Get $2 in MP3's for Free

If you have a Facebook account, you can claim a $2 MP3 credit by letting Amazon post to your wall. You enter a song you like (or whatever you want posted to your wall) and click; the credit is then added to your account automatically (no codes to keep track of).

Some of the Fine Print

• Your promotional credit must be redeemed by 11:59 PM PST on May 24, 2012.
• Limit one promotional credit per Amazon customer and Facebook account.
• Amazon MP3 music is available to customers located and with billing addresses in the United States.

Today's Deals

At DailySteals (today only), you can get a refurbished Kindle Keyboard 3G for $79.99. It's refurbished, but appears to have a 90 day warranty (from Amazon). All indications are that it is not the Special Offers edition (which means you can turn them on and off at no cost) and the same model is going for $129.99 direct from Amazon. It's perhaps just another indication that the Keyboard model is (sadly) on it's way out and that another model may be around the corner.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is A Small Furry Prayer ($1.99), by Steven Kotler. This is a very good price, if you read this type of story - it's $15-$17 elsewhere.

Book Description
Steven Kotler was forty years old, single, and facing an existential crisis when he met Lila, a woman devoted to animal rescue. "Love me, love my dogs" was her rule, and Steven took it to heart. Spurred to move by a housing crisis in Los Angeles, Steven, Lila, and their eight dogs-then ten, then twenty, and then they lost count-bought a postage-stamp-size farm in Chimayo, New Mexico. A Small Furry Prayer chronicles their adventures at Rancho de Chihuahua, the sanctuary they created for their special needs pack. While dog rescue is one of the largest underground movements in America, it is also one of the least understood. An insider look at the "cult and culture" of dog rescue, A Small Furry Prayer weaves personal experience, cultural investigation, and scientific inquiry into a fast-paced, fun-filled narrative that explores what it means to devote one's life to the furry and the four-legged. Along the way, Kotler combs through every aspect of canine-human relations, from humans' long history with dogs through brand-new research into the neuroscience of canine companionship, in the end discovering why living in a world made of dog may be the best way to uncover the truth about what it really means to be human.

The AmazonEncore edition of A King of Infinite Space ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Tyler Dilts, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.99/KLL Eligible).

Book Description
Long Beach, California, homicide detective Danny Beckett is pouring the weekend’s first shot of vodka when the call comes in: Elizabeth Williams, a teacher at nearby Warren High School, has been brutally murdered in her classroom. When Danny arrives at the school, the blood-spattered crime scene turns even his veteran stomach. What could this young woman have done to make her the target of such a violent attack? And what is the significance of the victim’s left hand, taken by the killer as a grisly trophy? Beckett delves into the case with his usual tenacious cool, yet as he pieces together the facts, long-suppressed anguish from his own past rises up with stunning force. His hunt for the murderer soon morphs into a personal quest for atonement as he struggles to come to terms with the loss of his wife and family. A King of Infinite Space is a riveting crime novel that serves as a memorable introduction for Danny Beckett to the ranks of fiction’s favorite hardened detectives.

Sistergirl Devotions: Keeping Jesus in the Mix on the Job ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Carol M. Mackey, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Finally, a book of meditations for African American women that understands the world they live in. Centering on the lessons God teaches us at work, at church, and in our relationships, this book of devotions uses stories and settings that will resonate with women of color--urban life, office culture, and the leading of the Spirit in things large and small. Using Scripture, conventional wisdom, and stories from the African American community, each devotional will show women how their faith can empower them to have success on the job--at whatever workplace they find themselves. With topics such as respect, resourcefulness, image, timeliness, honesty, negativity, and balancing work and home, each devotion ends with a "power move"--practical affirmations that will move readers toward success at work.

Princess Academy ($5.96 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Shannon Hale, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king’s priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. Sent to an academy to learn how to become a princess, Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and even bandits intent on kidnapping the future princess.

Just Desserts ($1.99 Kindle, Kobo), the first of the Bed-And-Breakfast mystery series by Mary Daheim, is Today's Deal at Kobo, price matched on Kindle (as chosen by me, since Kobo hasn't updated their page in weeks). The author is better known for her Emma Lord series, although both have been written over the last two decades, at least from the selection I find at the local library, which doesn't have this one an many others in the series.

Book Description
When the garishly grotesque clan of wealthy carpet-sweeper magnate Otto Broadie sweeps down upon Judith McMonigle's Hillside Manor Inn, it looks like there'll be a wild night of drinking, dining, and fortune-telling in the offing. But when their soothsayer-for-hire Madame Gushenka drops dead after someone douses her tea leaves with bug killer, harried hostess Judith and her irrepressible cousin Renie are left to clean up the mess. One of the Brodie bunch would dearly love to sweep the Madame's murder under the rug, however, and that might mean eliminating the nosy Ms. McMonigle as well. But with the help of her one-time beau, policeman Joe Flynn, Judith is determined to rattle the dust off some closeted family skeletons, in order to coax a killer out of hiding before coffee is served.

Amazon Digital Weekend Deals

The Kindle Weekend Deal is TimeRiders ($1.99), by Alex Scarrow. This is the first novel in his very popular YA TimeRiders series, only two of which have shown up on Kindle, so far.

Book Description
Maddy should have died in a plane crash. Liam should have died at sea when the Titanic sank. Sal should have died in a tragic fire. But a mysterious man whisked them away to safety.

Maddy, Liam, and Sal quickly learn that time travel is no longer just a hope for the future; it is a dangerous reality. And they weren't just rescued from their terrible fates. . . they were recruited for the agency of TimeRiders created to protect the world from those seeking to alter the course of history for personal gain. By reliving the highly documented events in New York City on 9/11, they can closely monitor history for any deviations-large or small. When just such a change is detected, they are alerted that a threat is at hand unleashing the evil of the Nazis to wreak havoc with Earth's present and future. Can Maddy, Liam, and Sal fulfill their destinies as keepers of time to save the world from utter destruction?

An exhilarating adventure that shifts readers back in time to Nazi Germany and then forward into an ever-changing present.

Look out for the other books in this series: Day of the Predator and The Doomsday Code!

Other vote winners on sale this weekend are The Dark Knight (video), Norah Jones' Come Away With Me (mp3) and A Game of Thrones - Genesis (game). Don't forget to vote on next week's deals.

If you are a gamer, be sure to also check out Amazon's Game Downloads Mayhem Event, with 12 days of deals on some of the more popular games of 2011, ranging from Sims to hardcore gaming. For the more casual gamer, there's also the $2.99 Casual Games Mayhem Event, which has downloadable puzzles, matching, strategy and action/arcade games to choose from (the kind I keep on the netbook to play when not at home). Most have free trials, so you can test to see if they'll work on your hardware, first, before buying to keep. I've seen and ending date of both May 28 and May 29 on these sales, so don't wait until the very last day on these.

Today's Deals

Additional formats on free books:

• Summer of Promise (K/N/E)
• Love Me If You Must (K/E)
• Mystery of the Haunted Cave (K/E)
• Mystery of the Missing Mustangs (K/E)
• Long Shot (K/E)
• Playing for Pride (K/E)
• Baby Food Made Easy (K/E)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Mongoliad ($0.99), a collaborative novel by Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson, Mark Teppo, Erik Bear, et al. This is the book I borrowed last month on my Amazon Prime membership and it's pretty good; I think I'll go ahead and buy it, so I can just borrow something else for the rest of the month.

Book Description
The first novel to be released in The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.

But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.

A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors' preferred text.

The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by William Nicholson, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Laura is content enough with her marriage, her two children and her part-time job - until an ex-lover whom she had thought was ‘the one' gets in touch out of the blue. Suddenly passion and excitement are rekindled, and she realises how stagnant her life has become. But how much happiness has she a right to expect, and what of the pain she might cause to achieve it? Unknown to Laura, many others in her Sussex village are living with their own unresolved inner dramas. None of them guesses at her crisis. Yet every decision they take has an impact on those around them. The hidden longings of a large cast of characters interweave in a gripping plot that reveals ordinary life at its richest: comic and tragic, poignant and cruel, surprising and moving.

Secrets of Simplicity: Learn to Live Better with Less ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Mary Carlomagno, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. I bought this one last summer (although I haven't managed to put it all in practice), when it was last on sale at this price. It's fairly short (144 pages), so you won't be overwhelmed with reading (leaving time to clean out those closets!).

Book Description
Bulging in-boxes, out-of-control stress, and even climate change serve as reminders that when it comes to being happy and healthy, less is more. In this interactive journal, organization expert Mary Carlomagno leads readers on a journey toward release and discovery. Guided by the principle that the way you spend your time and money should reflect your true priorities, Secrets of Simplicity shows how to make practical changes to unburden your closets and calendars and make room for what's really important. Readers can record their successes, as they de-clutter their homes and in the process, their minds.

About the Author
MARY CARLOMAGNO is the founder and owner of Order, a company that specializes in clutter control. Her philosophy has been featured in Woman's Day, Redbook, and The Washington Post. She lives in New Jersey.

Yummy Yucky ($6.64 Kindle, $1.49 B&N), by Leslie Patricelli, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad).

Book Description
Spaghetti is yummy, but worms - and blue crayons, and sand, and other things too gross to mention - are definitely yucky when tasted. Amiably illustrated in a bright, graphic style, Leslie Patricelli?s spirited board book, YUMMY YUCKY stars an obliging, bald, and very expressive toddler who acts out each pair of opposites with comically dramatic effect.

Today's Deals

For those in the US, this weekend Audible is having a $7.95 Customer Favorites Sale. There are more than 350 titles, grouped by genre, marked down to $7.95 for any member on a subscription plan. If any of the selections were on your wishlist, this is cheaper than using credits and there are some good choices.

Learn Out Loud is having a sale, with 50 of their classics audiobooks at $1/each.

Delphi Classics, which specializes in well-edited editions of the classics, is having a 40% off sale this weekend. Just use coupon code MERRYMONTH during checkout. Everyone can get a free download of French Masters, also, which features eight masterpiece works translated from French, followed by the original texts. Should be a very good selection for students of the French language, as well as being enjoyable by anyone who reads only one of the two.

Fictionwise's coupon this weekend is good for 40% off (on top of any member/new book discounts): 051812

There seems to be a big sale on Octovo covers and sleeves that fit both the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Fire going on. I see $24.99 sleeves marked down to $9.99, in various (bright) colors, their Splashproof Tirim cover (which I use outside, such as by the pool) also is marked down to $9.99, but perhaps the best deals are on their Genuine Leather Book Cover ($19.99) and the same cover with Solis light combo ($29.99). The cover originally sold for $75 and the Solis light alone sells for $29.99 (essentially, buy the light and get a free leather cover). If you prefer brown, you get $10 off their Vintage Leather Cover, if you buy it and the Solis light in the same order. Since it's also on sale for $19.99, it ends up being only a bit more than the black cover and light combo (if you want the cover only, they are the same price).

Additional formats on free books:

• Run Among Thorns (N/E/I)
• RV Cooking Cookbook (K/N/E/I)
• Anything But Vanilla (K/N/I) [NSFW]
• Kinky (K/N/I) [NSFW]
• Exposure (K/N/I) [NSFW]

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Those Who Save Us ($1.99), by Jenna Blum.

Book Description
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.

Silent Voices ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), the fourth title in the Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim’s throat – death is never that simple . . . Doing what she does best, Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing staff and those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands made on him by the job; Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again. Death has never made her feel so alive . . . And when they discover that the victim had worked in social services, and had been involved in a shocking case involving a young child, then it appears obvious that the two are somehow connected. Though things are never as they seem . . .

The Restorer ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first novel in The Graveyard Queen series by Amanda Stevens, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle (multiple editions, only one on sale). You can also still pick up the prequel novella, The Abandoned, for free.

Book Description
My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killer—and to his other victims—lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

Night of the Living Dummy ($4.61 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in R. L. Stine's Classic Goosebumps series, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Something scary is happening in GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND, the all-new, all-terrifying series by R. L. Stine. Just how scary? You'll never know unless you crack open this classic prequel!

Discover the fan-favorite thriller and chiller that first introduced the world to the wooden face of fear. The puppet who pulls all the strings. None other than Slappy the Dummy!

Now with all-new bonus material revealing Slappy's secrets and more.