifferent to outcome, plots his suicide. The novel is a moral tale without a moral or, perhaps, according to Vonnegut, a tale with several morals. Vonnegut, a science fiction writer in early career, knew the science fiction community well and it is more or less accepted that the conflicted and indecipherable Howard Campbell is modeled upon John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971), the great editor of Astounding and Analog whose decades long rightward drift led him to endorse George Wallace in 1968.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is perhaps the most beloved American writer of the 20th century. His audience has built steadily since his first pieces in the 1950's. Vonnegut’s 1968 novel, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE has become a canonic war novel - with Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 the truest and darkest of all to have come from World War II. Vonnegut began as a science fiction writer and his early novels PLAYER PIANO and THE SIRENS OF TITAN were so categorized even as they appealed to a young audience far beyond science fiction readers. In the 1960's he became the writer most identified with the Baby Boomer generation. Like the novels of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut’s large body of work is now understood as unified. There is a consistency to his satirical insight, humor and anger which makes his work synergistic. The more of Kurt Vonnegut’s work you read, the more the work resonates and the more you wish to read. Vonnegut’s reputation - like Twain’s - will grow steadily through the decades to come as his work grows in relevance, truthfulness and searing insight.

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking ($4.50 Kindle, B&N), by Christopher Hadnagy and Paul Wilson, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
The first book to reveal and dissect the technical aspect of many social engineering maneuvers

From elicitation, pretexting, influence and manipulation all aspects of social engineering are picked apart, discussed and explained by using real world examples, personal experience and the science behind them to unraveled the mystery in social engineering.

Kevin Mitnick—one of the most famous social engineers in the world—popularized the term “social engineering.” He explained that it is much easier to trick someone into revealing a password for a system than to exert the effort of hacking into the system. Mitnick claims that this social engineering tactic was the single-most effective method in his arsenal. This indispensable book examines a variety of maneuvers that are aimed at deceiving unsuspecting victims, while it also addresses ways to prevent social engineering threats.

• Examines social engineering, the science of influencing a target to perform a desired task or divulge information
• Arms you with invaluable information about the many methods of trickery that hackers use in order to gather information with the intent of executing identity theft, fraud, or gaining computer system access
• Reveals vital steps for preventing social engineering threats

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking does its part to prepare you against nefarious hackers—now you can do your part by putting to good use the critical information within its pages.

Back of Beyond ($1.56 / £0.99 UK), by C.J. Box, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US Edition is $12.99).

Book Description
Twilight falls on a cold, wet spring day in the mountains of Montana. A cabin smolders in the forest. In the remains of the kitchen, a table set for two; next door, the remains of a single body.

Alerted by hikers, Detective Cody Hoyt is called to the scene. While a brilliant cop, Cody is also an alcoholic struggling with two months of sobriety and it doesn't help that the body in the cabin is his AA sponsor Hank Winters. It looks like the suicide of a man who's fallen off the wagon, but Cody knows Hank better than that. He's convinced its foul play.

But after years of bad behavior directly related to his drinking, Cody has few friends left in the department. And when he shoots and wounds the county coroner in a botched stakeout he is suspended from duty. But Hank was one of the few friends Cody had left and he's determined to find his killer, badge or no badge.

Who was at Hank's cabin? Data pulled from Hank's fire-damaged hard drive leads Cody to a website running wilderness adventures deep into the most remote parts of Yellowstone National Park. Their big trip of the year has just left - a two-week horseback journey into the wild. The very same trip that Cody's estranged teenage son, Justin, has signed up for.

Cody has no choice but to trek deep into the wild himself in pursuit of his son and the truth about Hank. In America's greatest wilderness, Cody is on his own, he's out of time, he's in too deep, he's in the Back of Beyond.

Get an MP3 Classical Sampler for $2 (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle with Special Offers (including any Kindle Touch or Kindle Keyboard that opts in to Special Offers).

Get any one of a selection of MP3 classical samplers for $2

To take advantage of this offer:

1. First, turn on your Kindle with Special Offers, click Menu, then View Special Offers.
2. Find the offer: Get any one of a selection of MP3 classical samplers for $2. Click on it, then on the link to Email Me This Offer.
3. You will get an email from Amazon with your promotional code, right away.
4. Once you have the promotion code (and have selected your album; see below), click this link, then on the button labeled Enter Your Code, at any time up to the expiration date of December 26.
5. Enter your code and follow the directions.
6. Choose any of these albums and you'll pay only $2.

You'll have a promotion code on your account that will apply to the FIRST album you buy (from the list) after that. Note that even if the album is free, you'll pay two dollars, so be careful which one you pick after you enter the code -- make sure you don't grabbing a low cost title by accident, which can happen if you apply the code right away, before you are ready to buy the album. Current prices range from $3.99 to $7.99. You should save the code and not enter it until you are ready to buy an album.

To recap: you must claim the offer by November 26 (today! don't delay!) and must do so from your Kindle with Special Offers. You'll get a promotion code via email and you have until December 26 to enter and redeem the code. Once you enter it, it will work on the next album from the list that you purchase.

If you haven't spent your free $2 MP3 credit, you can get one of these samplers completely free! I spent 99 cents of mine on the Thanksgiving sampler (see an earlier post from today), but have a few dollars more from using the "delayed shipping" option for Prime members (so far, it seems you get an extra dollar with every order delayed, which means you gain more from more smaller orders, rather than one larger one -- hopefully at Amazon's end they will combine orders where possible, to actually decrease their shipping costs).

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed by the "offers" the last couple of days (as in, there weren't any, just reminders to check the Black Friday specials pages), but this one is nice. This is a one day offer, so be sure to sign up today - you then have the entire month to browse and make your selection. Not only is there a Christmas album in this bunch, there is also a very recent release, The Greatest Video Game Music that looks interesting (and you can get an additional $1 MP3 credit for it, so it only costs a $1 with this promotion). My biggest problem with this one is that I have managed to grab so many of these in the past during various sales.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - What's Stopping You?

Update: 12/5/11 It took several days, but this one is now free for US and UK Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble.

What's Stopping You?: Shatter the 9 Most Common Myths Keeping You from Starting Your Own Business (Main/DE), by R. Duane Ireland and Bruce Barringer, is free for EU customers in the Kindle store. This one is from FT Press and is likely to be free later today in the UK and in the US tomorrow.

Book Description

• Get past the myths that keep you from making the leap
• Gain the practical skills and confidence you need to succeed
• Quickly evaluate business ideas and pick a winner
• Launch your company and watch it grow and profit

Build the business you’ve always dreamed of! Take control of your future and achieve the breakthrough success that’s only possible when you’re working for yourself. You can do it–and this book will show you how.

Forget the myths that have been standing in your way. You don’t need to be rich. You don’t need extensive business experience. You don’t need to be a genius. You don’t need a revolutionary product or service. You can handle the risk, the competition, and the challenges.

The proof’s on every page of this book: case studies of “ordinary” people building great businesses and practical techniques you can use, too–every step of the way!

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Short Story (Kindle) - Going Down to Lucky Town (UK)

Going Down to Lucky Town (Main/UK), by Douglas Smith, is free for UK customers in the Kindle store.

Book Description
Charlie the Pearl--con man, gambler, and ever absent father--is about to catch the dream that he's chased his entire life--the secret of good luck. But it's a secret that could cost Charlie the only thing in the world that he loves more than a winning streak--his daughter.