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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Today's Deals

There are several new coupon codes for Kobo on the list today (see sidebar at right), including one good for any new Harlequin release at 30% off and two more 50% off coupons. As always, these only work on non-Agency published books, so you may have to browse a bit to find one on your wishlist.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Child in Time ($1.99), by Ian McEwan.
Book Description
The Child in Time shows us just how quickly life can change in an instant. Stephen Lewis is a successful author of children's books. It is a routine Saturday morning and while on a trip to the supermarket, Stephen gets distracted. Within moments, his daughter is kidnapped and his life is forever changed.

From that moment, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche, and with time itself: "It was a wonder there could be so much movement, so much purpose, all the time. He himself had none."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
First Love, Last Rites was McEwan's first published book and is a collection of short stories that in 1976 won the Somerset Maugham Award. A second volume of his work appeared in 1978. These stories--claustrophobic tales of childhood, deviant sexuality and disjointed family life--were remarkable for their formal experimentation and controlled narrative voice. McEwan's first novel, The Cement Garden (1978), is the story of four orphaned children living alone after the death of both parents. To avoid being taken into custody, they bury their mother in the cement of the basement and attempt to carry on life as normally as possible. Soon, an incestuous relationship develops between the two oldest children as they seek to emulate their parents roles. The Cement Garden was followed by The Comfort of Strangers (1981), set in Venice, a tale of fantasy, violence, and obsession. The Child in Time (1987) won the Whitbread Novel Award and marked a new confidence in McEwan's writing. The story revolves around the devastating effects of the loss of a child through child abduction. Readers may know McEwan's work through these and other books, or more recently through his novel, Atonement, which was made into a major motion picture.

The Playdate ($1.52 / £0.99 UK), by Louise Millar, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99 pre-order).
Book Description
Single mother Callie has come to rely heavily on her best friend Suzy. But Callie suspects Suzy's life isn't as simple as it seems. It's time she pulled away - going back to work is just the first step towards rediscovering her old confidence. So why does she keep putting off telling Suzy about her new job? Suzy and Callie live close to each other on a typical cramped, anonymous London street. Neighbours seem to move in, and move on, before you have even learned their names. Callie's increased sense of alienation leads her to try to befriend a new resident on her street, Debs. But Debs is anxious, odd. You wouldn't trust her with your child - especially not if you knew anything about her past. A brilliant and chilling evocation of modern life, The Playdate is a real talking-point book for mothers everywhere. I started reading and couldn't stop . . . a must-read that will tap into every mother's primal fears' Sophie Hannah

Psych Yourself Rich: Get the Mindset and Discipline You Need to Build Your Financial Life ($10.35 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Farnoosh Torabi, is the Nook Daily Find; this title has previously been free on Kindle, where there is also a Video Enhanced Edition available.
Book Description
In Psych Yourself Rich, TV’s newest personal finance star shows how to develop the mindset, discipline, and spirit you need to build a strong financial foundation so you can grow wealth on your own terms, without fear, anxiety, misery, boredom, or even advanced math!? Farnoosh Torabi (as seen on NBC’s Today Show, Yahoo! Finance, and SoapNet’s Bank of Mom & Dad) combines the latest behavioral psychology with real attitude, without lectures! Psych Yourself Rich shows young professionals how to build a healthy view of money, investing, wealth, and aspirations. Torabi discusses how to get beyond "lend-and-spend" to a deeper, more holistic view of money, how to map out a plan of action that matches your needs and goals, and how to put that plan into action! You’ll learn how to stop agonizing and start organizing; become your own biggest "money advocate;" assert yourself to stop getting ripped off by financial institutions; make your money count; build momentum; embrace an entrepreneurial spirit; and get where you want to go, while others spend decades running in place.

Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godsister ($5.59 Kindle, $1.49 B&N), the first title in the series by Liz Kessler, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. Although not (yet) price matched on Kindle, there is a good deal on another of Kessler's titles, The Tail of Emily Windsnap at $2.99 (and three others in the series are $4.99, currently).
Book Description
Philippa Fisher would like nothing more than to summon a fairy. Still, she is taken aback when Daisy, the new girl at school, announces that she is Philippa's fairy godmother — or godsister, since they're both the same age. Though the fairy is none too pleased with her mission, she is obliged to see it through and grant her human charge the customary three wishes. Now, if only Philippa would wish for something that makes her life better, not worse! With warmth and whimsy, the creator of Emily Windsnap whisks a traditional theme into a contemporary setting to tell a story of friendship, luck, and how we decide what we really want.

Grade Level: 3 and up

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Today's Deals

Today is the last day to take advantage of this KSO deal, which is also the only KSO deal that is active. Are KSO deals a thing of the past?

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is A Kiss Before Dying ($1.99), by Ira Levin, winner of the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Book Description
A modern classic, this novel set a new standard in the art of mystery and suspense in its exploration of the criminal mind

A Kiss Before Dying not only debuted the talent of best-selling novelist Ira Levin to rave reviews and an Edgar Award, it also set a new standard in the art of psychological suspense. It tells the shocking tale of a young man who will stop at nothing—not even murder—to get where he wants to go. For he has dreams, plans. He also has charm, good looks, intelligence. And he has a problem. Her name is Dorothy; she loves him, and she’s pregnant. The solution may demand desperate measures. But, then, he looks like the kind of guy who could get away with murder.

About the Author
Ira Levin is the author of The Boys from Brazil, Rosemary’s Baby, Son of Rosemary, The Stepford Wives, This Perfect Day, Sliver, and A Kiss Before Dying (for which he won the Edgar Award). Levin was also the recipient of three Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

The Graduate Student ($1.52 / £0.99 UK), by James Polster, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $4.99/KLL eligible).
Book Description
When anthropology graduate student Blackwell James returns from a research expedition in the Amazon, he brings home a trunk full of rare hallucinogenic vines…but no research notes. Frustrated by the young man’s lack of progress on his dissertation, Blackwell’s professor finds him a job working on a primate experiment in Los Angeles to spur him along. Trouble is, Blackwell has never set foot in L.A., and he doesn’t know a whit about primates. In fact, for a guy like Blackwell James, venturing into the City of Angels soon proves to be more dangerous than the Amazon ever was. From the moment he is thrust into the bizarre culture of Hollywood, his life becomes a wild, high-octane tale of adventure, suspense, and intrigue. Caught up in the secret ambitions of his new employers, Blackwell begins a strange trip through the surreal world of movie stars, murder, and money. A secret society, a ghost town, two large chimpanzees, and several shamanistic drug-induced journeys round out this outrageous novel, which features “cameos” by Sylvester Stallone, Johnny Depp, and Steven Spielberg. Gleefully continuing the great literary tradition of comic Hollywood novels, The Graduate Student is an exuberant and riveting ride.

A Single Thread ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in Marie Bostwick's Cobbled Quilt series, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. Check your libraries on this one - it was 99 cents on Kindle a while back and free from Kobo as part of their ebook club in April.
Book Description
Marie Bostwick weaves the unforgettable story of four very different women whose paths cross, changing their lives forever. . .

It's a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, to New Bern, Connecticut, yet it only takes a day in the charming Yankee town to make Evelyn Dixon realize she's found her new home. The abrupt end of her marriage was Evelyn's wake-up call to get busy chasing her dream of opening a quilt shop. Finding a storefront is easy enough; starting a new life isn't. Little does Evelyn imagine it will bring a trio like Abigail Burgess, her niece Liza, and Margot Matthews through her door. . .

Troubled and angry after her mother's death, Liza threatens to embarrass her Aunt Abigail all over town unless she joins her for quilting classes. A victim of downsizing at the peak of her career, Margot hopes an event hosted by the quilt shop could be a great chance to network--and keep from dying of boredom. . .

As they stitch their unique creations, Evelyn, Abigail, Liza, and Margot form a sisterhood they never sought--but one that they'll be grateful for when the unexpected provides a poignant reminder of the single thread that binds us all. . .

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread ($6.57 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Kate DiCamillo and Timothy Basil Ering (Illustrator), is the Nook Daily Find for Families.
Book Description
Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon,up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

Grades: 2 and up

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Today's Deals

Tantor Media is celebrating Audiobook Month by marking down their entire catalog, in all formats (MP3 and CD) by 50%. It's a good deal for those who have a few on their wishlist, but don't have a subscription to Audible. There are also a few interesting looking choices in the $6.99 Bargain Bin and from the few I checked, it appears that if the CD is marked down to $6.99, you can opt to get the download, instead, for the same price. If you prefer the CD's, they are also running a free shipping deal for orders over $25.

Book View Cafe has a half-price sale going on for some of their anthologies, which works out to $2.49 apiece. The books are DRM-free, but you have to pick one format for purchase (use MOBI for Kindle, although EPUB can be converted, the font choices are often off).

Books on Board is having another sale, with a net 40%-50% off all eligible titles (non-Agency, over $2.99, classified as Fiction or Non-Fiction, which ends up skipping some titles that are "non-classifiable").

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The File on H. ($0.99), by Ismail Kadare.
Book Description
In the mid 1930s, two young Irish-American scholars voyage to the Albanian highlands with an early model of a marvelous invention, the tape recorder, in hand. Their mission? To discover how Homer could have composed works as brilliant and as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey without ever writing them down. The answer, they think, can be found only in Albania, the last remaining natural habitat of the oral epic. But immediately on their arrival the scholars' seemingly arcane research puts them at the center of ethnic strife in the Balkans. Mistaken for foreign spies, they are placed under the surveillance of a nearsighted informer with a prodigious gift for reproducing conversations he has overheard. He is soon generating a stream of floridly written reports about the visitors' puzzling activities. News of their presence in the provincial town of N------- sets gossip to flying, and while the town's governor speculates on their imminent capture, his pretty wife, from her bath, plots her delivery from a marital ennui worthy of Madame Bovary. Research and intrigue proceed apace, but it isn't until a fierce-eyed monk from the Serbian side of the mountains makes his appearance that the scholars glimpse the full political import of their search for the key to the Homeric question. Part spy novel, part comedy of errors, The File on H.is a work of inventive genius and piercing irony that may be Ismail Kadare's funniest and most accessible to date. From an author who has been called "one of the most compelling novelists now writing in any language" (Wall Street Journal),it is also a profound and eloquent comment on one of the most intractable conflicts of our time.

Diamond Jubilee Edition of God Save the Queen: The Spiritual Heart of the Monarchy ($1.98 / £1.29 UK), by Ian Bradley, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $13.09).
Book Description
At a time of renewed interest in the monarchy (stimulated by the marriage of Prince William of Wales and the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II), the institution is analyzed and dissected from almost every point of view apart from the sacred -- which arguably stands at its heart and is its ultimate raison d'etre. Commentators assess the constitutional and philanthropic aspects of monarchy and its tourist potential; gossip magazines report on the Royal Family as a soap opera. This lack of attention is in marked contrast to the sacred origins of monarchy and the manifest importance of religious belief in the life of the present monarch.

Ian Bradley traces the religious dimension of monarchy and argues for its importance as a spiritual force in British life, as well as exploring what this might mean in a society that is both multi-faith and increasingly secular.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), a novel by Ben Fountain, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. This was named one of the Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012.
Book Description
A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide Victory Tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys, slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the superstar pop group Destiny's Child.

Among the Bravos is the Silver Star–winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and Support Our Troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the Cowboys' hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family—his worried sisters and broken father—and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy's mind and died in his arms at Al-Ansakar.

Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms—soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.

Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain's reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.

Hailey Twitch Is Not a Snitch ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Lauren Barnholdt, is the Nook Daily Find for Families, price matched on Kindle. If you've been a reader for a while, you should have this one in your library, as it was free in May, 2011.
Book Description
Meet Hailey Twitch…

She’s just like you. Well, sort of.

She loves pink sparkly pencils and ice cream. But Hailey also has a secret: she’s friends with Maybelle, a sprite that only she can see.

Hailey and Maybelle are having fun, fun, fun. But they’re also getting into lots of trouble!

Can Hailey keep her friend a secret or will she have to tell?

Grade Level: 2 and up

Monday, June 4, 2012

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands ($1.99), by Michael Chabon.
Book Description
In these lively critical and personal essays, Chabon asserts his literary manifesto: “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.”

This collection of sixteen essays champions the cause of sci-fi and westerns, superheroes and horror shows, gumshoes and goblins—all the genre novels, comics, and pulp fiction that get pushed aside when literary discussion turns serious. For Chabon, the stories that give us great pleasure are in many ways our truest, best art—the building blocks of our shared imagination. Whether he’s taking up Superman or Sherlock Holmes, Poe or Proust, Chabon’s emphatic mission is to explore the reasons we tell each other tales, and to offer a glimpse of his own history as reader and writer.

This ebook features a biography of the author. Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves In Their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Maps & Legends, Gentlemen of the Road, and the middle-grade book Summerland.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother ($1.52 / £0.99 UK), by William Shawcross, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $17.99). Happy 60th, you guys!
Book Description
The official and definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: consort of King George VI, mother of Queen Elizabeth II, grandmother of Prince Charles, and the most beloved British monarch of the twentieth century.

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon—the ninth of the Earl of Strathmore’s ten children—was born on August 4, 1900, and, certainly, no one could have imagined that her long life (she died in 2002) would come to reflect a changing nation over the course of an entire century. Vividly detailed, written with unrestricted access to her personal papers, letters, and diaries, this candid royal biography by William Shawcross is also a singular history of Britain in the twentieth century.

Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night ($2.99 Kindle, $3.99 B&N), by Peggy Orenstein, is the Nook Daily Find, better than price matched on Kindle.
Book Description
Peggy Orenstein's widely hailed and bestselling memoir of her quest for parenthood begins when she tells her new husband that she's not sure she ever wants to be a mother; it ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to achieve that goal. Buffeted by one obstacle after another, Orenstein seeks answers both medical and spiritual in America and Asia, all the while trying to hold on to a marriage threatened by cycles, appointments, procedures, and disappointments. Waiting for Daisy is both an intimate page-turner and a wrly funny report from the front.

The Magic Half ($3.35 Kindle, $1.49 B&N), by Annie Barrows, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.
Book Description
Miri is the non-twin child in a family with two sets of them--older brothers and younger sisters. The family has just moved to an old farmhouse in a new town, where the only good thing seems to be Miri's ten-sided attic bedroom. But when Miri gets sent to her room after accidentally bashing her big brother on the head with a shovel, she finds herself in the same room . . . only not quite.

Without meaning to, she has found a way to travel back in time to 1935 where she discovers Molly, a girl her own age very much in need of a loving family. A highly satisfying classic-in-the-making full of spine-tingling moments, this is a delightful time-travel novel for the whole family.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Today's Deals

The Fictionwise discount coupon for this weekend is 060112 for 45% off.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Cypress Grove ($1.99), by James Sallis. It's a good price on a good book, but I suggest you buy the entire trilogy instead (as I did) for $7.19.
Book Description
As he has shown so often in previous novels, James Sallis is one of our great stylists and storytellers, whose deep interest in human nature is expressed in the powerful stories of men too often at odds with themselves as well as the world around them. His new novel, Cypress Grove, continues in that highly praised tradition.

The small town where Turner has moved is one of America’s lost places, halfway between Memphis and forever. That makes it a perfect hideaway: a place where a man can bury the past and escape the pain of human contact, where you are left alone unless you want company, where conversation only happens when there’s something to say, where you can sit and watch an owl fly silently across the face of the moon. And where Turner hopes to forget that he has been a cop, a psychotherapist, and, always, an ex-con.

There is no major crime to speak of until Sheriff Lonnie Bates arrives on Turner’s porch with a bottle of Wild Turkey and a problem: The body of a drifter has been found-brutally and ritualistically- murdered and Bates and his deputy need help from someone with big-city experience who appreciates the delicacy of investigating people in a small town. Thrust back into the middle of what he left behind, Turner slowly becomes reacquainted not only with the darkness he had fled, but with the unsuspected kindness of others.

Brilliantly balancing Turner’s past and present lives, Cypress Grove is lyrical, moving, and filled with the sense of place and character that only our finest writers can achieve. It is proof positive that the acclaim James Sallis has enjoyed for years is richly deserved.

When I Lived in Modern Times ($1.52 / £0.99 UK), by When I Lived in Modern Times, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).
Book Description
It is April 1946. Evelyn Sert, twenty years old, a hairdresser from Soho, sails for Palestine, where Jewish refugees and idealists are gathering from across Europe to start a new life in a brand-new country.In the glittering, cosmopolitan, Bauhaus city of Tel Aviv, anything seems possible – the new self, new Jew, new woman are all feasible. Evelyn, adept at disguises, reinvents herself as the bleached-blonde Priscilla Jones. Immersed in a world of passionate idealism, she finds love, and with Johnny, her lover, finds herself at the heart of a very dangerous game.

He Died with His Eyes Open ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in Factory series by Derek Raymond, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.
Book Description
As it turns out, a dead man can tell stories...

Murders are a dime a dozen in Margaret Thatcher's London, and when it comes to the brutal killing of a middle-aged alcoholic found dumped outside of town, Scotland Yard has more important cases to deal with.

Instead it's a job for the Department of Unexplained Deaths and its head Detective Sergeant. With only a box of cassette-tape diaries as evidence the rogue detective has no choice but to listen to the haunting voice of the victim for clues to his gruesome end.

The first book in Derek Raymond's acclaimed Factory Series is an unflinching yet deeply compassionate portrait of a city plagued by poverty and perversion, and a policeman who may be the only one who cares about the "people who don't matter and who never did."

Feed ($6.39 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by M. T. Anderson, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. I haven't read it yet, but I bought this one at the same price last fall after reading the sample.
Book Description
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson creates a not-so-brave new world—and a smart, savage satire ushering us into an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.