Today's Deals 12/9

Today is Musicals Day in the Gold Box at Amazon, with "Singin' in the Rain" and "Sound of Music" on Blu-ray starting at 53% Off and Lightning Deals all day long.

Amazon's Android Appstore spotlight today is on THE GAME OF LIFE (Kindle Tablet Edition) for 99 cents.

The Starbucks Gift special today is a sale on their red holiday mugs (these usually sell out quickly each year, so I'm headed over in just a bit to see if I can get one or two).

Don't forget to register for the gift card giveaway on Amazon's 12 Days of Book Deals promotion page. Today's book is the hardcover edition of Thinking, Fast and Slow for $2.99 (and they are going fast).

Today's Audible Daily Deal is Select Books by Preston & Child for $7.95 each. Don't forget, if you took advantage of the Listener Rewards program last month, you should have $10 or $20 in your account to use this month (if you don't, just email Audible support and they'll fix it).

At Harlequin, save 20% on any Carina Press Mystery books, today only! Use CPMYSTERY20 at checkout.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Winter Rose ($1.99), by Jennifer Donnelly.

Book Description
It has been twelve years since a dark, murderous figure stalked the alleys and courts of Whitechapel. And yet, in the summer of 1900, East London is still poor, still brutal, still a shadow city to its western twin. Among the reformers is an idealistic young woman named India Selwyn-Jones, recently graduated from medical school. With the help of her influential fiance--Freddie Lytton, an up-and-coming Liberal MP--she works to shut down the area's opium dens that destroy both body and soul. Her selfless activities better her patients' lives and bring her immense gratification, but unfortunately, they also bring her into direct conflict with East London's ruling crime lord--Sid Malone.

India is not good for business and at first, Malone wants her out. But against all odds, India and Sid fall in love. Different in nearly every way, they share one thing in common--they're both wounded souls. Their love is impossible and they know it, yet they cling to it desperately. Lytton, India's fiance, will stop at nothing to marry India and gain her family's fortune.

Fractious criminal underlings and rivals conspire against Sid. When Sid is finally betrayed by one of his own, he must flee London to save his life. Mistakenly thinking him dead, India, pregnant and desperate, marries Freddie to provide a father for hers and Sid's child. India and Sid must each make a terrible sacrifice--a sacrifice that will change them both forever. One that will lead them to other lives, and other places...and perhaps--one distant, bittersweet day--back to each other.

The Shoestring Club ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Sarah Webb, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition, but her Ask Amy Green is reasonably priced).

Book Description
Join The Shoestring Club

When the love of her life, Ed, announces his surprise engagement to her best friend, Julia Schuster is distraught but determined not to let them see how much she’s hurting. She spies a remarkable dress in Shoestring, her sister’s designer second-hand shop, and knows she’ll only be able to stagger through the wedding day, showing everyone how over Ed she is, if her body is wrapped in its soft silk chiffon. Unfortunately it costs mega bucks and she’s barely hanging on to her job as it is.

Arietty Pilgrim can’t and won’t attend her fiercely competitive school reunion unless she can arrive wearing exactly the same dress. But working as an elephant keeper in Dublin Zoo does not a millionaire make.

But fate has a funny way of bringing people together. Just as Julia starts to flounder amidst family troubles, problem drinking and a broken heart, she meets Arietty and the two of them set up The Shoestring Club – time-sharing one extraordinary dress and beginning a life-altering friendship.

Christmas at Eagle Pond ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Donald Hall and Mary Azarian (Illustrator), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Donald Hall draws on his own childhood memories and gives himself the thing he most wanted but didn't get as a boy: a Christmas at Eagle Pond.

It’s the Christmas season of 1940, and twelve-year-old Donnie takes the train to visit his grandparents' place in rural New Hampshire. Once there, he quickly settles into the farm’s routines. In the barn, Gramp milks the cows and entertains his grandson by speaking rhymed pieces, while Donnie’s eyes are drawn to an empty stall that houses a graceful, cobwebby sleigh. Now Model A's speed over the wintry roads, which must be plowed, and the beautiful sleigh has become obsolete. When the church pageant is over, the gifts are exchanged, and the remains of the Christmas feast put away, the air becomes heavy with fine snowflakes—the kind that fall at the start of a big storm—and everyone wonders, how will Donnie get back to his parents on time?

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Sign of the Beaver ($1.99), by Elizabeth George Speare.

Book Description
Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.

Grade Level: 5 and up

Today's Deals 12/8

Don't forget to register for the gift card giveaway on Amazon's 12 Days of Book Deals promotion page. Today's book is "a best-selling nonfiction book".

Today's Audible Daily Deal is Nora Roberts Romance for $5.95. Members with credits get a bonus sale today: Heat Up Your Holidays BOGO boutique. For those with a UK account, the £0.99 audiobook is The Christmas Angel by Marcia Willett.

At Harlequin, get FREE recipes from Debbie Macomber! It's a DRM-free PDF download that everyone can grab.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Restless ($1.99), by William Boyd.

Book Description

In December, 2012 The Sundance Channel will air the BBC-produced film RESTLESS starring Charlotte Rampling, Michael Gambon, Hayley Atwell, and Rufus Sewell, based on this novel by William Boyd.

Someone is trying to kill Sally Gilmartin. It is the summer of 1976, and the only person she can trust is her daughter, Ruth, a young single mother struggling with her own demons. Now Sally must tell her daughter the truth: She is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré recruited for the British Secret Service in 1939. Soon Ruth is drawn deeper into the astonishing events of her mother’s past, including her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward U.S. involvement in Second World War and her dangerous love affair with another spy. Ruth also discovers that her mother has one final assignment. This time, though, Eva can’t do it alone—she needs Ruth’s help. Full of tension and drama, emotion and history, this is storytelling at its finest.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is The Donavan Creed series by John Locke for $1.59 / £0.99 each. For those in the US, the series is going for $2.99 per volume.

Lethal People, Lethal Experiment, Saving Rachel, Now and Then, Wish List, A Girl Like You, Vegas Moon and The Love You Crave. Donovan Creed is a man of many identities--a ruthless assassin with access to all the technology that the military can offer. Featuring more twists than a road through the Pyrenees, these books are pacy, outrageous and dangerously addictive.

Eight Winter Nights: A Family Hanukkah Book ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Laura Krauss Melmed, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Moishe s Miracle author Laura Krauss Melmed and illustrator Elizabeth Schlossberg celebrate Hanukkah in joyful action rhymes, lyrical poems, and exuberant scenes of family life. From dancing candles to delicious traditional foods to the story of the Macabbees, they capture the warm sights, sounds, and tastes of this wintertime family festival.

Grade Level: P and up

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Only One Club ($1.99), by Jane Naliboff and Jeff Hopkins (Illustrator).

Book Description
This heartwarming story explores the many ways in which children feel unique and special. Mrs. Matthews's first grade class begins making Christmas decorations, but because Jennifer is Jewish, Mrs. Matthews allows her to make Hanukkah decorations instead. Jennifer enjoys the attention and creates "The Only One Club," of which she is the sole member. When her classmates want to join, she is resistant until she realizes that each of her friends is also "the only one" at something. As she inducts them into her club she reveals the unique qualities that make each of her classmates extraordinary. Through this touching story, young children are encouraged to discover and treasure their own uniqueness and to actively look for special qualities in others beyond race or culture. A medley of pencil, watercolor, acrylic paint, and pastel illustrations bring this inspiring and humorous tale to life.

Grade Level: K and up

Today's Deals 12/7

Don't forget to register for the gift card giveaway on Amazon's 12 Days of Book Deals promotion page. Today's book is "a best-selling history book".

Today's Audible Daily Deal is 50% Off Books by Neil Gaiman and Neil Gaiman Presents.

At Harlequin, Buy 2, get one Harlequin Presents title FREE!

Amazon's Android spotlight app is Fantasy Town (Kindle Tablet Edition) today.

Additional formats on free books:

• Ruth's First Christmas (K/N)

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon ($1.99), by John Ferling, with the companion audiobook only $3.99.

Book Description
Perhaps the most revered American of all, George Washington has long been considered a stoic leader who held himself above the fray of political infighting. What has gone unnoticed about the much-researched life of Washington is that he was in fact a consummate politician, as historian John Ferling shows in this revealing and provocative new book. As leader of the Continental Army, Washington's keen political savvy enabled him not only to outwit superior British forces, but--even more challenging--to manage the fractious and intrusive Continental Congress. Despite dire setbacks early in the war, Washington deftly outmaneuvered rival generals and defused dissent from officers below him, ending the war with the status of a national icon. His carefully burnished reputation allowed Washington, as president, to lead the country under the guise of non-partisanship for almost all of his eight years in office. Washington, Ferling argues, was not only one of America's most adroit politicians, he was easily the most successful of all time--so successful, in fact, that he is no longer thought of as having been political.

Manhattan in Reverse ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Peter F. Hamilton, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $4.99).

Book Description
A major collection of short fiction from Peter F. Hamilton, New York Times bestselling author of Pandora’s Star, The Dreaming Void, and many other epic science fiction novels—including a brand-new novella starring detective Paula Myo

Fans of the Commonwealth Saga will enjoy the return of Paula Myo, the genetically engineered police investigator whose single-minded pursuit of justice runs up against a postwar citizenry eager to forget old crimes. In the all-new novella “Manhattan in Reverse,” Paula is dispatched to the backwoods planet of Menard after a docile, supposedly nonintelligent alien species attacks peaceful human settlers. Menard may have to be evacuated—something the planet’s corporate owners and human populace are prepared to resist . . . perhaps with targeted aggression.

Violence hits closer to home in “The Demon Trap” in which Paula’s investigation of a gruesome act of terrorism leads into unexpected political, technological, and philosophical waters, threatening the course of human evolution.

Time travel has never been so tricky—or so deadly—as it is in “If at First . . .,” in which Metropolitan Police detective David Lanson finds himself matching wits with a sociopath who might very well be from the future . . . or, at least, a future.

“Blessed by an Angel” is set in the Commonwealth Universe of the Void trilogy and features an alien visitor who offers the local human population a chance at paradise. But one species’ paradise may be another’s hell.

Three other thrilling pieces round out the collection—and showcase Peter F. Hamilton’s ability to weave scientific speculation into very human storytelling.

Stand by Me ($8.79 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Neta Jackson, is the Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
Sometimes the person you most need is the one least like you.

Kathryn Davies is a bright young woman from a prominent Phoenix family. But after making a leap of faith at a Christian music fest, dropping out of med school, and moving to inner city Chicago, her family all but disowns her.

When Kat discovers SouledOut Community Church, she longs to become a part of the multicultural church family. But her tendency to immediately say whatever she’s thinking steps on the toes of nearly everyone she meets—especially Avis Douglass.

Avis has a strong faith, is the principal of one of Chicago’s highest performing elementary schools, and is a founding member of SouledOut. But the country’s economic downturn has thrown both her and her husband’s jobs in question. And Avis hasn’t heard from her youngest daughter in months—an estrangement that gnaws at her every day. Where is God in this?

Kat’s flamboyant zeal for living a “radical” Christian life is a stark contrast to Avis’s more reserved faith. But in God’s timing, the two women discover they need each other in ways neither of them expected.

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Kiss & Make Up ($1.99), by Katie D. Anderson, with companion audiobook for $4.99. In addition, purchase of this (or any) Amazon Children's Publishing book or ebook will get a matching ebook donation to the Worldreader program.

Book Description
Lip gloss addict Emerson Taylor and her best friend, Trina, have declared this year the Year of the Boy and vowed to find boyfriends. But for Emerson, there’s just one problem: she can read the mind of anyone whose lips touch hers. It’s totally creepy—and at first it seems like a curse. But Emerson soon realizes there are perks to her strange talent—like the ability to steal secrets, memories, and most importantly, test answers. If Emerson doesn’t bring up her grades soon, her days at her private school will be numbered. But kissing for grades is stickier than lip gloss, and Emerson’s about to learn some lessons not found in her textbooks—lessons about true love, and real beauty. Oh, why can’t life be as simple as choosing the perfect shade of lip gloss?

$2 Instant Amazon Instant Video Credit (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle Fire with Special Offers (KFSO):

Get $2 credit toward the purchase or rental of select digital movies in the Amazon Instant Video Store

From the home page of your KFSO, swipe the top menu to the left until you see Offers, then press/click in order to see the current offers. 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! If you miss that screen, though, don't worry - a document about the offer will appear on your home page.

You can shop from your Kindle Fire or your PC, but you need to check for any individual product that is excluded from this (and all other) promotions, on the product detail page and I don't know if you can see that info on the mobile pages you get on the Fire itself. You must sign up by December 9 and use the credit by Dec 17.

You might as well apply this one to your account right away, since it will apply automatically to any eligible purchase.

A word about my sponsors (you!)

This message is an updated version of a post that I ran a couple of years ago and again last year. Since the original post, Amazon has added Kindle eBooks to their list of referral eligible products (instead, Android Apps are now excluded) and I've actually made enough referrals from some of the non-Amazon affiliate programs to buy dinner now and then. So, I've edited the original post a bit (and fixed a few typos), but it mostly still applies as well today as it did then. I gave up posting my Book Budget some time back, as the ones I purchased were being swamped by the free books on Kindle. I still buy more books than I manage to read, what with free books, $1 KSO books and books bought for others in the household. So, here's the original, but updated post:

As the holiday season approaches, a commercial reminder/note for readers of this blog. As you may (or may not) know, Amazon pays what they now call advertising fees for referrals on Kindle books, but not subscriptions, and other purchases, such as the Kindle itself and Gift Certificates (even if used to later buy Kindle books); of course, any percentage of zero would still be zero, for free books. Using the links on these pages won't cost you anything extra, but helps support my efforts in keeping the blog updated, as does using the Amazon search box on the side menu when making non-Kindle book purchases at Amazon (for that matter, just click any link to Amazon, in any blog post and shop as you normally do). I also make a tiny amount from referrals to some other ebookstores (Barnes & Noble, for non-ebook purchases only, Kobo, and Smashwords, mostly). Many of the other bargains I post are not affiliate linked - PDF files, free books at Sony, Christian audio, eHarlequin, deals at Books on Board and so on. I post the bargains as I find them (or as you send in tips; thanks to those of you that do), regardless of where they are located.

I've had a few people ask if I've read every bargain book I post. No, I don't - there is no way I physically could do so (I haven't even read thru all the free books Amazon has given us), even if I could afford to do so. I do purchase and read some, with more being bought than I manage to read (just like with my paper library). I do post some reviews (although not for every book I read). Some of these books are provided by the publisher or author and some of them are books I've purchased myself. I have quite a stack of both and limited reading time, so make no promises on reviews for those who send them (and never guarantee a favorable review ... although if a book is one I can't get thru, I'll usually just let the author know and pass on writing a review).

Feel free to use (or not) the links in my posts or on the blog menus when making Amazon purchases; these do help support my efforts (at no additional cost to you) and are greatly appreciated. A few of you have also sent direct PayPal donations (the link is on the right sidebar); these are also very much appreciated (and are usually immediately spent on more books, especially now that Kobo takes PayPal; I will miss Fictionwise, as that was my other go-to bookstore for PayPal).

Thank you to all that read the blog, whether it's on the web site, on Kindle, the RSS feed or following on Facebook or Twitter. I hope you have a great holiday season and promise that I'll keep posting the bargains I find, to help you stretch the holiday budget. I suspect the free reads and big discounts will continue so long as there is competition amongst ereader devices (just as there was in the BluRay/HD war a few years back), even though the Apple and Agency publishers have taken a number of steps to eliminate that competition. Even as the Agency publishers have stifled competition amongst ebookstores (and withdrawn from libraries, in some instances), they have found they still have to compete for readers and for your money, both against other entertainment options (television, movies, video games, etc) and against the proliferation of other reading choices that we now have. More open e-publishing also has benefited readers and the many authors who have been able to bring their backlists in to "print", either directly or thru a number of small publishers that have sprung up in the last few years. Hopefully in the next year, we'll see the demise of most of the Agency agreements, if not all of them, and even get a bit of a refund on the purchases we made in the last few years, from these publishers.

Books on the Knob is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazonsupply.com or myhabit.com.