Kindle DX $269!

Today only, the Kindle DX, Free 3G, 9.7" E Ink Display is $110 off, for a total of $269! In addition, it looks like most of today's Gold Box deals are Kindle related (mostly Kindle Fire accessories), so you'll want to keep an eye out on those today, tool.

This model includes 3G cellular service at no charge, including web browsing (which has been limited to WiFi mode with the Kindle Touch and that trend will no doubt continue). The promotional price will continue until midnight in Seattle or while supplies last. The dropdown will let you try to order up to 999 of these at the special price, but I didn't actually place them in the cart to see if it would really work.

Description
With a large, easy-to-read 9.7" E Ink display that reads like real paper and adjustable font sizes Kindle DX is the ideal e-reader for Dad. With free 3G wireless (no monthly payments or annual contracts), Dad can shop, download, and read right out of the box--no need to worry about Wi-Fi connections, passwords, or internet charges.

High Contrast E Ink Pearl Screen: Our graphite Kindle DX display uses the latest generation E Ink Pearl technology with 50% better contrast for the clearest text and sharpest images

Beautiful Large Display: The 9.7" diagonal E Ink screen is ideal for a broad range of reading material, including graphic-rich books, PDFs, newspapers, magazines, and blogs

Read in Sunlight with No Glare: Unlike backlit computer or LCD screens, Kindle DX's display looks and reads like real paper, with no glare. Read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Books In Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered wirelessly in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Free 3G Wireless: No monthly payments, no annual contracts. Download books anywhere, anytime

Today's Deals

Over at O'Reilly Books, they are running a 50% off sale on their 5-star ebooks (all DRM-free). Enter coupon code WK5STAR (expires August 16, 2012) during checkout. Mostly technical/computer type books, there's also mathematics, home chemistry experiments and one on training your brain included (which is also half-price and DRM-free on Kindle, no coupon required)

Today's the last day to use the surrender75 (75% off selected Romance) and GBAug04Save70 (70% off Bestsellers, UK only) coupon codes at Kobo. A new code, worth 40% off select amazing debut novels, is debut40 (exp 8/13).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is A Word Child ($1.99), by Iris Murdoch (Open Road).

Book Description
A brilliant but deeply flawed man struggles to earn absolution

Hilary Burde was a rising star in academia until a tragic accident plunged him and his mentor and rival, Gunnar Jopling, into two decades of depression and guilt. Hilary, unable to overcome his pain, abandoned his promising career for an unfulfilling job as a civil servant. But at age forty-one, Hilary crosses paths again with Gunnar—initiating a series of events that will change their lives forever.

Set against a richly drawn backdrop of post-war London, A Word Child is a gripping story of passion and the redemptive power of love.

Fold ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Tom Campbell, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
Five friends. One year. All bets are off.

Reading, 2009. It may not be Vegas, but for Nick, Doug, Vijay, Alan and Simon, it’s as good as they’re going to get.

Each in their forties, and beset by anxieties, flaws and frustrations, they meet monthly in each other’s houses for a ’friendly’ game of poker, enabling Doug to show off his new-minted wealth, Simon to insist on serving only red wine and goats’ cheese and Nick - swimming in a cocktail of envy, fear, bravado and disappointment - to make increasingly desperate attempts to bring an end to his interminable losing streak.

While Vijay meticulously records every win and loss on his spreadsheet, and Alan frets about his propensity to break into sweat and his inability to get his wife pregnant, Nick becomes obsessed with the idea of engineering Doug’s downfall: Doug, who with his big house, his successful business and his appalling taste is both everything that Nick aspires to and resents. Convinced of the heroic nature of his task, he aims to triumph over Doug in poker, as well as in life, and in doing so he comes into troubling proximity to Sophia, Doug’s clever and beautiful wife ...

Spartacus: Swords and Ashes ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by J.M. Clements, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Spartacus is the hit TV show which combines blood-soaked action, exotic sexuality, villainy and heroism. This original novel from the world of Spartacus: Blood and Sand tells a brand new
story of blood, sex and politics set in the uncompromising, visceral world of the arena.

The gladiator Spartacus, the new Champion of Capua, fights atthe graveside of a rich man who was brutally murdered by his own slaves. Seeing an opportunity, ambitious lanista Quintus Batiatus plots to seize the dead man’s estate.

In the arena blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands...

STAR FIGHTERS 1: Alien Attack ($3.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Max Chase, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Peri is a first-year student at the IF Academy and has been selected for a rare unsupervised exercise in space, paired with Diesel, a half-Martian from the Academy. While performing a routine exercise, they witness Earth coming under bombardment from Xion spaceships and soon find themselves behind the controls of the Phoenix, the most advanced space vessel known to man. As the Solar System is torn apart by a war between the Xions and Meigwors, Peri and Diesel are drawn helplessly into the intergalactic conflict. Now they - along with stowaway girl Selene - must work together to find a way home.

Age Level: 7 and up

Two Free Audiobooks - Skulduggery Pleasant and Dead Men Kill

There are two new free audiobook from Sync today. First, I've linked in the info from the ebook or audiobook version of each title (Amazon has the best reviews), followed by the link to get your copies free, with directions to ensure you get the complete download.

Start off with Scepter of the Ancients ($7.99 Kindle; $16.95 Audible), the first title in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, narrated by Rupert Degas. If you've been following the blog for a while, you have the ebook in your library, as it was free in all formats last October.

Book Description
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant

• Ace Detective
• Snappy Dresser
• Razor–tongued Wit
• Crackerjack Sorcerer
and
• Walking, Talking, Fire-throwing Skeleton

—as well as ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old.

These two alone must defeat an all-consuming ancient evil.

The end of the world?

Over his dead body.

Grade Level: 5 and up

Dead Men Kill ($0.00 Kindle $2.95 Audible), by L. Ron Hubbard, narrated by Jennifer Aspen and a Full Cast, is the second selection for this week.

Book Description
When several of the city's most respected citizens are inexplicably killed by what appear to be zombies, all Detective Terry Lane has to go on is a blue-grey glove, a Haitian pharmacy bill for some very unusual drugs, and a death threat from a mysterious stranger.

Matters are soon complicated when a beautiful nightclub singer shows up, claiming to have information that could solve the case. But her motives are plainly suspect. Against his better judgement, Terry investigates her lead, only to find himself sealed in a coffin en route to the next zombie murder - his own.

First published in 1934 in Thrilling Detective magazine, Hubbard's rollicking horror yarn just happens to tap into the current craze for zombies. Heroic Det. Sgt. Terrence "Terry" Lane looks into a deeply disturbing series of murders of powerful businessmen. Dawn Drayden, a pretty Club Haitian entertainer, confirms Lane's hunch that the killers are dead men "coming back from the grave and killing their employers." The zombie mastermind is the nefarious Dr. Leroux, originally of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, aka Loup-garou (or human hyena).

In the end, Drayden and Lane must face heart-pounding dangers once Dr. Leroux's secrets are revealed. This fun, campy novella reflects a contemporary revenge vibe felt by those who wouldn't mind dispatching a few zombies to punish criminally inclined businessmen.

Click HERE to get the free downloads (you'll need to enter your name and an email address. You'll end up clicking about three pages (for each book), before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up; there is a link at Sync, if you don't already have Overdrive installed).

Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started). Make sure your audiobook is fully downloaded before the end of the week, as once the promo period is over, you won't be able to get them free.

You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). Two new titles each Thursday!

Goodbye Kindle Touch?

If you've been thinking about buying a Kindle Touch, you may have waited too long. Specifically, the 3G edition is now marked as Currently unavailable, which usually indicates a Kindle model has been removed as an active item (although you can still buy some refurbished units, at least, for now). The WiFi only model appears to still be available, with Ads, but is on a 8-9 day backorder (the no-Ads model is gone and no refurbs appear to be available, either).

Rumors have been swirling for some time of a new Kindle model, perhaps in reaction to the nook Glow (which I've seen comments on returns and hassles with the lighting - I'm not surprised, as my Sony with edge lighting wasn't that great, either and it caused glare on the eInk screen due to the added glass layer). In the Kindle Store, you'll see the new picture above, which claims the Kindle family has only two entries now - the low end Kindle and the high end Kindle Fire. Left out are the Kindle Keyboard 3G and Kindle DX 3G, both of which are still available. I expect that sometime this month, that family will grow again, with a new eInk Kindle that is WiFi only and has some type of side-lighting (Amazon often reacts to a perceived lack of product features, even if it does mean the new model is less desirable by current customers, pandering to press reviews, rather than it's customers). I do know one thing - it most likely won't be called the "Kindle Glow", not only because the NOOK already is using Glow in it's name, but also because there is an outdoor space heater of that name (which, I suppose, you could use to read your current Kindle while staying warm outside, at night).

There are also rumors of a new, larger Kindle Fire. I'd love to see it; I already see that Amazon now allows us to view their new Kindle Textbooks on Android, not just on Apple's proprietary devices. Now, we just need to be able to view our Enhanced Content Kindle Books, complete with the embedded music and videos, on our Fires and I'll have one less reason to upgrade to Apple's new iPad. Hopefully, too, Amazon will add both a camera and the ability to add an SD/microSD card to their new tablet - the 8GB Fire is extremely limited (especially if you have a large library, as it wastes space on thumbnail cover images for every book in your library, space you can't get back if you keep any Kindle books on it). It would put them one step up on features vs. the iPad, but just keep them even with all the other Android Tablets out there (most of which are far superior to Amazon's device, but lack the integration with Amazon's content, something the iPad has been catching up on, since you can now watch Amazon Instant Videos on it).

I do know that one of Amazon's cover vendors, M-Edge, is in on the secret - they have already announced the new Kindle on their Facebook page (if it hasn't been pulled) and are running a sign-up list for the date the new covers are available for sale. Their contest ends TODAY, so the release must be imminent.

Did you know a new Kindle device is coming soon? What do you think will be the new, prime feature?

Answer in the comment box below for a chance to win any one FREE product from our website! Contest ends Thursday the 9th 5 pm EST.

Also, sign up here to be notified when your favorite M-Edge accessories hit the market:
http://app.medgestore.com/promos/newamazondevices.psp

Update: One rumor mentions that the current $47.40 price on the Kindle (see coupon code on right sidebar) will end on Aug 15. It's very unlikely that a new Kindle model will ship before then and we may even see the 16th as the date that pre-orders begin. It will be a long time without a touch model available, but the mini-Kindle will fill the void for those that don't want to step all the way up to a Kindle Keyboard or who don't want the heavier and less reading-friendly Kindle Fire tablet.

Today's Deals

Additional formats on free books:

• Convincing Quinn (K/N/DF)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts ($1.99), by Ian Morgan Cron.

Book Description
"When I first discovered the grainy picture in my mother's desk-me as a towheaded two year old sitting in what I remember was a salmon-orange-stained lifeboat-I was overwhelmed by the feeling that the boy in the boat was not waving and laughing at the person snapping the photo as much as he was frantically trying to get the attention of the man I am today. The boy was beckoning me to join him on a voyage through the harrowing straits of memory. He was gambling that if we survived the passage, we might discover an ocean where the past would become the wind at our back rather than a driving gale to the nose of our boat. This book is the record of that voyage."

At the age of sixteen, Ian Morgan Cron was told by his mother that his father, a motion picture executive, also worked for the CIA in Europe. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggles with alcoholism, upended the world of a boy struggling to become a man. Decades later, as he faces his own personal demons, Ian realizes the only way to find peace is to voyage back through a childhood marked by extremes--privilege and hardship, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit--that he's spent years trying to forget. In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

Sworn to Silence ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Linda Castillo, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Some secrets are too terrible to reveal . . . Some crimes are too unspeakable to solve . . . Painter's Creek, Ohio may be a sleepy, rural town with both Amish and 'English' residents, but it's also the place where a series of brutal murders shattered the lives of an entire community over a decade ago. When the killing stopped, it left in its aftermath a sense of fragility, and for the young Amish girl, Katie Burkholder, a realization that she didn't belong. Now, 15 years, two dead parents and a wealth of experience later, Katie has been asked to return as Chief of Police. Her Amish background combined with her big-city law enforcement expertise make her the perfect candidate. Katie is certain she has come to terms with the past. Until the first body of a slaughtered young woman is found in a pristine, snowy field...

Billy Graham in Quotes ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Franklin Graham, Donna Lee Toney and Billy Graham, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
God Speaks His Word Straight Into The Hearts Of Men And Women.

The Word Of God Is Alive And Active Today In The Lives Of Millions.

With the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as his singular focus, Billy Graham has faithfully, passionately, and unapologetically preached God's Word for more than seventy years. At the age of ninety-two, during an exclusive Fox News interview in 2010, Dr. Graham told Greta van Susteren, "I have a tremendous amount of hope for the future because of Jesus Christ."

In this stunning collection of quotes by Billy Graham comes a historic anthology covering seven decades of ministry, drawing from both his published and personal works. These pages are filled with hope, truth, and redemption and seek the hearts of a lost people who need God now more than ever.

Today we are putting our hopes in materialism, in technological progress, and in freedom from moral absolutes. They have all failed. They have failed because they have been powerless to change the human heart.

Join Billy Graham as he seeks to bring God's Word to the heart of daily life. Reconnect and be drawn like never before. "Hearing Billy Graham express hope for the world gives me hope that my life can be worthwhile," comments one twenty-two-year-old. Arranged topically for easy reference, Billy Graham in Quotes provides insight on more than one hundred topics anchored in Scripture. This gifted evangelist takes the focus off of the messenger and shines the Light on the Message of God's Word.

Earth's troubles fade in the light of heaven's hope.

Swipe ($7.69 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in the series by Evan Angler, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. The second title in the series, Sneak, will be released in the first week of September.

Book Description
Everyone gets the Mark. It gives all the benefits of citizenship. Yet if getting the Mark is such a good thing, then why does it feel so wrong?

Set in a future North America that is struggling to recover after famine and global war, Swipe follows the lives of three kids caught in the middle of a conflict they didn’t even know existed. United under a charismatic leader, every citizen of the American Union is required to get the Mark on their 13th birthday in order to gain the benefits of citizenship.

The Mark is a tattoo that must be swiped by special scanners for everything from employment to transportation to shopping. It’s almost Logan Langly’s 13th birthday and he knows he should be excited about getting the Mark, but he hasn’t been able to shake the feeling he’s being watched. Not since his sister went to get her Mark five years ago . . . and never came back.

When Logan and his friends discover the truth behind the Mark, will they ever be able to go back to being normal teenagers? Find out in the first book of this exciting series that is Left Behind meets Matched for middle-grade readers.