Free Audiobook - Kluge

Get a free MP3 download of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind ($9.99 Kindle, $17.95 Audible), by Gary Marcus, narrated by Stephen Hoye, over at Tantor Media today.

Book Description
Are we "noble in reason"? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a "kluge", a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind - think duct tape, not supercomputer - that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.

Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience - memory, belief, decision making, language, and happiness - Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can't buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like "people people left left" ties us into knots even though it's only four words long.

He also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge - for example, always consider alternative explanations, make contingency plans, and beware the vivid, personal anecdote. Throughout, he shows how only evolution - haphazard and undirected - could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection.

Get the free audiobook from Tantor Media.

Today's Deals

Susan Wiggs and Tess Gerritsen are having a Sizzle & Chill contest on Facebook. Like both pages, then enter on either one to try to win an Adirondack chair and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses.

Additional formats on free books:

• Final Vector (K/N/E/I)
• Hide In Plain Sight (K/N/DF)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is White Lies ($1.99), by Jeremy Bates.

Book Description
While driving to a charming village tucked away deep in the Cascade Mountains of eastern Washington, where she is to begin a new job teaching high school English, Katrina Burton picks up a young hitchhiker who turns out to be drunk and predatory. Fearful for her safety, she lies about her destination in order to get him out of the car. But when she later discovers that he is a teacher at the same school, she finds herself feeding that initial lie with more lies. Then Katrina meets a mysterious man . Handsome, charismatic and strong, he is exactly what she needs to extricate her from the expanding network of lies, now spinning out of control. She falls fast and hard for him. But her perfect solution soon becomes a nightmare that lands her in the middle of a grisly murder. And Katrina's problems don't stop there. She must decide whether to betray her new love or to cover up the murder and hope for the best.

Those Faraday Girls ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Monica McInerney, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
From the bestselling author of Family Baggage and The Alphabet Sisters comes a warm and captivating story of family secrets, traditions and ties. As a child, Maggie Faraday grew up in a lively, unconventional household with her young mother, four very different aunts and her eccentric grandfather. With her mother often away, her aunts took turns to look after her – until, just weeks before Maggie’s sixth birthday, a shocking event changed everything. Twenty years on, Maggie is living alone in New York City when a surprise visit from her grandfather brings a revelation and a proposition to reunite the family. As the Faradays gather in Ireland, Maggie begins to realize that the women she thought she knew so intimately all have something to hide . . .

The Gingerbread House ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in the Hammarby series by Swedish mathematician and author Carin Gerhardsen and Paul Norlén (Translator), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. I picked this up last month when it was a Kindle Daily Deal (at the same price).

Book Description
In a short space of time, several bestial murders occur in central Stockholm. When criminal investigator Conny Sjöberg and the Hammarby police begin to suspect that there’s a link between the murders, Sjöberg goes completely cold. There is a killer out there whose motives are very personal, and who will not be deterred.

The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen is the first in the Hammarby series, thrillers with taut, suspenseful plots and unexpected twists and turns. This haunting novel explores schoolyard bullying among young children and the effect it has on them when people look the other way. Many of the scenes in this book are self-experienced and based on Gerhardsen’s own childhood. Urban settings and strong portraits of authentic characters are crafted in depth and detail, insuring the books will linger in the reader’s mind long after the finish.

The Gingerbread House is written in the same tradition as the Sjöwall / Wahlöö crime novels, and has been described as a book version of the tv series The Wire. It is not only published by the same publisher as Stieg Larsson’s The Millennium Trilogy, but by the same editorial team.

Inkspell (Inkheart Trilogy #2) ($8.13 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Cornelia Funke, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. This was a Nook Find in April, but never did get a price match, so if you missed it then, you might want to go ahead with the B&N edition.

Book Description
The captivating sequel to INKHEART, the critically acclaimed, international bestseller by Cornelia Funke!

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of INKHEART, the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval world of his past. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. But the story is threatening to evolve in ways neither of them could ever have imagined.

Grade Level: 4 and up

Today's Deals

Today's the last day for the $47.40 Kindle (using Amazon Visa). Amazon has replenished their stock of Kindle Touch 3G, but only the ones "with Special Offers". The Kindle Touch WiFi Only (also only "with Special Offers") is now down to a 2-3 day wait. If you don't want the ads, you have to go with the entry level Kindle or step up to the Kindle Keyboard 3G.

If you use SD or USB Flash drives to back up or move data, Amazon has several from Transcend on sale today, at 40%-70% off list price, as their GoldBox Deal of the Day. There are also a couple of SSD drives in the sale (although not at as high a discount). The 256GB drive would work well as a replacement start drive for many notebook computers (I've noticed several computers now come with an SSD drive as the boot drive and a regular SATA drive as the secondary, for added storage).

On B&N's Facebook page, you can now vote for this weekend's $3.99 deal: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi vs. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Both are YA dystopian debuts; since they are both published by HarperCollins, the price should be matched on Kindle this weekend. If you pick Shatter Me, you'll also want to pre-order the sequel novella Destroy Me and watch for Unravel Me next February. Under the Never Sky, on the other hand, has already been optioned for a movie and the sequel, Through the Ever Night, releases in January. It's a tough choice (and they are running neck and neck in the voting), but I'm going to go with Rossi on this one.

Celebrate Julia Child's 100th birthday with today's Kindle Deal of the Day: As Always, Julia ($1.99), by Joan Reardon. I was lucky enough to get a review copy and fans should enjoy the tidbits revealed in her correspondence and the photos included. This was one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month, December 2010. You'll also want to check out the extra photos on Amazon's page, including her penciled remarks when she received a rejection letter the first time she submitted their cookbook. Amazon has also picked up a few other books by and about Julia that you might be interested in.

Book Description
With her outsize personality, Julia Child is known around the world by her first name alone. But despite that familiarity, how much do we really know of the inner Julia?

Now more than 200 letters exchanged between Julia and Avis DeVoto, her friend and unofficial literary agent memorably introduced in the hit movie Julie & Julia, open the window on Julia’s deepest thoughts and feelings. This riveting correspondence, in print for the first time, chronicles the blossoming of a unique and lifelong friendship between the two women and the turbulent process of Julia’s creation of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, one of the most influential cookbooks ever written.

Frank, bawdy, funny, exuberant, and occasionally agonized, these letters show Julia, first as a new bride in Paris, then becoming increasingly worldly and adventuresome as she follows her diplomat husband in his postings to Nice, Germany, and Norway.

With commentary by the noted food historian Joan Reardon, and covering topics as diverse as the lack of good wine in the United States, McCarthyism, and sexual mores, these astonishing letters show America on the verge of political, social, and gastronomic transformation.

Running With the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth ($2.02 / £1.29 UK), by Adharanand Finn, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $13.99). Note that although a Ugandan won the Olympic Gold, he had trained in Kenya since his teens and Kenya took both Silver and Bronze (and the top two slots in the London Marathon this year, as well).

Book Description
After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, from the Olympics to big city marathons, Runner's World contributor Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his family (and his running shoes), he moved from Devon to the small town of Iten, in Kenya, home to hundreds of the country's best athletes. Once there he laced up his shoes and ventured out onto the dirt tracks, running side by side with Olympic champions, young hopefuls and barefoot schoolchildren. He ate their food, slept in their training camps, interviewed their coaches, and his children went to their schools. And at the end of it all, there was his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in his first marathon, an epic race through lion country across the Kenyan plains. With global attention on both the London Marathon in April 2012 and the London Olympics in the summer, there has never been a more exciting time to experience what it is really like to train and race with the stars of distance running.

Revenge of the Witch ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in the Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney and Patrick Arrasmith, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. If you missed the incredible pricing snafu on this series last summer, this is your chance to start a good YA series.

Book Description
For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried–some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive. Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice. Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county ... ?

Grade Level: 8 and up

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself ($7.15 Hardcover, $1.99 B&N), by Lincoln Peirce, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (no Kindle edition). Note: PagePerfect™ NOOK Books require NOOK TABLET or NOOK Color with software version 1.4.

Book Description
Big Nate is in a class by himself!

But things don't always go your way just because you're awesome.

• Nate barely survives his dad's toxic oatmeal before rushing off to school—minus his lunch.
• He body slams the no-nonsense principal.
• He accidentally insults his least favorite teacher, the horrifying Mrs. Godfrey (aka Godzilla).
• And school has barely started!

Nate keeps his cool. He knows he's destined for greatness. A fortune cookie told him so.

For fans of the ever popular, ever hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid series: Get ready to meet Big Nate!

Grade Level: 3 and up

Free Book - The Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago (I)

The Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago, by by Wilco, is on iTunes, courtesy of dBpm Records / ANTI- (Warner Music). It's short, but includes behind the scenes shots and music (so is quite large); requires iBooks 2 and iOS 5.

Book Description
A document of Wilco's December 2011 Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago, during which they played a succession of intimate venues as a "thank you" to hometown fans. The book features exclusive photos of the shows, backstage video footage and audio, documenting this unique week of shows of one of America's foremost rock bands.

Get the free ebook from iTunes; also available for Canadians.

Today's Deals

Warren Adler is repeating his offer for a free copy of New York Echoes (DRM-free).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Time of the Dark ($1.99), the first title in the Darwath series by Barbara Hambly (Open Road). I bought this one the last time it was offered at this price.

Book Description
A murderous force threatens a far-off magical world, and an ordinary Californian is drawn into the battle to save mankind

As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows well the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams. She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat.

Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil's world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

The Report ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Jessica Francis Kane, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses and set off for the shelter of the tube station. But at the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes. But as Dunne gathers testimony from the guilt-stricken warden of the shelter, the priest struggling to bring comfort to his congregation, and the grieving mother who has lost her youngest daughter, the picture grows ever murkier. The more questions Dunne asks, the more difficult it becomes to disentangle truth from rumour – and to decide just how much truth the damaged community can actually bear. It is only decades later, when the case is reopened by one of the children who survived, that the facts can finally be brought to light …

Tall Tales and Wedding Veils ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jane Graves, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. Looks like I bought this one the last time it was on sale, also.

Book Description
Accountant Heather Montgomery is a planner. So never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd run into sexy charmer Tony McCaffrey in Vegas, play lady luck, and celebrate his jackpot with a champagne-soaked night. And she certainly never expected to wake up the next morning married! How could this good girl pick a man whose fridge is empty and whose apartment is a disaster zone, yet still drives her so crazy with lust she can't see straight?

Quickly hitched and happily ditched, Tony can't wait to get back to his playboy ways. But when Heather's family is thrilled that their no-nonsense daughter is finally in love, he proposes a plan: stay married for a month to repay his good luck charm, even though she sterilizes his toothbrush and forbids anything between the sheets. But Heather is more than he bargained for--a sharp-witted, passionate woman who just might turn his near miss into wedded bliss!

Madhattan Mystery ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by John J. Bonk, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. There aren't many customer reviews yet, but it does have a starred review from Booklist, so worth looking into for those with younger kids; at 300 pages, it'll also keep them busy for a while. I've reported the lower price; generally if enough people do, Amazon lowers their price by the afternoon/evening.

Book Description
Lexi and her younger brother, Kevin, are spending the summer in New York City with their colorful actress aunt while their father is away on his honeymoon with his new wife. Still mourning the loss of their mother, time in NYC should be a welcome change for Lexi and Kevin-assuming that the day camp they'll be attending isn't super lame.
But excitement finds Lexi and Kevin when, while waiting for their aunt in Grand Central in the famous Whispering Gallery, Lexi overhears a conversation about a big jewel heist going down. Once at Aunt Roz's, the siblings meet Kim Ling Levine in the building. Half Chinese, half Jewish, persuasive and all knowing, Kim Ling urges them to ditch day camp and dig into the more exciting mystery Alexi overheard in Grand Central. After several missteps and a run-in with a mischievous runaway can Lexi, Kevin, and Kim find out who's behind the jewel heist without getting into too much trouble themselves?

Age Level: 8 and up