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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Free Audiobook - The Lair of the White Worm

The audiobook edition of The Lair of the White Worm (various Kindle editions), by Bram Stoker, narrated by Oliver Wyman, is free in the Audible store.
Book Description
In a tale of ancient evil, Bram Stoker creates a world of lurking horrors and bizarre denizens: a demented mesmerist, hellbent on mentally crushing the girl he loves; a gigantic kite raised to rid the land of an unnatural infestation of birds, and which receives strange commands along its string; and all the while, the great white worm slithers below, seeking its next victim....

Bram Stoker, creator of Dracula, is one of the most enduring and masterful influences on the literature of terror.
Get the free audiobook from Audible (some geographic restrictions may apply)

Free Audiobook - Ivanhoe

The audiobook edition of Ivanhoe (various Kindle editions), by Sir Walter Scott, narrated by Michael Page, is free in the Audible store.
Book Description
A century has passed since the Norman Conquest, and England is still a colony of foreign warlords. Prince John is plotting to seize the throne from his brother, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and Robin Hood and his merry band are making fools out of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Wilfred, knight of Ivanhoe, the son of Cedric the Saxon, is in love with his father's ward, Rowena. Cedric, however, wishes her to marry Athelstane, a descendant of the royal Saxon line, whom Cedric hopes will restore the Saxon succession.

With a colorful cast of chivalric knights and fair ladies, this action-filled novel comes complete with feats of derring-do, the pageantry of a tournament, and a great flame-engulfed castle - all of which makes it the most enthralling of Scott's creations.
Get the free audiobook from Audible (some geographic restrictions may apply; for those in the UK, try this link instead)

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Today's Deals

Yesterday's Nook Daily Find, The Grifters, by Jim Thompson, is now $1.99 on Kindle; the price drop may not last all day, so you might want to grab it early, especially if you were a fan of the Scorsese movie.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is All God's Creatures ($1.99), by Carolyn McSparren (BelleBooks). Since I loved reading James Herriot when I was young (and have replaced all his books more than once over the years, including now as ebooks), and this takes place in TN, it was a must buy for me this past Spring. If you missed it then, grab it now.
Book Description
Often compared to the novels of James Herriot, ALL GOD'S CREATURES follows the life of a woman veterinarian in modern Tennessee. From an unlikely start as a white-glove debutante in the 1960's to a sexism-defying launch in vet school to the adventures, sorrows, joys and oddities of a long veterinary practice, our heroine spins tales of the animals and people who share her life.

By veteran author and dedicated horsewoman Carolyn McSparren, who also writes the Merry Abbot Carriage Driving Mysteries-- THE CART BEFORE THE CORPSE and ONE HOOF IN THE GRAVE.

Einstein's Dreams ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Alan Lightman, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).
Book Description
A modern classic, Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland.

As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over.

In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

Now translated into thirty languages, Einstein's Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.

The Bride Stripped Bare ($9.99 $1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Nikki Gemmell, is the Nook Daily Find. This looks to be yet another book in the Fifty Shades genre that is currently popular; not yet price matched on Kindle, despite being an Agency publisher title. Update: Now priced matched on Kindle.
Book Description
A woman disappears, leaving behind an incendiary diary chronicling a journey of sexual awakening. To all who knew her, she was the good wife: happy, devoted, content. But the diary reveals a secret self, one who's discovered that her new marriage contains mysteries of its own. She has discovered a forgotten Elizabethan manuscript that dares to speak of what women truly desire, and inspired by its revelations, she tastes for the first time the intoxicating power of knowing what she wants and how to get it. The question is: How long can she sustain a perilous double life?

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Zoe Sophia's Scrapbook: An Adventure in Venice ($1.99), by Elisa Smalley and Claudia Mauner.
Book Description
Zoe Sophia is a girl who likes adventure and finds it during an exciting and event-packed vacation to Venice to visit her great aunt Dorothy Pomander. Zoe Sophia, along with her dog, Mickey, sees the sights, explores the city, and is involved in a suspense-filled search for her lost pet. Watercolor illustrations capture the essence of these two peas-in-a-pod, their enjoyable relationship, and the beautiful landscape of Venice, Italy.

Grade Level: P and up

Starbucks $10 for $5 Deal

Over at LivingSocial, you can buy a $10 Starbucks gift card for $5. Once paid for, you can go into "My Vouchers" and simply print off the gift "card". If you already have a Starbucks account, you can then register the card to your account, so that purchases on it will count towards your free drink rewards or transfer the funds from it onto your main gift card. The latter is what I did, which saved even having to print out the physical paper and keep track of it.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Today's Deals

Diane Duane has a post-Labor Day sale on the complete 9-book set of the Young Wizards novels at 50% off, for those that haven't bought this bundle in the past. That should work out to about $20 for the set, using coupon code MORNINGAFTER (once again, you enter the code AFTER you've signed in to PayPal or entered your credit card info). Like all the books in her store, you get a DRM-free download, with both MOBI and EPUB, so you can use it on the reader of your choice.

For my Australian readers that might be looking to pick up a Kindle Keyboard, check your local Woolworths - apparently some of them (at least Milleara S/C in Victoria) have them out on sale for $69 (less than half the regular price).

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Two Mitch Albom Books for $1.99 apiece.

Have a Little Faith: A True Story
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together

In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere.

Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.

In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story.

Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.
For One More Day
"Every family is a ghost story . . ."

Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one

As a child, Charley "Chick" Benetto was told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both." So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother--who died eight years earlier–-is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.

What follows is the one "ordinary" day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.

Through Albom's inspiring characters and masterful storytelling, readers will newly appreciate those whom they love--and may have thought they'd lost--in their own lives. For One More Day is a book for anyone in a family, and will be cherished by Albom's millions of fans worldwide.

A Kind of Loving ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Stan Barstow, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US Kindle edition, but on Audible it's $11.95).
Book Description
Stan Barstow's landmark 'Brit-Lit' novel of the sixties immortalized Vic Brown, the amiable working class lad from the North and led the way for author's like Nick Hornby writing similar slice-of-life drama. Still as fresh and alive today, it spawned two sequels: The Watchers on the Shore (1966) and The Right True End (1976). First published in 1960, it has long been used as a set text in British schools. It has also been translated at various times into a film starring Alan Bates (1962) of the same name, a television series (1973) starring Clive Wood, a radio play and a stage play. A Kind of Loving was the first of a trilogy, published over the course of sixteen years, that followed hero Vic Brown through marriage, divorce and a move from the mining town of Cressley to London.

The Grifters ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Jim Thompson, is the Nook Daily Find; despite being an Agency publisher, this ones isn't price matched yet on Kindle.
Book Description
To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars--the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life--until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.

THE GRIFTERS, one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, is an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for Stephen Frears' and Martin Scorsese's critically-acclaimed film of the same name.

The 39 Clues: The Cahill Files #3: The Redcoat Chase ($3.03 Kindle, $3.35 B&N), by Clifford Riley, is the Nook Daily Find for Families; once again, it doesn't appear to have dropped in price at all at B&N and is lower on Kindle. If it keeps this up, I'll be dropping this item from the Daily Deals posts.
Book Description
A brand new adventure from the world of The 39 Clues!

After 500 years, the Cahill family's most dangerous secrets are about to be revealed. Read at your own risk . . .

With the British marching on Washington under the command of a Vesper General, it's up to a young Madrigal in 1812 to save a treasure hidden in the White House. However, the enemy will stop at nothing to seize the artifact, even if it means burning the city to the ground.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Princess Academy ($1.99), by Shannon Hale; this was supposed to be the Nook Family Find yesterday, but the price never dropped.
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.

Grade Level: 5 and up