Free Ebook: Freeground (The First Light Chronicles #1)

Randolph Lalonde has released the first book in his First Light Chronicles trilogy, Freeground (Kindle $2.39, currently on sale), as a free ebook in both PDF and mobi (Kindle) format on a permanent basis, directly from his web site.

If you like the Freeground, the The First Light Chronicles Omnibus (which contains all three books: Freeground, Limbo, and Starfree Port), is currently available for the Kindle for $9.99 or as a print version at $17.99. This omnibus version of the trilogy is more cost effective than buying the second two as standalone books (plus it puts Amazon in charge of backing up your bookshelf, if you have a Kindle).

His Spinward Fringe series follows the First Light Chronicles, and is an unlimited series (it's recommended that you read the First Light Chronicles first) and is also available at Amazon in trade paperback or Kindle versions. So far, the titles available are Resurrection, Awakening and Triton

Synopsis:

In the middle of the darkest region of explored space sits one bright beacon; Freeground Station. Serving as a supply and trading post it is home to a select number of human beings that will take an unlikely chance to make a difference in their end of the galaxy.

Jonas and his friends spent their spare time in tactical simulations and drew the attention of Freeground Fleet Command when they hacked into restricted combat scenarios for elite trainees and defeated all comers.

Instead of punishing Jonas and his friends they offered them an opportunity to undertake a dangerous and exciting mission. They were to go out into the Galaxy and acquire any advantages that would improve life for Freegrounders.

This series is about their first voyage together, the challenges they face, and the relationships they forge with each other and the beings they meet along the way.

Click here for the free download!

Free Ebook: Snow Angel

Enter to win the B&H Publishing Group "Romance that Warms the Heart" contest and get a free (PDF) copy of Jamie Carie's Snow Angel ($9.99 for the Kindle edition)!

In honor of the biscuit scenes in Wind Dancer and Snow Angel, B&H Publishing Group is offering a Deluxe Breakfast Sampler from Cracker Barrel to one lucky winner! This $105.00 value prize includes:

Four (3 to 4 oz.) Country Ham Steaks
Two 1 lb. packages of Country Bacon
12 oz. bottle of 100% Pure Natural Syrup
28 oz. jar of Cracker Barrel Apple Butter
One 16 oz. pkg. Cracker Barrel Premium Coffee
Two (28 oz.) jars of Cracker Barrel Fried Apples
5 lb. bag of Cracker Barrel Grits
1 lb. Country Ham Biscuit Cut
1 lb. Country Pepper Coated Bacon, sliced
Two (2 lb.) boxes of Cracker Barrel Pancake Mix

All contest entrants will also receive Jamie Carie's award-winning debut novel Snow Angel as a free digital download. Enter the contest here.

Harlequin adds Valentine's Day Free Ebook

A Valentine for Harlequin’s Anniversary

Celebrating 60 years of reading pleasure with an exclusive collection of heartwarming stories and insights along with a story from RITA Award-winning author Catherine Mann.

Your choice of formats (w/ DRM, so not for the Kindle), you do need to set up an account, but the book is free (no credit card info required).

Stephen King's UR releases early

Just in time for Valentine's Day, but definitely not a Valentine's type of book (see the earlier post for the Harlequin freebies for that), UR by Stephen King, has released early and is now available. My copy was waiting when I awoke my Kindle today and I suspect I'll have read thru it before the night is over (it is just a novella, after all).

Since his first novel was published in 1974, Stephen King has stretched the boundaries of the storyteller as a writer who constantly redefines his readers' experience by working in various genres and formats . Whether in an epic horror novel, like THE STAND, a serial-novel like THE GREEN MILE, or a novella like SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, King is able to deliver a reading experience like no one else can. As quickly as a spider spins its web, King reminds us why he's the master of the novella - a format which, up until now that is, one might have thought is fast disappearing. In his new novella, UR, King is at his unsettling best as he examines the future of the written word - for better or worse. Following a nasty break-up, lovelorn college English instructor Wesley Smith can't seem to get his ex-girlfriend's parting shot out of his head: "Why can't you just read off the computer like the rest of us?" Egged on by her question and piqued by a student's suggestion, Wesley places an order for Amazon.com's Kindle eReader. The [pink?] device that arrives in a box stamped with the smile logo -via one-day delivery that he hadn't requested - unlocks a literary world that even the most avid of book lovers could never imagine. But once the door is open, there are those things that one hopes we'll never read or live through. Firm, gripping, and deftly written by a craftsman at the top of his game, this is King at his crisp, clear, page-turning best. Download and read UR only on Kindle.

If you haven't ordered your copy, why are you still here? No really, go order the book, then come back.....

Update on Harlequin 16 Free Ebooks

All sixteen of the Harlequin free titles are now available for the Kindle (only 12 days after most other stores had them up). The entire list is posted on my previous blog entry: Free Ebook on Kindle: Harlequin 16

Free Ebook from Oprah

In The Truth About Cheating, M. Gary Neuman explores why men stray and what you can do to prevent it.

The Kindle edition is $13.07, but between now and 7 p.m. PST Thursday, February 12, 2009, you can download a free copy of this book from Oprah's website.

To read this on the Kindle, save the PDF file, then email it to your @kindle.com address for Whispernet delivery, or to your @free.kindle.com address to receive the converted file in email, then transfer the Amazon book to your Kindle using the USB card. This is a good method for those in spotty Whispernet coverage, overseas, or still waiting for their shiny new Kindle 2 to be delivered.

Synopsis:

Few events cause as much turmoil in a marriage as infidelity. It can shatter trust and breed insecurity and resentment from which some relationships never recover. People who think it won't happen to them are hit that much harder when it does. Why are men unfaithful? Can infidelity be prevented? Can a wife single-handedly ensure that her husband won't stray? What do men say they're getting from their mistresses that they're missing at home? Do a man's friends have anything to do with his willingness to cheat?

While there are books that have explored the feelings and experiences of wives whose husbands have been unfaithful, the question of why men cheat and whether it is because of sexual dissatisfaction, emotional dissatisfaction, or something else has remained largely unexamined. At last, The Truth About Cheating presents many fascinating and provocative answers. In this book, experienced family counselor Gary Neuman shares the revealing and surprising findings of a cutting-edge research study in which he interviewed and studied close to 100 men from 48 states who have physically cheated on their wives. In this book, Neuman shares many shocking discoveries, including the prominent role of emotional dissatisfaction in motivating husbands who stray and how small a role sexual dissatisfaction plays.

Drawing on dramatic case stories of the author's own work with clients, The Truth About Cheating includes proactive strategies and action steps for married women that will help them prevent infidelity, and create a faithful and rewarding marriage.

Kindle Exclusive: Frommer Guides

Frommer's City Set: 12 Full-sized City Guides in One Kindle Book , exclusively available on the Kindle. Preorder now for $39.99 (list $49.99), this is another exclusive that will be released the same day as the Kindle 2 (see here for two more).

Product Description
Frommer’s expert travel information is now available on the Kindle. Frommer’s CitySet—the world’s biggest travel guide--contains the complete contents of 12 bestselling Frommer’s city guides, including detailed maps, opinionated reviews, insider tips from expert authors, and everything else you’ve come to expect from Frommer’s print guides. City guides included are Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, New York City, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Tokyo, Washington, D.C. If you were to purchase the contents of the Frommer’s CitySet in print form, the stack of books would weigh 8 ½ pounds and fill up 3,809 pages. Now all this information can be accessed on your 10.2-ounce Kindle.

Kindle 2 - What's New

What's New
Text to Speech
If you really get turned on by those heavily computerized voices of early text-to-speech efforts on the PC, you'll feel right at home with the voice used for reading aloud on the Kindle. This won't be any competition for true audiobooks, but will allow those with limited sight or who are driving to have any of their content read to them, including magazines and blogs.

Three "Folders"
You don't get any control over your folders, but there are now three "folders" available when viewing the Home page: Books, Periodicals and Personal Content. Books is only books from Amazon, Periodicals includes newspapers, magazines and blogs. Personal Content gets everything else.


What's Missing

Protective Leather Cover
Whether to make it easier for third party sellers or just to stop the complaints by a vocal few who oppose the use of leather, the new Kindle ships with no protective cover. All the videos show it being carried and used naked (and precariously perched on fingertips when being read, which seems to be a recipe for a disastrous spill to the ground). If you want the leather cover, you'll pay an extra $30 (which is perhaps the source of the original rumors of a $30 upgrade fee for those who were waiting on a Kindle 1) or shell out over $100 on a Cole Haan cover. M-Edge is showing the K2 cover on their web site (two designs), but with mockups of a real K2 next to them and they are not yet available in the Amazon store (which may mean they aren't really available yet at all).

No Content Manager
There is no longer an SD card and you delete items from the Home page (using the Delete key, introduced on Kindle 1 with the 1.2 firmware) or while reading the book/periodical (also in firmware 1.2, click on menu while the book is open), so there is no longer any need for a Content Manager screen. Instead, all your current content is displayed on the Home page and any that you've bought from Amazon and don't have currently installed is accessed from the menu item View Archived Items.

No SD Card support
Amazon has decided that 1.4GB is more than enough for anyone and if you are talking only books, that may be true (although I've seen Topaz books at over 1 MB, most are much smaller). But if you want background music or to have audiobooks on board, you are going to find yourself very limited. It's no unusual for a single audiobook to surpass the 1GB mark and even with average sized books you'll find you can't load up for that entire long vacation. Instead, you'll need to carry them on another storage device and find a way to transfer them while away from home.

No Replaceable battery
Hopefully the new battery is much more reliable than the previous model, but the inability replace a battery in the field means that many people will find their use of the Kindle to be more limited. Many carry an extra battery with them "just in case" or charge them up when power is available (travelers, those on a cruise or stationed overseas, for example) and that will no longer be an option.

What's "Just Different"

Content Management
Not particularly better or worse, managing your content is now done using the Home Screen

Buttons
The most obvious change is the physical format of the buttons, which are now smaller and instead of having a full travel (that could be blocked if desired), they have a smaller depressable travel. The Home button has moved off of the keyboard and onto a larger key on the edge, the Delete key has been relabeled (it used to be an arrow and was and still is a backspace key most of the time), the keyboard has no space in the middle (it looks more normal to those used to computers, but isn't quite as thumb friendly as before).

Form Factor
Another obvious change is the thickness of the Kindle, which is now thinner than an iPhone. However, all the electronics had to be fitted in somewhere, so the width and height were both increased, resulting in a much larger border around the screen and a much less purse and pocket friendly size.

Charging
No longer does the Kindle come with a USB cable and a separate charger, as charging is now done via the USB port. Possibly more convenient for some, this change (and the larger battery) mean that the charging time has increased from an hour or two up to 4 hours. Moving to a USB charging system will also prove problematic for those who have laptops that don't provide charging power (this is pretty standard on many laptops). Instead, you'll need to use the AC charging dock with the USB cable. So, you may find yourself with one less wire, but having to move the USB cable back and forth between the charger and the laptop. Those who can charge via the computer, however, will have the convenience of leaving the USB cable in place and charging the Kindle while it is connected. However, most computers (or PS3's or WII's, if you want to use your game station as a charger) don't provide any power when turned off or in standby/hibernate, so you may find that you have to leave the ocmputer on more often or resort to the charging dock as well.

What's Should Have Been Added

User-Defined Folders or Tags
Never present on Kindle 1 (although some did figure out how to get them to work, by changing the metadata on their books), this is by far the most asked for feature by current Kindle owners, even those that don't have SD cards installed. Still not there with Kindle 2, instead there is a very weak folder support that lets you limit what is shown on the home page (see above).

Password Protection
Make it optional, sure, but nearly every Kindle owner would like to be able to add password protection to their Kindle, either only for purchases or to turn it on period (this is especially true for those who view company confidential documents or just don't want anyone peering underneath that plain white slipcover to see what they are reading.

Parental Controls
Parents are buying Kindles for their kids, but the kids then have unlimited access to the web, not just Wikipedia, as well as the entire bookstore and the parent's bookshelves. For some kids, especially older ones, this may work out well, but the parents of younger kids have strongly called for the ability to lock out web access and require a password for bookstore or archived content access.

EPUB and/or PDF support
The Sony has surged ahead here (even if their support is somewhat minimal on PDF, just due to PDF's limitations), even if only from a PR standpoint. EPUB books are becoming more and more available, both for free downloads and library loans (see below), and are starting to show up in third party bookstores. Those without DRM should be readable on a Kindle, but aren't. Instead, you are forced to convert them to the MOBI format on your own, guaranteeing that the average Kindler won't be able to read them.

Library Support
Yes, you can get Audible books for the Kindle and the MP3 Overdrive format has worked with it so far, but if you want to check out mobi formatted library books, you are still out of luck (hey, the press announcement was in a LIBRARY, so why not announce you supported them?). You may still be able to use a script to extract your PID (we'll all know in a few weeks, once they start shipping), then register that with the library or you may not. Those who have tried this have had good luck and the books expire at the end of the loan period, so there isn't any technical reason why this should not work (other than it would cut into Kindle Book sales).

First Free Ebook for Kindle 2

The Cook's Illustrated How-to-Cook Library: An illustrated step-by-step guide to Foolproof Cooking (Kindle Edition) You can, of course, still read it on the Kindle 1, but this one won't be available until the Kindle ships on February 24th (just like Stephen King's UR, exclusive for the Kindle).

Product Description:

This very special Kindle collection covers all the culinary ground, from barbecue, grilling, garden vegetables, holiday roasts, potatoes, soups, stews, stir-fries, pasta sauces, pizza, appetizers, salads, shrimp and shellfish, to pies, layer cakes, cookies and brownies, holiday desserts, ice cream, simple fruit desserts, and lots more. It's all you really need in the kitchen and it all sits nice and handy on a Kindle as well. Now your own definitive recipe collection is portable and easy to access, the perfect helper in the kitchen.

Kindle 2 Is Here!

Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation) has been released! Any Kindle 1 owner will be given first priority in the purchase queue, if their order is in before midnight Feb 10! Anyone waiting on a Kindle 1 will automatically get a Kindle 2, no need to change your order (and no choice about it, either).

The Leather Cover is now sold separately ($29.99), so the new Kindle is effectively $30 more than the Kindle 1. A 2-Year Extended Warranty for Kindle 2 is also available and is a bargain compared to the replacement cost if the Kindle breaks due to your own actions (such as by dropping it, drowning it or running over it with your car).

Lots of new accessories are available, including Cole Haan and Patagonia covers and GelaSkins Protective Skins.

Text to speech capability - the new Kindle can read to you (an experimental feature, which means that it may be buggy and could be taken away), letting you switch back and forth between reading and an audiobook (of sorts), depending on your environment.

Longer battery life this time (25% longer: up to 4 days with wireless on or 2 weeks with it off), seven times the internal storage (approximately 1.4GB available, holds over 1,500 books), but no sign of a replaceable battery or SD card support (so far), with 20% faster page turning than the previous generation, sixteen shades of grey (for better image display) and the new Kindle 2 is thinner than the Apple iPhone (0.36" vs. 0.48")! Page turning "buttons" now are inward flexing, rather than large mechanical buttons and the silver menu bar has been replaced by a "five-way" controller (allowing you to select/highlight by word and look up only one word in the dictionary, rather than an entire line). On/off and Whispernet buttons are now located on the top edge, while speakers remain on the lower back of the unit.

Same Sprint Whispernet (now WhisperSync), no wireless hotspots needed or supported, although this is only an issue for those outside the Sprint network (see new map), coverage for WhisperSync now extends to ALL FIFTY STATES!!!

Book selection, of course, continues to increase. Currently with over 230,000 books, including 103 of 110 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are still $9.99 (although there are many for less and quite a few, especially non-fiction and technical books, for more). Exclusive to the Kindle is UR by Stephen King, which will release in tandem with the Kindle 2 (now available to pre-order and can be read on your Kindle 1). Also now available is The New Yorker magazine.

Free Ebook on Kindle: Harlequin 16

The links are now starting to be live for the sixteen freebies from Harlequin. As far as I've been able to tell, these are the only Mobi formatted editions (so far), although you can get the PDF's from Harlequin and convert those to any format. Enjoy!

The entire list is now available:

Once A Cowboy
Slow Hands
Homespun Bride
Baby Bonanza
Speed Dating
Stranded With A Spy
The Bride's Baby
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
Hide in Plain Sight
Kiss Me Deadly
His Lady Mistress
Price of Passion
Irresistible Forces
Dancing In The Moonlight
A Very Special Delivery
Snowbound

Remember, you can purchase these (for zero dollars), even if you are still waiting for your shiny new Kindle 2 (as long as you purchased it on your Amazon account and didn't mark it as a gift). They'll download to your Kindle automatically once you turn it on the first time.

Three Free Game Downloads

Amazon has launched their new Game Downloads store and to celebrate they are offering three free games between February 3, 2009 and February 10, 2009.

Build-a-lot
	Send the housing market through the roof as you build, buy, and sell houses in the new strategy game, Build-a-lot. You can flip houses for quick cash or sit back and watch the rental income pile up. Become a real estate mogul as you visit scenic towns, earn huge profits and perform special favors for the colorful local mayors. Can you build a new cinema for the local movie star? Install a bowling alley in the Mayor's Mansion?
Jewel Quest II
	In Jewel Quest II, join Professor Pack on the ultimate jewel matching quest across the world's richest continent. Rearrange precious relics to turn tiles into gold as you advance through relentlessly challenging puzzles. The wilds of the safari, the history of the Zimbabwe ruins and the majesty of Victoria Falls await your discovery as you play through 180 impressive levels.
The Scruffs
	The Scruffs need your help to save their beloved family home from being sold. Grandpa Scruff has a solution - a scavenger hunt to recover his valuable artifacts. But in a surprising twist, Grandpa Scruff reveals that he's been hiding something else - a shocking family secret! Help the Scruffs uncover the secret that will change their lives forever by finding lost items and putting together the clues they need. The Scruffs - laugh at their witty family banter and fall in love with their charm.

16 Free ebooks from Harlequin

The sixteen books Harlequin promised are now available to download, but no Mobipocket (Kindle) version. When the web page first came up, the Mobi/PRC files were there for download, but it turned out that they were DRM-enabled versions and since this was a special web site set up just for the free books, Mobipocket Reader was unable to authenticate them. They also would not work on the Kindle, since the Kindle doesn't support DRM'd mobi files.

All is not lost, however. You can download the PDF version and just email them to your Kindle or use the free MobiPocket Creator Publisher program to convert them yourself, which gives you much greater control over how the books look in the Kindle homepage. Emailed PDF's, for example, always show your email address as author and have the PDF file name as the name of the book. With MobiPocket Creator, you can specify the book title, the author (last name first, so sorting works correctly) and even set up a cover page. Once you've created the book (a two click process), you can then copy the PRC file to your Kindle using the USB cable or email it to the Kindle - since it's already in the PRC format, all Amazon does is rename the file and add an AZW extension; the book title and author name will use what you specified in Creator.

And by the way - if you find the tedious FLASH based order page they set up to be so much trouble it isn't worth it, even for free books, try this link instead. All sixteen books in one place, all with links for every format available. I'd download them soon, although the rumor is that these books will remain free for the rest of the year. One final rumor - these same books will appear soon in the Sony store as free downloads (this is confirmed if you buy the Valentines's Day special edition of the Sony Reader, which also comes with several 20% off coupons for more Harlequin titles in their store) and will also appear soon in the Kindle store.

Free Ebooks on Kinde: Hundreds of Classics

Amazon is giving away classics for the Kindle - so many, in fact, that they go on more than 100 pages, which is the limit when sorting by price in the Kindle Store. At least check out the first 100 pages, as there are gems hidden there, as well as searching on any classics author to see if their works are included.

Happy downloading!

Update, there are now 7,370 of these books available. Follow this link (sorted by highest customer review) to the complete list and you can use the categories on the side to help locate those of interest.

Kindle 2.0 coming in two weeks?

Is this what Amazon.com will announce at its press conference on February 9th? (Credit: Boy Genius Report)

CNet is reporting that Amazon has called a "book related" press conference for Feb 9 and they believe that the announcement will be a confirmation of the Boy Genius reported design for the Kindle 2.0 and an early release date, possibly in March. They are incorrectly reporting that the Kindle order page has gone from a predicted availability date of late February to a "sold out" notice (I just checked - availability is 4 to 6 weeks, the same late Feb/early March that has been listed for months now) and they predict that anyone ordering now will get an email offering to let you "upgrade" to the newer version instead (for a predicted $40 charge). Hopefully they are just as wrong with their predictions as they are with their reporting of the status of Kindle pre-orders. If not, it means that the "new" Kindle will be a less capable unit (no SD card expansion, no replaceable battery) with a much larger form factor (less ability to stash in a purse or large pants pocket) and a higher price tag (otherwise, why would anyone consider paying $40 more and consider it a good deal? You could easily cancel the old order and reorder the new version at $399 or less and have the same or better).

At this point, it's equally likely that the thinner, larger case Kindle is the UK or European model (where the ability to store books on an SD card might have been a sticking point to get publishers on board). The UK model has been rumored for 2009 for quite some time and Hatchette recently raised a big stink with US e-tailers about selling ebooks to European readers - a move that was no doubt anticipatory to the Kindle hitting shelves there (ebooks in Europe are often the same or higher price and that pricing is set by law, not just market forces). Tightening up the loopholes UK/EU readers use to avoid higher European pricing (many have figured out how to use the Sony US store, for example, due to the UK store's pricing/problems) will no doubt be essential in getting European publishers on board. Remember, just because a book is from the US or available here on the Kindle doesn't mean that the digital rights will be released in the UK/US. Or vice versa. You might even see the equivalent to region coding introduced on ereaders (the publishers would love it, but it may be too late to add this, now that ebook formats are out there), much as is used with video games and movies to ensure you can't play that disk you picked up while on vacation in London, once you get back to the States.

But back to the rumored Kindle 2.0. Hopefully Amazon will finally release some of the most desired features (hint: FOLDERS!) that early adopters have been clamoring for. Even then, it' doubtful that it would be worth paying more for the new version, unless the rumors of it's lack of hardware features are true. Sure it's thinner and has smaller keys, but even these are not considered desirable features by many (unless you work at Sony or are a "critic/reviewer", but not an actual Kindle reader) -- the thinness actually makes it less comfortable to hold over time (your hand cramps up more, as has been noted by some who have both a Sony Reader and a Kindle) and the smaller keys mean a much more precise hand movement is required to change pages. And I doubt the thinner design will work as well reading on your side (the current Kindle will balance on it's edge, requiring no effort to keep it up for reading). But the thing I'd miss most is the expandability - not only for books, but for audiobooks (even quadrupling the embedded memory won't give you enough for more than one or two small ones) and music, as well as the ability to have a "work documents" card and a "reading" card (or even one card per person with a single shared Kindle). And no replaceable battery means that when it dies (and they all die), the entire unit must be sent back for repair (if possible) or completely replaced. Neither of which is a very green solution (or likely - how many of us have dead UPS/Battery Backup units sitting around or that were disposed of/replaced rather than repaired?).

What do you think? Do you prefer the new design? How much extra would you be willing to pay for thin?

Free Ebook on Kindle: Blood of Eden

Blood of Eden by Edward Morris

Samhain Publishing continues with their freebies to introduce some of their authors. Please make sure you read the content warning before purchasing (most of the books they've offered have been for adults only).

Synopsis:

Not all faeries have wings. Not all goblins are green. And not all wars are fought on the outside. The first installment in the exciting new ARKADIA trilogy. Larry Cresswell, a disillusioned twenty-something, moves back in with his parents after college, gets his young girlfriend pregnant and ends up in the Oakland barrio, drunk and on welfare. Not as much of this is his fault as he'd like to believe.

His girlfriend is a Changeling, left on Earth from the dimension of Faerie during a long and bitter war.

One day she learns this, leaves and takes their daughter to Seattle, during the WTO Protests of 1999. This disaster, it is foretold, will punch a hole between dimensions and send her home as Queen of the Sluagh goblin-folk.

Larry goes after his daughter, but to win her back he must first surrender-to himself. Only when he faces his own true origins can he hope to survive.

It's snowing in Arkadia. The King and Queen are imprisoned, and the Sluagh are on the march. Pass with Larry under the shadow of the storm, along with him for the hell-ride of his life...

Warning: Sexual references, graphic language and violence.

Explore Alaska

Have you received your "personal" invitation from Sarah Palin to come visit? I have (it's a yellow envelope, so keep an eye out), but with the recent winter weather and storms, I think I'll just read about it in front of the fire, instead. Although today's temps in most coastal areas of Alaska are actually warmer than here in TN, after 70F to 90F degree warmups in the last week, winters in Alaska are not for the faint of heart or for those with small pocketbooks. Mistakes in planning can mean disaster and even death due to exposure and the storms this winter are starting to take their toll on those dependent on imported fuel for winter heat and Juneau is once again dependent on diesel for electricity due to avalanche damage to their incoming electric lines. But not everyone in Alaska is tied to the modern world. Instead, a hardy few still live in much the same manner as the early settlers to the area.

The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness $7.99. Note that there are two Kindle editions of this book, one shows a cover and the other does not, which appears to be the only difference between the two. The one with the cover image sells for $9.59, while the $7.99 edition above is the one linked from both the paperback and hardcover editions.

I'll have to admit, Heimo Korth has divorced himself from the modern world in a pretty extreme way. He's a true subsistence hunter, the only permanent resident of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Living on the northern border of the interior, temps of -50F are a normal winter day. But the possible record of -80F might have even convinced him that it was a might cold winter day (and it's a "possible" record because the thermometers in use are only certified accurate down to around -50F, which was considered to be good enough for the region).

One reviewer noted that if Chris McCandless, the subject of JonKrakauer's Into the Wild had read The Final Frontiersman first, he might still be alive today. For those who have only seen the movie, the book goes into more depth, providing insight in the character in a way that a movie seldom does. Another book McCandless might wanted to have read was James Oliver Curwood's The Alaskan or John Muir's Travels in Alaska (free at Manybooks.Net), as Muir's solitary travels suited his spirit more than the mode of travel highlighted in the average guidebook to Alaska, such as the aptly named Alaska Highway Adventure Guide (Adventure Guides), where you seldom are far from a paved road (although still the adventures are more remote and wilder than what you'd find on a highway in the lower 48).

Steve Rinella is another modern adventurer in Alaska, one of 24 people in 2005 to win a lottery to hunt buffalo in the foothills of Alaska's Wrangell Mountains and which he writes about in American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. Unlike McCandless, Rinella heads out prepared with a compass, rifle, bone saw and skinning knife, all of which he puts to use. If you prefer your adventures to be with smaller (and colder) game, consider Fool's Paradise, by Gierach & Wolff:

"You're on a lovely, remote wilderness river in the Alaskan backcountry. There are people who would make this trip and not even bring a fishing rod." Musing on the enduring appeal of fishing, Gierach theorizes, "We're so used to the fake and the packaged that encountering something real can amount to a borderline religious experience." Equal parts fishing lore, philosophy, and great fish stories, Fool's Paradise may not be a perfect substitute for actually being out on the water, but it's surely the next best thing.

For a guide that is more specific to Alaska (Fool's Paradise also covers British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains), be sure to check out Flyfishing Alaska and Fly-Fishing Secrets of Alaska's Best Guides. And if your adventure plans don't include fishing or hunting, there is still plenty to do and lots of guidebooks to assist you, from 50 Hikes in Alaska's Chugach State Park to Alaska's Southeast, 11th: Touring the Inside Passage to The Unofficial Guide to Adventure Travel in Alaska to Coming into the Country.

If you are more interested in the history of the region, be sure to read Alaska, an in depth 600+ page treatise that covers everything from the first European explorers thru the activism of native Alaskans' in the 60's. Or, if you would rather explore the eccentricities of a "typical" small town in Alaska, don't miss If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska. It might not answer every question you have about Sarah Palin, but it will shed some insight on the odder things that came up about her hometown during the election (after all, if the entire world is your small town and you know everyone's name, perhaps feeling Russia is just over the next hill isn't all that unreasonable). Just be glad some of the other characters in this biography/memoir weren't picked instead.

16 Free ebooks from Harlequin

Harlequin continues the big celebration this month, this time with free ebooks direct from their web site (not Kindle compatible, these are to be read on your computer). On January 29th, in celebration of turning 60, they will make 16 ebooks available for free download. Signup at their celebration page and you'll get a reminder when the downloads are available. The page is a little confusing - it mentions 16 books and a $60 value, but also refers (twice) to getting a single book. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but when they are giving the books away for free, it's hard to complain.