$5 Instant Amazon MP3 Credit (KSO)

This offer for those with a Kindle Fire with Special Offers only. On your Kindle Fire with Special Offers (and presumably on the HD, which I don't have yet, since I ordered the large memory size), swipe the top menu to the left until you see Offers, then press/click in order to see the current offers. At the bottom, you should see the offer to Get $5 to spend on Digital Music at Amazon. Click on the offer, then on the orange button to add the credit directly to your account. It's nearly instant and the next screen offers to take you to Amazon so you can spend that credit away!

Credit must be used by Sept 24.

Today's Deals

The new Kindle Fire (2nd Gen) is officially released today and mine has arrived. I'll have some more thoughts on it later. The 7" Kindle Fire HD was also released today, but those who, like me, held out for the 32MB edition are going to have to wait until October 25 to see one. This is the only model that has a delayed release for the increased memory size; all other models will release with the basic memory size and the doubled memory option on the same day.

You should be seeing discounts on HarperCollins titles at Amazon (in addition to BooksOnBoard, which is continuing their 25% off sale for those titles this week). For Canadians (but not those in the US), Penguin titles seem to now be getting a discount. Penguin is a big holdout (and the only one still fighting Agency pricing in the EU), so I don't expect many of the books on my wishlist to start dropping anytime soon, here.


Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ($1.99), by William Shirer. I first read this in grade school (no, not assigned reading) and my copy is worn out.

Book Description
When the Third Reich fell, it fell swiftly. The Nazis had little time to cover up their memos, their letters, or their diaries. William L. Shirer’s definitive book on the Third Reich uses these unique sources. Combined with his personal experience with the Nazis, living through the war as an international correspondent, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich not only earned Shirer a National Book Award but is recognized as one of the most important and authoritative books about the Third Reich and Nazi Germany ever written. The diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as well as evidence and other testimony gained at the Nuremberg Trials could not have found more artful hands.

Shirer gives a clear, detailed and well-documented account of how it was that Adolf Hitler almost succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich has become one of the most authoritative books on one of mankind’s darkest hours. Shirer focuses on 1933 to 1945 in clear detail. Here is a worldwide bestseller that also tells the true story of the Holocaust, often in the words of the men who helped plan and conduct it. It is a classic by any measure.

The book has been translated into twelve languages and was adapted as a television miniseries, broadcast by ABC in 1968. This first ever e-book edition is published on the 50th anniversary of this iconic work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Shirer was originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and was the first journalist hired by Edward R. Murrow for what would become a team of journalists for CBS radio. Shirer distinguished himself and quickly became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, accounting the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II. Shirer was the first of ""Edward R. Murrow's Boys""--broadcast journalists--who provided news coverage during World War II and afterward. It was Shirer who broadcast the first uncensored eyewitness account of the annexation of Austria. Shirer is best known for his books The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which has seen millions of copies in print and is considered a seminal work on the Nazi party and the war, as well as his book Berlin Diary.

The Psychic Tourist: A Voyage into the Curious World of Predicting the Future ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by William Little, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
Can people really see into the future? Can someone's life be predicted? Are physicists on the verge of discovering the first time machine? And why does a Nobel prize-winning scientist believe that humans are capable of sensing the future?

Following a prediction of his sister's death, William Little sets out to find the truth about the power of fortune telling and prophecy. On a journey that takes him to a witches' coven in a haunted wood, on the hunt for murderers with psychic detectives and to the doorsteps of the world s most powerful and revered psychics, William Little goes on a desperate quest to find out whether people can see into the future - or if the many millions who consult horoscopes, watch TV psychics, or who read Nostradamus are simply being sold a lie. Through a rollercoaster ride of mystics, mishaps and mayhem, he discovers uncomfortable facts that make him reassess his beliefs. In a book that answers the unanswerable about what science, psychics, and crystal balls can reveal about tomorrow, William Little lifts the lid on the most sought-after destination of them all - the future.

Includes interviews with US psychic Sylvia Browne, CIA psychic spy Joseph McMoneagale, Sally Morgan, Derren Brown, Richard Dawkins, Channel Five's Psychic Challenge winner Diane Lazarus, experts such as Professor Brian Josephson and Dr Richard Wiseman and Allison Dubois, whose life was the basis for the NBC and BBC programme Medium.

Winter's Tale ($8.80 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Mark Helprin, is the Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake--orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.

Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beseiged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.

The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America ($9.50 Kindle, $3.99 B&N), by Tom A. Coburn, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012.

Book Description
In a nation whose debt has outgrown the size of its entire economy, the greatest threat comes not from any foreign force but from Washington politicians who refuse to relinquish the intoxicating power to borrow and spend. Senator Tom Coburn reveals the fascinating, maddening story of how we got to this point of fiscal crisis-and how we can escape.

Long before America's recent economic downturn, beltway politicians knew the U.S. was going bankrupt. Yet even after several so-called "change" elections, the government has continued its wasteful ways in the face of imminent danger. With passion and clarity, Coburn explains why Washington resists change so fiercely and offers controversial yet commonsense solutions to secure the nation's future.

At a time when millions of Americans are speculating about what is broken in Washington, The Debt Bomb is a candid, thoughtful, non-partisan expose of the real problems inside our government. Coburn challenges the conventional wisdom that blames lobbyists, gridlock, and obstructionism, and places the responsibility squarely where it belongs: on members of Congress in both parties who won't let go of the perks of power to serve the true interests of the nation-unless enough citizens take bold steps to demand action.

"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." -John Adams

Throughout a distinguished career as a business owner, physician, and U.S. senator, Tom Coburn has watched his beloved republic careen down a suicidal path. Today, the nation stands on the precipice of financial ruin, a disaster far more dangerous to our safety than any terrorist threats we face. Yet Coburn believes there is still hope-if enough Americans are willing to shake the corridors of Washington and demand action.

With an insider's keen eye and a caregiver's deft touch, Coburn diagnoses the mess that career politicians have made of things while misusing their sacred charge to govern.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Ingrid Law's Newbery Honor Book, Savvy ($2.99).

Book Description
Thirteen is when a Beaumont’s savvy hits—and with one brother who causes hurricanes and another who creates electricity, Mibs Beaumont is eager to see what she gets. But just before the big day, Poppa is in a terrible accident. And now all Mibs wants is a savvy that will save him. In fact, Mibs is so sure she’ll get a powerful savvy that she sneaks a ride to the hospital on a rickety bus with her sibling and the preacher’s kids in tow. After this extraordinary adventure—full of talking tattoos and a kidnapping—not a soul on board will ever be the same.

Grade Level: 4 and up

Kindle Keyboard and Touch Updates

If you've been reading a while, you have probably seen me mention the "reboot bug" on the Kindle Keyboards (Kindle3) that occurs when your archives get "too large". If you've picked up larges numbers of the free books on Kindle, you may have experienced it for yourself: when wireless is on, the Kindle will reboot at the end of it's "sync" cycle; apparently in an attempt to allocate more space to hold the list of archived books in memory. A second part of the same bug (since it never gets enough space to hold the entire list) is that the archive is truncated, only showing roughly the first 3200-2500 items (including personal docs and audible books). This is an issue on most of the Kindle devices and apps, in fact, and is related to a choice the developers made when designing it (after all, "no one" would ever have over 3,000 books, right?).

On the Kindle Touch, I haven't seen the rebooting issue (although you still can't see the entire archive), but it has a more insidious issue: if your archives are extremely large, the device will brick when wireless is left on (the magic number seems to be around 16,000 items or so). When this happens, the only choice has been to return the unit to Amazon and get a new one (and keep wireless off at all times).

Amazon has (finally) released an update for both of these devices that should both cure the reboot/bricking issues and change the way your archive is loaded: the newest 4,000 or so items are loaded into the device's archive list, rather than the oldest. Sadly, you still can't sort the archive by date (a feature that the original Kindle had and which I wish the would bring back, as it was extremely useful for families that have more than one Kindle on their account) and are forced to page thru the list sorted by author or title (doing a search is still very slow, as there are so many items to check), which means you have to know someone bought a new book or a pre-order was delivered or you'll never find it. Hopefully they'll update the Kindle Apps with this new ordering (but older Kindles are out of luck - owners of a K2, DX and K1 will have to deal with the problems of having a large archive or just keep wireless off).

The updates also have a number of other features, including a long awaited implementation of parental controls on the Kindle Keyboard (but not Touch), letting you block kids (or irresponsible adults) from using the web browser, Kindle store and/or archives. Blocking the archives should also speed the device up even more, since it won't download the list into memory and index it.

KF8 support has been added to both devices with this update (not that it gives you much other than bloated file sizes, for most books; others will look worse, if the custom fonts included are not as well optimized as the built-in Kindle fonts). The Touch received KF8 with the 5.1 update (which had never downloaded to my device) and 5.1.2 should have the bricking and archive fix (you have to install 5.1 first). The only possibly exciting option I see for KF8 (for the reader; not for those who insist Amazon has to 'do EPUB' to 'survive', an argument that is hard to make when Amazon dominates the ebook market) is Pan and Zoom for Images and Tables: once you click on a table or image, you can use the 5-way controller to move around in the image/table and click again to choose the viewing size.

For the Kindle Keyboard only, you also get support for Children's Picture Books with Kindle Text Pop-Up and Panel View has been added for Kindle Comic Books. Last, some basic support for WhisperSync for Voice has been added to the Kindle Keyboard. If you listen to the audiobook on the K3, then Sync (this is an important step), then all other devices will be able to "GoTo" the Last Page Read and sync to the last part of the book listened to. The audible app on the K3 doesn't have a sync feature though, so it's pretty much a one-way update to pick up reading where you left off listening. Hopefully we'll see the audiobook app on the new Kindle Fires be able to pick up where you left off reading in the ebook edition.

One nice touch - the "Turn Wireless Off/On" menu choice remains on both devices (for the baby Kindle, you now have to go into the Settings menu and choose Airplane Mode to turn off WiFi, which a lot of people do to extend their battery life). Also, for those using Text-to-Speech, this feature still works on both devices.

Get the firmware updates for the Kindle Keyboard or the firmware updates for the Kindle Touch from the Amazon site and follow the instructions there to transfer them to your Kindle via USB. The updates will probably download automatically, eventually, but those who have a reboot problem or are close to the bricking number should not attempt to get the update wirelessly.

The rebooting issue seems to be entirely fixed - I've had my Kindle K's wireless on for several hours now and it hasn't rebooted once. One odd side effect: on my Kindle with Special Offers, it no longer shows the Special Offers menu, after I did a System Reset (the option originally moved to just below the Archive menu option, but is now missing entirely). I also now have the original screensavers; normally this would be a $20 option, to remove the offers, so some may think this is a major improvement. But, with Special Offers starting back up again, I want them on my Kindle, so I don't miss out on any of them.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Goddess of Fried Okra ($1.99), by Jean Brashear. This has been free in various stores a couple of times, although the most recent was close to a year ago.

Book Description
Grief. Hope. Love. Sword fights. And the crisp glory of fried okra. Ex-cocktail waitress and "convenience store professional" Eudora "Pea" O'Brien is filled with grief and regret, low on cash and all alone. Headed down the hot, dusty back roads of central Texas, Pea is convinced she'll find a sign leading her to the reincarnated soul of the sister who raised her. A sign that she's found her place in the world of the living again. At least that's what the psychic promised. In an unforgettably funny and poignant journey, Pea collects an unlikely family of strays-a starving kitten, a pregnant teenager, a sexy con man trying to go straight, and a ferocious gun dealer named Glory, who introduces Pea to the amazing, sword-wielding warrior goddesses of Texas author Robert E. Howard-creator of the Conan the Barbarian novels-and celebrated in festival every year. Six foot tall, red-headed Pea looks good with a sword in her hand. Glory, the goddesses, and a grandmotherly café owner become Pea's unlikely gurus as she struggles to learn swordplay and the art of perfect fried okra. She'll have to master both if she's going to find what matters most-her own lost soul.

Sweeping Up Glass ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by Carolyn D. Wall, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.99, with a $4.95 companion audiobook).

Book Description
Olivia Harker grew up in 1930s Kentucky during a time of racial segregation and Depression. The spirited daughter of an adored father and a difficult mother, she shocked the locals by choosing the children of her black neighbours as friends and playmates. Now Olivia runs a ramshackle grocery store with her beloved grandson and her increasingly awkward widowed mother. She has little idea of the long shadow cast by events of her past, until she stumbles on a forty-year-old mystery that rewrites her childhood and turns her world upside down. As long-buried secrets explode along the valley, Olivia must get to grips with past betrayals if she is to gain a second chance at love, redemption, and long-overdue justice.

Bewitching ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jill Barnett, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
What's a Duke to do when a carefully selected bride rejects him rather than marry without love? He salvages his pride by marrying the next woman who falls into his arms! Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie bewitched Alec, the Duke of Belmore, the moment she appeared from nowhere and tumbled into his lap. Joy, a witch whose powers of white magic are not always well controlled, turns the life of the most serious and snobbish Duke in England upside down when he decides to marry the beautiful Scottish pixie who has aroused his desire. Even though he knows next to nothing about her or her background. Alec could have forgiven Joy for upending his life and the lives of all at Belmore Park if not for the truth she hid from him. He'd married a witch, who turns him to fire when he kisses her, charms everyone around her, and threatens to destroy both their lives as scandal looms over her. Too late, Joy discovers she's desperately in love and has no idea how to be a proper duchess, control her magic or change what may come. Passion holds them spellbound in an irresistible tale of two enchanted heart

Live from the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the Twentieth Century and How They Shaped Modern America ($2.51 Kindle, $0.99 B&N), by Michael A Cohen, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012. Don't expect to read thru this one in just a day or two - the paper edition has 574 pages.

Book Description
As the country wades into the hotly contested 2008 presidential election season, we look to the candidates' public pronouncements to gain an understanding of their platforms and to get a sense of the political direction our country might take over the course of the next four years. Presidential campaign oratory has always inspired and incited voters. In this collection of 27 pivotal campaign speeches, Michael Cohen helps bring to life the speeches that defined and dramatized American politics over the last century. From FDR's pledge for a "New Deal" to Nixon's legendary "Checkers" speech, from Dan Quayle's attack on Murphy Brown to select speeches from this year's presidential race, the "stump" speech has been the primary vehicle for candidates to share their political ambitions and ideals with the American people. With supporting essays that set the scene and provide the appropriate context for understanding what was said, how it was said, and why, Live from the Campaign Trail illustrates how campaign speeches have fundamentally shaped the way we think about American politics.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Mary Poppins ($1.99), by {P. L. Travers. The Kindle edition description copies the current paperback edition, claiming to be a "revised edition introduces some delightful new characters."

Book Description
Mary Poppins is like no other nanny the four Banks children have ever seen. She whirls into their home and "spit-spot", she works her inimitable brand of magic to make even the bland seem extraordinary. An endless source of fascinating adventure, she slides up the banister, produces an endless array of tricks from her empty carpetbag, and ensures their lives will never be the same.

Grade Level: 3 and up

Today's Deals

Amazon is having another gift card sweepstakes over on Facebook: Like the page, enter your info and try to win $25,000 in Amazon.com Gift Cards.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Collision of Evil ($1.99), by John J. Le Beau. That's a pretty good price, for those who missed it during the free promotion last February. The next in the series, Collision of Lies, is also available, but a bit tricky to find, due to the lack of a space in the author's last name in it's listing.

Book Description
As evening falls against the majestic backdrop of the Bavarian Alps, Charles Hirter, an American tourist, is savagely murdered. In the peace, quiet and pastoral splendor of this magnificent setting, Charles Hirter draws his last breath. Was Charles simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?Kommissar Franz Waldbaer, the German detective in charge of the case, faces an investigation that yields neither clues nor suspects nor motives. A gruff, go-it alone detective, Waldbaer is dismayed by the arrival of Robert Hirter, the victim's brother, who insists on joining the investigation. But there is more to Robert than meets the eye.As Robert and the Kommissar uncover a nefarious nexus of evil past and evil present, they find themselves probing dark, long-forgotten episodes from the Third Reich in order to identify the present threat.Thrust into a violent world of fanatic passions, malevolent intentions and excruciating urgency, Robert Hirter and Kommissar Waldbaer must race against the clock to stop a sophisticated, covert, and deadly plot.

Perfect Rigour: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of a Lifetime ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by Masha Gessen, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $12.99).

Book Description
A thrilling account of an utterly brilliant and utterly eccentric Russian mathematician which sheds a rare light on the unique burden of genius In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved one of the world's greatest intellectual puzzles. The Poincare conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 1998, the Clay Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a solution. Perelman will likely be awarded the prize this fall, and he will likely decline it. Fascinated by his story, journalist Masha Gessen was determined to find out why. Drawing on interviews with Perelman's teachers, classmates, coaches, teammates, and colleagues in Russia and the US - and informed by her own background as a math whiz raised in Russia - she set out to uncover the nature of Perelman's genius. What she found was a mind of unrivalled computational power, one that enabled Perelman to pursue mathematical concepts to their logical (sometimes distant) end. But she also discovered that this very strength has turned out to be his undoing: such a mind is unable to cope with the messy reality of human affairs. When the jealousies, rivalries, and passions of life intruded on his Platonic ideal, Perelman began to withdraw--first from the world of mathematics and then, increasingly, from the world in general. In telling his story, Masha Gessen has constructed a gripping and tragic tale that sheds rare light on the unique burden of genius out to uncover the nature of Perelman's genius.

Awkward ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), a young adult novel by Marni Bates, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
I'm Mackenzie Wellesley, and I've spent my life avoiding the spotlight. But that was four million hits ago. . .

Blame it on that grade school ballet recital, when I tripped and pulled the curtain down, only to reveal my father kissing my dance instructor. At Smith High, I'm doing a pretty good job of being the awkward freshman people only notice when they need help with homework. Until I send a burly football player flying with my massive backpack, and make a disastrous--not to mention unwelcome--attempt at CPR. Just when I think it's time for home schooling, the whole fiasco explodes on Youtube. And then the strangest thing happens. Suddenly, I'm the latest sensation, sucked into a whirlwind of rock stars, paparazzi, and free designer clothes. I even catch the eye of the most popular guy at school. That's when life gets really interesting. . ..

The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World ($9.39 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Paul Gilding, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012. It isn't price matched at Amazon, but there is a companion audiobook available for $4.95 if you get the Kindle edition.

Book Description
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer avoidable. This Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological changes, such as the melting ice caps. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resources.

The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces-yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight-and win-what he calls The One Degree War to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today.

The crisis represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: Old industries will collapse while new companies will literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure "growth" in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff but quality and happiness of life. Yes, there is life after shopping.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Corduroy ($3.99), a children's picture book by Don Freeman.

Book Description
Don Freeman's classic character, Corduroy, is even more popular today then he was when he first came on the scene over thirty years ago. These favorite titles are ready for another generation of children to love.

Age Level: 2 and up