Today's Deals

If you are trying to take advantage of the Pour $20 for any Amazon.com Gift Card at Coinstar, get $5 in MP3s deal going on, be aware that you don't want to feed too many pennies into the machine - it will shut off around $15 or so and you won't get a chance to get your bonus MP3 code. Just mix in some larger change and you should be fine (yes, I had this happen, as we were cleaning out some penny jars).

DecalGirl is having a Buy One, Get one 50% off sale, thru Sept. 19, using coupon code BOGO50.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is the AmazonCrossing edition of Chaperoned ($1.99), by Dora Heldt and Jamie Lee Searle (Translator), with a companion audiobook for $4.99.

Book Description
When an old friend invites her to help renovate a bar in a posh resort town, single gal Christine immediately agrees, anticipating two blissful weeks of sun, cocktails, and gorgeous men. Her excitement is short-lived, however, thanks in no small part to her overbearing mother and one heavy-handed guilt trip. Now, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Christine and her best friend Dorothea find themselves saddled with an unexpected chaperone: Christine’s father, Heinz.

The trip is a catastrophe from the get-go. For starters, Heinz insists on taking charge of the bar’s overhaul. And when he learns that the locals are hunting for an escaped con artist, he promptly joins the investigation. At the top of his suspect list? Johann, the handsome, mysterious traveler who makes Christine go weak at the knees. But just when she thinks she can’t take one more day of his “father knows best” routine, Christine makes a poignant realization that will forever change the way she looks at Heinz.

Sparkling with humor, this delightful novel, which spent over one hundred weeks on Germany’s bestseller list, captures the unique—and occasionally exasperating—bond between fathers and daughters.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists ($2.09 / £1.29 UK), the first title in the Pirates! series by Gideon Defoe, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (there's no equivalent US edition, but the dual-title omnibus The Pirates!: An Adventure with Scientists & An Adventure with Ahab is $8.99).

Book Description
1837: the Victorian Era approaches and the golden age of piracy draws to a close. Worried that his pirates are growing bored of roaring, running people through, and sitting about on tropical beaches, the Pirate Captain decides it's time they had an adventure. A chance encounter with the young Charles Darwin leads the Captain and his crew to the fog-filled streets of London, a grisly murder and a diabolical Bishop...

The Scorpio Races ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Maggie Stiefvater, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. The Scorpio Races is a 2012 Michael L. Printz award honor book for excellence in young adult literature.

Book Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Shiver and Linger comes a brand new, heartstopping novel.Some race to win. Others race to survive. It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn't given her much of a choice. So she enters the competition - the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen. As she did in her bestselling Shiver trilogy, author Maggie Stiefvater takes us to the breaking point, where both love and life meet their greatest obstacles, and only the strong of heart can survive. The Scorpio Races is an unforgettable reading experience.

The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How Nine Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jeff Benedict, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
The Founder of JetBlue. The former CEO of Dell Computers. The CEO of Deloitte & Touche. The former Dean of the Harvard Business School. They all have one thing in common. They are devout Mormons who spend their Sundays exclusively with their families, never work long hours, and always put their spouses and children first. How do they do it?

Critically acclaimed author and investigative journalist Jeff Benedict (a Mormon himself) examines these highly successful business execs and discovers how their beliefs have influenced them, and enabled them to achieve incredible success.With original interviews and unparalleled access, Benedict shares what truly drives these individuals, and the invaluable life lessons from which anyone can benefit.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Feed ($1.99), by M. T. Anderson. I bought this last September, when it was on a similar sale.

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., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

Grade Level: 9 and up

Audible BOGO Classic and Free Companion Editions

Thru the end of the month, you can double the value of your credits at Audible's Buy One Get One Free Classics sale. If you are short of credits, you can get three at a discount on the Extra Credits page (if you don't have a membership that uses credits or you have more than 3 on your account, you'll get an error page).

Amazon and Audible have been changing the free companion editions that are available (5 that were free the first day are already changed and now link with other, often non-free editions, such as Treasure Island and Little Women). There are a few new ones, though, linked to free or low-cost Kindle editions, along with a few low-cost companion editions that are linked to free books. On interesting looking one is the self-published Haunted on Bourbon Street (Main/UK), the first title in the Jade Calhoun series by Deanna Chase, with a $1.99 companion audiobook, narrated by Traci Odom.

Book Description
Jade loves her new apartment--until a ghost joins her in the shower.

When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting. What she doesn't count on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord.

Being an empath has never been easy on Jade's relationships. It's no wonder she keeps her gift a secret. But when the ghost moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it's up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her. Except she'll need Kane's help--and he's betrayed her with a secret of his own--to do it. Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?

Here are few others I've turned up, including some large publisher classic editions that are now also linked to the free audiobooks.

eBook at Amazon	Companion Audiobook
Heart of Darkness (free), by Joseph Conrad	narration by Kenneth Branagh (free)
Second Star, Star Svensdotter #1 (free), by Dana Stabenow	narration by Marguerite Gavin ($1.99)
The List ($2.99; previously free), by J.A. Konrath/Jack Kilborn	narration by Benjamin L. Darcie ($1.99)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (free), Collins Classics ($0.99) or Penguin Classics ($0.99), by Oscar Wilde	narration by Simon Prebble (free)
Black Beauty (free) and Puffin Classics ($2.38), by Anna Sewell	narration by Nathaniel Parker (free)
White Fang (free), Vook Classics ($1.74; previously free), Aladdin Classics ($4.99) or Puffin Classics ($4.99), by Jack London	narration by Bob Thomley (free)
Dracula (free) and Bantam Classics ($1.99), by Bram Stoker	narration by Alan Cumming, Tim Curry & full cast (free)
Wuthering Heights (free) and Collins Classics ($1.99), by Emily Brontë	narration by Anne Flosnik (free)
Treasure Island ($0.99, annotated), Vintage Classics ($1.90), Collins Classics ($1.90) or Vintage Classics ($4.99), by Robert Louis Stevenson	narration by Michael Page ($1.99)
A Tale of Two Cities (free), Bantam Classics ($1.99), Modern Library ($1.99), Collins Classics ($1.99) and 200th Anniversary Edition Penguin Classics ($4.99), by Charles Dickens	narration by Simon Vance (free)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by (free), Bank Street Ready-To-Read ($1.99) and Modern Library ($1.99),by James Joyce	narration by John Lee (free)
Free: The Future of a Radical Price ($9.99; previously free), by Chris Anderson	narration by Chris Anderson (free)
Deaf Sentence ($12.99 US; <$10 other markets), by David Lodge	narration by Steven Crossley ($4.95 US; appears to be free for Asia & Pacific, Latin America & Caribbean and Middle East)

Keep in mind, that except for the titles "sold by" one of the big publishers, those adding low-cost editions via KDP can lie about the publisher - always check the sample to make sure you are really getting what you are paying for (a Penguin Classic, for example); if it is just a scanned edition, you can return it for a refund anytime in the first seven days after purchase.

Audible Win-Win Sale: $4.95 Audiobooks

Tomorrow (Sept 18) is the last day of Audible's bi-annual Win-Win Sale, with over 200 audiobooks at $4.95 each. Be sure to click on the Author links below (there are 5, for sections of the alphabet) and you'll open up a table below with dozens of books for each section. The selections are all mixed up, as far as genre, so you'll need to scan thru each table to locate those you are likely to listen to. The sale ends September 18, 2012 at 11:59 PM ET.

One good looking choice: Dark and Stormy Knights, a short story collection featuring Ilona Andrews, Jim Butcher, Shannon K Butcher, Rachel Caine, P. N. Elrod, Deidre Knight, Vicki Pettersson, Lilith Saintcrow and Carrie Vaughn. From Paolo Bacigalupi, you can get both The Windup Girl and Ship Breaker in this sale, along with a number of popular urban fantasy and YA titles.

Note that if you aren't logged in, don't have a subscription membership or are outside the geographic area (likely the US), then you won't see any of the sale items.

Today's Deals

Today's free MP3 (menu at right) is a nice album, the Green Hill Jazz Sampler, by Beegie Adair & Friends.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Secrets of the Cold War: US Army Europe's Intelligence & Counterintelligence Activities Against the Soviets During the Cold War ($1.99), by Leland C. McCaslin.

Book Description
Secrets of the Cold War focuses on a dark period of a silent war and offers a new perspective on the struggle between the superpowers of the world told in the words of those who were there. The author, formerly an expert in counterintelligence in US Army Europe, weaves together exciting true accounts of allies collecting enemy information in the East and fighting spies and terrorists in the West.

Amassing Soviet military information by Allied agents in the East is at the forefront! Learn the bizarre method a British agent uses to obtain the muzzle size of a Russian tank as he risks his life jumping on a moving train in East Germany. A French officer drives into a Soviet tank column and escapes undiscovered by cunning methods. In West Germany, terrorist attacks and spies are rampant. Communists shoot a rocket propelled grenade into a General's occupied limo and terrorists kidnap another General. From the espionage files, an American soldier is nearly recruited in a downtown bar to be a spy and a First Sergeant is lured by sex to be an unknowing participant in spying.

Behind-the-lines images are historic and intriguing. See photographs of a French officer and a Soviet officer relaxing in the East German woods in a temporary unofficial peace; 'James Bond' type cars with their light tricks and their ability to leave their Stasi shadows 'wheel spinning' in the snow will amaze readers.

A Russian translator for the presidential hotline recounts a story about having to lock his doors in the Pentagon, separating himself and his sergeant from the Pentagon Generals when a message comes in from the Soviets. When he called the White House to relay the message to the President and stood by for a possible reply to the Soviet Chairman, he stopped working for the Generals and started working solely for the President.

In another riveting account, a US Berlin tank unit goes on red alert when the Soviets stop a US convoy on the autobahn between West Germany and Berlin. The Berlin Command orders the tanks to rescue them, "If anything gets in your way, either run over it or blow it away!" Young US Berlin train commanders recount their encounters with their Soviet counterparts aboard the Berlin Duty Train. In an unusual train incident, one male Soviet Officer places a love note in a young US female Train Commander's pocket, touching her leg. The note is in the book.

Containing a host of first-person accounts that lift the lid on previously untold clandestine activities, this is a major contribution to Cold War history, and exciting reading for all those who have an interest in the real-life world of military intelligence, counterintelligence and espionage.

Bruar's Rest ($1.61 / £0.99 UK), by Jess Smith, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $4.66).

Book Description
Bruar's Rest is an epic tale of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of World War One. The story opens in the Highlands at the beginning of the twentieth century. The gypsy wife of wild drunkard Rory Stewart dies giving birth to their second son. Many years pass, and Rory and his sons are rootless travelers on the roads of Scotland. One night, during a winter storm, they save another traveler family from freezing to death in a blizzard. Bruar Stewart and one of the girls he rescues, the hot-blooded and beautiful Megan, fall in love. But the First World War is declared, tearing their lives apart. Bruar is reported missing in action, and Megan sets off on a long and perilous journey to find him...An epic tale of love and loyalty by the author of the spellbinding autobiographical trilogy, Jessie's Journey.

Kiss That Frog!: 12 Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work ($11.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Brian Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein, is the Nook Daily Find (I've reported the lower price to Amazon; if enough do, it may drop by evening). You should have his audioboook, Eat That Frog!, which was free at the beginning of the month.

Book Description
Just like the lonely princess in the fairy tale who was reluctant to lock lips with a warty frog and transform him into a handsome prince, something stops many of us short of attaining our dreams. Our negative thoughts, emotions, and attitudes can threaten to keep us from achieving all that we’re capable of. Here bestselling author and speaker Brian Tracy and his daughter, therapist Christina Tracy Stein, provide a set of practical, proven strategies anyone can use to turn those negative frogs into positive princes.

Tracy and Stein present a step-by-step plan that addresses the root causes of negativity, helps you uncover blocks that have become mental obstacles, and shows how you can transform them into stepping-stones to achieve your fullest potential. The book distills, in an accessible and immediately useful form, what Tracy has presented in more than 5,000 talks and seminars with more than five million people in fifty-eight countries and what Stein has learned through thousands of hours of counseling people from all walks of life.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” the authors quote Shakespeare. The many powerful techniques and exercises in this book will help you change your mindset so that you discover something worthwhile in every person and experience, however difficult and challenging they might seem at first. You’ll learn how to develop unshakable self-confidence, become your best self, and begin living an extraordinary life.

What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Thomas Frank, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
One of “our most insightful social observers”* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans

With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the “thirty-year backlash” — the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party’s success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers.

In asking “what ’s the matter with Kansas?” — how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where’s the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism — the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders’ “values” and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy.

A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What’s the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Three Little Kittens ($1.99), by Paul Galdone, a full-Color Children's Books with Kindle Text Pop-Up. Although it can be views on any Kindle device or app, the popup will read the text when using Kindle Fire or select Kindle Reading Apps.

Book Description
Three little kittens, they lost their mittens, and they began to cry. The three little kittens may be a bit careless, but they always manage to correct their mistakes in this favorite Mother Goose rhyme.

Grade Level: K and up

Today's Deals

Fictionwise code for the weekend: 091412 40% off

New coupon code at Kobo, also for 40% off: Save40 valid thru Sep 24. May be limited to select bestsellers.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Rules of Civility ($2.99), Amor Towles' bestselling novel debut and one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month, August 2011. This is also today's Nook Daily Find at B&N.

Book Description
This sophisticated and entertaining first novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

Supersense ($1.61 / £0.99 UK), by Bruce Hood, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Why is it that Tony Blair always wore the same pair of shoes when answering Prime Minister's Questions? That John McEnroe notoriously refused to step on the white lines of a tennis court between points? And that President-elect Barack Obama played a game of basketball the morning of his victory in the Iowa primary, and continued the tradition the day of every following primary? Superstitious habits are common. Do you ever cross your fingers, knock on wood, avoid walking under ladders, or step around black cats? Sentimental value often supersedes material worth. If someone offered to replace your childhood teddy bear or wedding ring with a brand new, exact replica, would you do it? How about £20 for trying on a jumper owned by Fred West? Where do such feelings come from and why do most of us have them? Humans are born with brains designed to make sense of the world and that need for an explanation can lead to beliefs that go beyond reason. To be true they would have to be supernatural. With scientific education we learn that such beliefs are irrational but at an intuitive level they can be resistant to reason or lie dormant in otherwise sensible adults.It now seems unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernatural beliefs or superstitious behaviours will be completely successful. This is not all bad news – such beliefs are a useful glue that binds us together as a society. Combining brilliant insight with witty example Hood weaves a page-turning account of our ‘supersense’ that navigates a path through brain science, child development, popular culture, mental illness and the paranormal. After reading SuperSense, you will realize why you are not as reasonable as you might like to think – and why that might be no bad thing.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Gossamer ($2.99), by two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry.

Book Description
Where do dreams come from? What stealthy nighttime messengers are the guardians of our most deeply hidden hopes and our half-forgotten fears? Drawing on her rich imagination, two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry confronts these questions and explores the conflicts between the gentle bits and pieces of the past that come to life in dream, and the darker horrors that find their form in nightmare. In a haunting story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy—face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another, renewed by the strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

Gossamer is perfect for readers not quite ready for Lois Lowry's Newbery-Award winner The Giver and also for readers interested in dreams, nightmares, spirits and the dream world.

Grade Level: 5 and up

Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
For philanthropists of the past, charity was often a matter of simply giving money away. For the philanthrocapitalists-the new generation of billionaires who are reshaping the way they give-it's like business. Largely trained in the corporate world, these "social investors" are using big-business-style strategies and expecting results and accountability to match. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, is leading the way: he has promised his entire fortune to finding a cure for the diseases that kill millions of children in the poorest countries in the world.
In Philanthrocapitalism, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green examine this new movement and its implications. Proceeding from interviews with some of the most powerful people on the planet-including Gates, Bill Clinton, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, and Bono, among others-they show how a web of wealthy, motivated donors has set out to change the world.