Today's Deals

Additional formats on free books:

• Alone Time (K/DF)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Tea-Olive Bird Watching Society ($1.99), by Augusta Trobaugh.

Book Description
A modern spin on the classic film Arsenic and Old Lace

The women of a small town’s bird watching society secretly plan to “eliminate” the husband of one of their members in this new novel written by the beloved author of Sophie and the Rising Sun.

In a story replete with coconut cake, grits, and poisoned turtle stew, the founding members of the Tea-Olive Bird Watching Society in tiny Tea-Olive, Georgia, are conspiring to murder retired judge L. Hyson Breed, a newcomer to Tea-Olive. It all begins when the judge tricks one of them into marriage, steals her land for a development project, and sweet talks his way right onto the town council. By the time they discover his evil plans the judge is already a permanent fixture in town. Or is he?

The Shrink and the Sage ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition). One the UK's best-known philosophers, Baggini's The Ego Trick ($1.71 / £1.09 UK) is also on sale for those in the UK, while his Complaint: From Minor Moans to Principled Protests ($1.50) is on sale for US customers.

Book Description

• Can infidelity be good for you?
• What does it mean to stay true to yourself?
• Must we fulfill our potential?

Self-help with a distinctly cerebral edge, the shrink and the sage – aka Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro – have been dispensing advice through their FT column since October 2010. Combining practical advice on personal dilemmas with meditations on the meaning of concepts like free will, spirituality and independence, this book – their first together – expands on these columns and adds much more. Through questions of existential unease, metaphysical trauma and – for instance – how much we should care about our appearance, intellectual agony uncle and aunt team Baggini and Macaro begin to piece together the answer that we’d all like to hear: what is the good life, and how we can live it?

Breaking Free: Discover the Victory of Total Surrender ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Beth Moore, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Do you want to know God and really believe Him? Do you want to find satisfaction in God, experience His peace, and enjoy His presence? Do you want to make the freedom Christ promised a reality in your daily life?

In Breaking Free, Beth Moore embarks on a study of selected passages from the book of Isaiah, drawing several parallels between the captive Israelites and today's Christians, in order to show how to make freedom in Christ a daily reality. Moore teaches readers to remove obstacles that hinder freedom by identifying spiritual strongholds in their lives and overcoming them through the truth of God's Word--truth that will set us free.

Attack of the Vampire Weenies: And Other Warped and Creepy Tales ($5.99 Kindle, $3.60 B&N), by David Lubar, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. This is an Agency publisher, so should be price matched (eventually, it probably will be). According to the synopsis in both stores, this is being sold DRM-free, so you should be able to buy the EPUB from B&N and convert it for Kindle, but it isn't something I've tried with a heavily illustrated children's book.

Book Description
A boy steals a ticket to an amusement park and gets the ride of a lifetime—literally. The first day of middle school turns into a free-for-all when the gym teacher offers a “get-out-of-gym-free” card. Sick of his sister’s vampire wannabe friends, a kid decides to teach them a lesson at their next party. But the tables are turned when some surprise guests show up.

Critically acclaimed author and master of the macabre, David Lubar, is back with thirty more warped and creepy tales for fans of his bestselling Weenies story collections, which have sold more than 1.7 million copies to date.

Don’t be a weenie. Read these stories. If you dare!

Grade Level: 4 and up

Shatter Me ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Tahereh Mafi, is the Nook Weekend Deal, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
"You can't touch me," I whisper. I'm lying, is what I don't tell him. He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him. But things happen when people touch me. Strange things. Bad things. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has plans of her own. After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

Grade Level: 9 and up

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Gregor the Overlander ($1.99), the first title in The Underland Chronicles, a middle-grade series by Suzanne Collins. This one isn't an Agency publisher, so it's a bit of a coincidence that it is also the Nook Daily Find for Families today.

Despite being written for a younger audience than her bestselling Hunger Games series, many of the reviews are from adults who have read and enjoyed the series. If you think you'll read the entire series, though, grab Gregor the Overlander Collection (Books 1-5) instead; it's $19.22, but that works out to under $4 per volume and you have the entire series, in order, with only one entry on your Kindle home page. For those who need EPUB, it's a bit more over at Kobo, but you can use a coupon code there to get it even cheaper.

Book Description
This irresistible first novel tells the story of a quiet boy who embarks on a dangerous quest in order to fulfill his destiny -- and find his father -- in a strange world beneath New York City. When Gregor falls through a grate in the laundry room of his apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland, where spiders, rats, cockroaches coexist uneasily with humans. This world is on the brink of war, and Gregor's arrival is no accident. A prophecy foretells that Gregor has a role to play in the Underland's uncertain future. Gregor wants no part of it -- until he realizes it's the only way to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance. Reluctantly, Gregor embarks on a dangerous adventure that will change both him and the Underland forever.

Grade Level: 4 and up

The Secret Olympian: The inside story of the Olympic experience ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), an anonymous account by Olympic athletes, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.66).

Book Description
The vast majority of us can only dream of being an Olympic-level athlete - but we have no real idea of what that means. Here, for the first time, in all its shocking, funny and downright bizarre glory, is the truth of the Olympic experience.

It is an unimaginable world:

• the kitting-out ceremony with its 35kg of team clothing per athlete
• the pre-Olympic holding camp with its practical jokes, resentment and fighting, and freaky physiological regimes
• the politicians' visits with their flirty spouses
• the vast range of athletes with their odd body shapes and freakish genetics
• the release post-competion in the Olympic village with all the excessive drinking, eating, partying and sex (not necessarily in that order)
• the hysteria of homecoming celebrations and the comedown that follows - how do you adjust to life after the Games?

The Secret Olympian talks to scores of Olympic athletes - past and present, from Munich 1960 right through to London 2012, including British, American, Australian, Dutch, French, Croatian, German, Canadian and Italian competitors. They all have a tale to tell - and most of those tales would make your eyes pop more than an Olympic weightlifter's.

Total Recall ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), a short story by Philip K. Dick, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. This particular story doesn't appear to be in the public domain (although several are, which you can get free from Feedbooks), having appeared in numerous collections after it's original magazine publication. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has this one marked at $4 list price, so I'd grab it now if you want to read it (although it will be one of the stories included in The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, which should be released as an ebook next April).

Book Description
The inspiration for upcoming film, Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale, and directed by Len Wiseman. This ebook only edition of Philip K. Dick’s classic short story tells the story of Douglas Quail, an unfulfilled bureaucrat who dreams of visiting Mars, but can't afford the trip. Luckily, there is Rekal Incorporated, a company that lets everyday stiffs believe they’ve been on incredible adventures. The only problem is that when technicians attempt a memory implant of a spy mission to Mars, they find that real memories of just such a trip are already in Quail's brain. Suddenly, Quail is running for his life from government agents, but his memories might make him more of a liability than he is worth. Originally published as "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale."

Get a $3 MP3 Voucher (AmazonLocal)

Another deal thru AmazonLocal (even if there are no local offers in your area):

Free Voucher Worth $3 Off Any MP3 Album ($5.99 or Greater) from Amazon MP3.

Grab the voucher now and you can use it anytime until thru September 2, 2012. First, you click HERE to redeem the voucher code (which you can see at AmazonLocal by clicking on Your Offers, then clicking on View Code to get the promo code, then the discount is automatically applied to the next MP3 purchase that qualifies (including any gift purchase).

The offer claims that it will last thru Aug 20 or while supplies last. It's that last bit that is important, as they have previously sold out of these vouchers before noon on the day that they have offered them.

Today's Deals

New Kobo coupon codes: aug1725yz for 25% off select titles and KWLsave30 for 30% off Indie Reads; both expire Aug 20.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is We, the Drowned ($1.99), by Carsten Jensen, translated by Charlotte Barslund and Emma Ryder.

Book Description
Carsten Jensen’s debut novel has taken the world by storm. Already hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants have sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War, and from the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania, to the frozen coasts of northern Russia, We, the Drowned spins a magnificent tale of love, war, and adventure, a tale of the men who go to sea and the women they leave behind.

Ships are wrecked at sea and blown up during wars, they are places of terror and violence, yet they continue to lure each generation of Marstal men—fathers and sons—away. Strong, resilient, women raise families alone and sometimes take history into their own hands. There are cannibals here, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, devastating tragedies, and miraculous survivals—everything that a town like Marstal has actually experienced, and that makes We, the Drowned an unforgettable novel, destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.

The Detachment ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Barry Eisler, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $5.99/KLL Eligible).

Book Description
John Rain is back. And “the most charismatic assassin since James Bond” (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy.

When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain can’t resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the “natural causes” demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America.

But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. He’ll need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret he’ll kill to protect.

From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace.

But first, they’ll have to survive each other.

The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, “one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre” (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as today’s headlines and as frightening as tomorrow’s.

Storm ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in Brigid Kemmerer's Elemental series, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. There are two novellas in the series, Elemental ($0.99, prequel) and Fearless ($1.99, between), leaving the pre-order of Spark to complete the series (so far). The two novellas are $1.59 apiece at B&N, while Kobo is matching Amazon's prices, but allows coupons on each.

Book Description
Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys-- the ones she doesn't want. Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread those lies about her.

Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris is different. Way different: he can control water--just like his brothers can control fire, wind, and earth. They're powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death.

And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.

Secrets are hard to keep when your life's at stake. When Hunter, the mysterious new kid around school, turns up with a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Becca thinks she can trust him. But then Hunter goes head-to-head with Chris, and Becca wonders who's hiding the most dangerous truth of all.

The storm is coming. . .

Newbery Medal winner The Giver ($5.59 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Lois Lowry, is the Nook Daily Find for Families; neither edition is price matched on Kindle, but I've reported the lower price.

Book Description
Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

Grade Level: 7 and up

Free Audiobook - Kluge

Get a free MP3 download of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind ($9.99 Kindle, $17.95 Audible), by Gary Marcus, narrated by Stephen Hoye, over at Tantor Media today.

Book Description
Are we "noble in reason"? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a "kluge", a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind - think duct tape, not supercomputer - that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.

Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience - memory, belief, decision making, language, and happiness - Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can't buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like "people people left left" ties us into knots even though it's only four words long.

He also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge - for example, always consider alternative explanations, make contingency plans, and beware the vivid, personal anecdote. Throughout, he shows how only evolution - haphazard and undirected - could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection.

Get the free audiobook from Tantor Media.

Today's Deals

Susan Wiggs and Tess Gerritsen are having a Sizzle & Chill contest on Facebook. Like both pages, then enter on either one to try to win an Adirondack chair and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses.

Additional formats on free books:

• Final Vector (K/N/E/I)
• Hide In Plain Sight (K/N/DF)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is White Lies ($1.99), by Jeremy Bates.

Book Description
While driving to a charming village tucked away deep in the Cascade Mountains of eastern Washington, where she is to begin a new job teaching high school English, Katrina Burton picks up a young hitchhiker who turns out to be drunk and predatory. Fearful for her safety, she lies about her destination in order to get him out of the car. But when she later discovers that he is a teacher at the same school, she finds herself feeding that initial lie with more lies. Then Katrina meets a mysterious man . Handsome, charismatic and strong, he is exactly what she needs to extricate her from the expanding network of lies, now spinning out of control. She falls fast and hard for him. But her perfect solution soon becomes a nightmare that lands her in the middle of a grisly murder. And Katrina's problems don't stop there. She must decide whether to betray her new love or to cover up the murder and hope for the best.

Those Faraday Girls ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Monica McInerney, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
From the bestselling author of Family Baggage and The Alphabet Sisters comes a warm and captivating story of family secrets, traditions and ties. As a child, Maggie Faraday grew up in a lively, unconventional household with her young mother, four very different aunts and her eccentric grandfather. With her mother often away, her aunts took turns to look after her – until, just weeks before Maggie’s sixth birthday, a shocking event changed everything. Twenty years on, Maggie is living alone in New York City when a surprise visit from her grandfather brings a revelation and a proposition to reunite the family. As the Faradays gather in Ireland, Maggie begins to realize that the women she thought she knew so intimately all have something to hide . . .

The Gingerbread House ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in the Hammarby series by Swedish mathematician and author Carin Gerhardsen and Paul Norlén (Translator), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. I picked this up last month when it was a Kindle Daily Deal (at the same price).

Book Description
In a short space of time, several bestial murders occur in central Stockholm. When criminal investigator Conny Sjöberg and the Hammarby police begin to suspect that there’s a link between the murders, Sjöberg goes completely cold. There is a killer out there whose motives are very personal, and who will not be deterred.

The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen is the first in the Hammarby series, thrillers with taut, suspenseful plots and unexpected twists and turns. This haunting novel explores schoolyard bullying among young children and the effect it has on them when people look the other way. Many of the scenes in this book are self-experienced and based on Gerhardsen’s own childhood. Urban settings and strong portraits of authentic characters are crafted in depth and detail, insuring the books will linger in the reader’s mind long after the finish.

The Gingerbread House is written in the same tradition as the Sjöwall / Wahlöö crime novels, and has been described as a book version of the tv series The Wire. It is not only published by the same publisher as Stieg Larsson’s The Millennium Trilogy, but by the same editorial team.

Inkspell (Inkheart Trilogy #2) ($8.13 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Cornelia Funke, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. This was a Nook Find in April, but never did get a price match, so if you missed it then, you might want to go ahead with the B&N edition.

Book Description
The captivating sequel to INKHEART, the critically acclaimed, international bestseller by Cornelia Funke!

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of INKHEART, the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval world of his past. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. But the story is threatening to evolve in ways neither of them could ever have imagined.

Grade Level: 4 and up

Today's Deals

Today's the last day for the $47.40 Kindle (using Amazon Visa). Amazon has replenished their stock of Kindle Touch 3G, but only the ones "with Special Offers". The Kindle Touch WiFi Only (also only "with Special Offers") is now down to a 2-3 day wait. If you don't want the ads, you have to go with the entry level Kindle or step up to the Kindle Keyboard 3G.

If you use SD or USB Flash drives to back up or move data, Amazon has several from Transcend on sale today, at 40%-70% off list price, as their GoldBox Deal of the Day. There are also a couple of SSD drives in the sale (although not at as high a discount). The 256GB drive would work well as a replacement start drive for many notebook computers (I've noticed several computers now come with an SSD drive as the boot drive and a regular SATA drive as the secondary, for added storage).

On B&N's Facebook page, you can now vote for this weekend's $3.99 deal: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi vs. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Both are YA dystopian debuts; since they are both published by HarperCollins, the price should be matched on Kindle this weekend. If you pick Shatter Me, you'll also want to pre-order the sequel novella Destroy Me and watch for Unravel Me next February. Under the Never Sky, on the other hand, has already been optioned for a movie and the sequel, Through the Ever Night, releases in January. It's a tough choice (and they are running neck and neck in the voting), but I'm going to go with Rossi on this one.

Celebrate Julia Child's 100th birthday with today's Kindle Deal of the Day: As Always, Julia ($1.99), by Joan Reardon. I was lucky enough to get a review copy and fans should enjoy the tidbits revealed in her correspondence and the photos included. This was one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month, December 2010. You'll also want to check out the extra photos on Amazon's page, including her penciled remarks when she received a rejection letter the first time she submitted their cookbook. Amazon has also picked up a few other books by and about Julia that you might be interested in.

Book Description
With her outsize personality, Julia Child is known around the world by her first name alone. But despite that familiarity, how much do we really know of the inner Julia?

Now more than 200 letters exchanged between Julia and Avis DeVoto, her friend and unofficial literary agent memorably introduced in the hit movie Julie & Julia, open the window on Julia’s deepest thoughts and feelings. This riveting correspondence, in print for the first time, chronicles the blossoming of a unique and lifelong friendship between the two women and the turbulent process of Julia’s creation of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, one of the most influential cookbooks ever written.

Frank, bawdy, funny, exuberant, and occasionally agonized, these letters show Julia, first as a new bride in Paris, then becoming increasingly worldly and adventuresome as she follows her diplomat husband in his postings to Nice, Germany, and Norway.

With commentary by the noted food historian Joan Reardon, and covering topics as diverse as the lack of good wine in the United States, McCarthyism, and sexual mores, these astonishing letters show America on the verge of political, social, and gastronomic transformation.

Running With the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth ($2.02 / £1.29 UK), by Adharanand Finn, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $13.99). Note that although a Ugandan won the Olympic Gold, he had trained in Kenya since his teens and Kenya took both Silver and Bronze (and the top two slots in the London Marathon this year, as well).

Book Description
After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, from the Olympics to big city marathons, Runner's World contributor Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his family (and his running shoes), he moved from Devon to the small town of Iten, in Kenya, home to hundreds of the country's best athletes. Once there he laced up his shoes and ventured out onto the dirt tracks, running side by side with Olympic champions, young hopefuls and barefoot schoolchildren. He ate their food, slept in their training camps, interviewed their coaches, and his children went to their schools. And at the end of it all, there was his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in his first marathon, an epic race through lion country across the Kenyan plains. With global attention on both the London Marathon in April 2012 and the London Olympics in the summer, there has never been a more exciting time to experience what it is really like to train and race with the stars of distance running.

Revenge of the Witch ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first title in the Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney and Patrick Arrasmith, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. If you missed the incredible pricing snafu on this series last summer, this is your chance to start a good YA series.

Book Description
For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried–some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive. Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice. Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county ... ?

Grade Level: 8 and up

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself ($7.15 Hardcover, $1.99 B&N), by Lincoln Peirce, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (no Kindle edition). Note: PagePerfect™ NOOK Books require NOOK TABLET or NOOK Color with software version 1.4.

Book Description
Big Nate is in a class by himself!

But things don't always go your way just because you're awesome.

• Nate barely survives his dad's toxic oatmeal before rushing off to school—minus his lunch.
• He body slams the no-nonsense principal.
• He accidentally insults his least favorite teacher, the horrifying Mrs. Godfrey (aka Godzilla).
• And school has barely started!

Nate keeps his cool. He knows he's destined for greatness. A fortune cookie told him so.

For fans of the ever popular, ever hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid series: Get ready to meet Big Nate!

Grade Level: 3 and up

Free Book - The Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago (I)

The Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago, by by Wilco, is on iTunes, courtesy of dBpm Records / ANTI- (Warner Music). It's short, but includes behind the scenes shots and music (so is quite large); requires iBooks 2 and iOS 5.

Book Description
A document of Wilco's December 2011 Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago, during which they played a succession of intimate venues as a "thank you" to hometown fans. The book features exclusive photos of the shows, backstage video footage and audio, documenting this unique week of shows of one of America's foremost rock bands.

Get the free ebook from iTunes; also available for Canadians.

Today's Deals

Warren Adler is repeating his offer for a free copy of New York Echoes (DRM-free).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Time of the Dark ($1.99), the first title in the Darwath series by Barbara Hambly (Open Road). I bought this one the last time it was offered at this price.

Book Description
A murderous force threatens a far-off magical world, and an ordinary Californian is drawn into the battle to save mankind

As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows well the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams. She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat.

Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil's world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

The Report ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Jessica Francis Kane, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses and set off for the shelter of the tube station. But at the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes. But as Dunne gathers testimony from the guilt-stricken warden of the shelter, the priest struggling to bring comfort to his congregation, and the grieving mother who has lost her youngest daughter, the picture grows ever murkier. The more questions Dunne asks, the more difficult it becomes to disentangle truth from rumour – and to decide just how much truth the damaged community can actually bear. It is only decades later, when the case is reopened by one of the children who survived, that the facts can finally be brought to light …

Tall Tales and Wedding Veils ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jane Graves, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. Looks like I bought this one the last time it was on sale, also.

Book Description
Accountant Heather Montgomery is a planner. So never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd run into sexy charmer Tony McCaffrey in Vegas, play lady luck, and celebrate his jackpot with a champagne-soaked night. And she certainly never expected to wake up the next morning married! How could this good girl pick a man whose fridge is empty and whose apartment is a disaster zone, yet still drives her so crazy with lust she can't see straight?

Quickly hitched and happily ditched, Tony can't wait to get back to his playboy ways. But when Heather's family is thrilled that their no-nonsense daughter is finally in love, he proposes a plan: stay married for a month to repay his good luck charm, even though she sterilizes his toothbrush and forbids anything between the sheets. But Heather is more than he bargained for--a sharp-witted, passionate woman who just might turn his near miss into wedded bliss!

Madhattan Mystery ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by John J. Bonk, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. There aren't many customer reviews yet, but it does have a starred review from Booklist, so worth looking into for those with younger kids; at 300 pages, it'll also keep them busy for a while. I've reported the lower price; generally if enough people do, Amazon lowers their price by the afternoon/evening.

Book Description
Lexi and her younger brother, Kevin, are spending the summer in New York City with their colorful actress aunt while their father is away on his honeymoon with his new wife. Still mourning the loss of their mother, time in NYC should be a welcome change for Lexi and Kevin-assuming that the day camp they'll be attending isn't super lame.
But excitement finds Lexi and Kevin when, while waiting for their aunt in Grand Central in the famous Whispering Gallery, Lexi overhears a conversation about a big jewel heist going down. Once at Aunt Roz's, the siblings meet Kim Ling Levine in the building. Half Chinese, half Jewish, persuasive and all knowing, Kim Ling urges them to ditch day camp and dig into the more exciting mystery Alexi overheard in Grand Central. After several missteps and a run-in with a mischievous runaway can Lexi, Kevin, and Kim find out who's behind the jewel heist without getting into too much trouble themselves?

Age Level: 8 and up

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is This Is Where I Leave You ($2.99), by Jonathan Tropper. This Agency priced title is also today's Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd's wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio- shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva-and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and old passions are reawakened. Then Jen delivers the clincher: she's pregnant.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, and a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.

Fury of Fire ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), the first book in the paranormal romance Dragonfury series by Coreene Callahan, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.99/KLL eligible). Montlake Romance has the next two in the series also on sale at $3.99 in the US and pre-orders up for the first two titles in her next series.

Book Description
A clandestine race of half-dragon, half-humans known as dragon-shifters lives among us. Bastian, leader of the Nightfury dragon clan, is sworn to protect humankind at all costs. For him, honor and duty always come first. When the clan dictates he take a human mate to sire a son, he falters, aware that for a human to birth a dragon-shifter she must die. Myst, the woman given into his care, is the most extraordinary he’s ever met, and though he can’t bear the thought of harming her he is bound by duty.

Myst loves her life in the human world, but Bastian has captured her heart in an instant of electric connection. But Bastian and his warriors are in the middle of a deadly battle with the Razorback dragon-shifters, intent on killing every Nightfury clan member—and the humans they protect—the fate of their world and ours hangs in the balance.

An extraordinary blend of action, fantasy, and steamy romance, Fury of Fire brings to life a dangerous new world intertwined with the survival of humanity, all while exploring the meaning of honor and the nature of true love.

An Enhanced Edition of Mr. Popper's Penguins ($6.71 Kindle, $1.84 B&N), by Richard Atwater, Florence Atwater and Robert Lawson, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color or NOOK Tablet).

Book Description
The classic Newbery Honor Book-now enhanced with video

Mr. Popper has penguins in his fridge, an ice rink in the basement, and a family for whom life will never be the same

How many penguins in the house is too many? Mr. Popper is a humble house painter living in Stillwater who dreams of faraway places like the South Pole. When an explorer responds to his letter by sending him a penguin named Captain Cook, Mr. Popper and his family's lives change forever. Soon one penguin becomes twelve, and the Poppers must set out on their own adventure to preserve their home.

First published in 1938, Mr. Popper's Penguins is a classic tale that has enchanted young readers for generations.

Today's Deals

Additional formats on free books:

• Under the Olive Tree (K/N)
• Forty Stories (K/N)

The Fictionwise code this weekend is 081112, good for 60% off non-Samhain titles.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Debora Geary's "A Modern Witch" series for $1.99 per volume (half price).

Light contemporary fantasy with a good dose of humor, a little romance, and characters you won't want to leave. While each book tells a complete story, you'll enjoy the characters far more if you start at the beginning of the series.

A Modern Witch

Can you live 28 years without discovering you're a witch?

Lauren is downtown Chicago's youngest elite realtor. She's also a witch. She must be - the fetching spell for Witches' Chat isn't supposed to make mistakes. So says the woman who coded the spell, at least.

The tall, dark, and handsome guy sent to assess her is a witch too (and no, that doesn't end the way you might think). What he finds in Lauren will change lives, mess with a perfectly good career, and require lots of ice cream therapy.

A Hidden Witch

Elorie Shaw, steeped in the traditions of the Nova Scotia witching community, but not a witch. The fetching spell must have goofed this time... or did it?

Travel to Fisher's Cove, Nova Scotia, where Moira is matriarch and the old ways are nurtured and passed to the next generation. Where a crotchety old witch makes small children cry and builds walls around the silent pain in his heart. And where Elorie - sea-glass artist, inn owner, and Moira's granddaughter - makes her home.

The old magics are strong here. Which is all fine and good until the fetching spell pulls Elorie into Witches' Chat. Because she's not a witch. Or at least not any kind of witch the old ways recognize...

A Reckless Witch

With great power comes great responsibility. So says the tradition of witching. One teenage witch missed that lesson...

As a child, Sierra Brighton traveled the world. She swam with the baby whales, danced in storm funnels, and lived in complete magical freedom. And then Momma died and Sierra ended up in foster care, an unhappy and very secret witch.

Fetched by Nell's spell, she'll no longer need to do magic on lonely beaches - but can Sierra learn to use her power safely? Or will her reckless blood put Witch Central at risk?

A Nomadic Witch

Spring brings a traveler to Nova Scotia - a tiny babe who will turn Marcus's life upside down and reincarnate the horrifying events of his past.

Can Marcus find his way through the pain to love and healing? And can the witching community finally learn to keep their astral travelers safe?

Black Water Rising ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Attica Locke, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $1.99).

Book Description
Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget.

Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he's long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him.

Houston, Texas, 1981. It is here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night in a boat out on the bayou when he impulsively saves a woman from drowning—and opens a Pandora's box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston's corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.

With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer ($9.99 Kindle), by M. William Phelps, is the Nook Daily Find. It's not price matched on Kindle, B&N's Daily Find link doesn't take you anywhere and searching there for the title only brings up a full-price edition, so it probably won't be. So, instead, check out the B&N Weekend Deal, Mike Hammer: Lady, Go Die! ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, the sequel to I, the Jury.

Book Description
When Hammer and Velda go on vacation to a Long Island beach town, Hammer becomes embroiled in the mystery of a missing well-known New York party girl who lives nearby. When the woman turns up naked - and dead - astride the statue of a horse in the town square, Hammer feels compelled to investigate.

Mickey Spillane's lost 1940s Mike Hammer novel, written between I, the Jury and My Gun Is Quickand never before published! Completed by Spillane's friend and literary executor Max Allan Collins,Lady, Go Die is finally making its way into print almost 70 years after its inception!

Tuesdays at the Castle ($3.06 Kindle, B&N), by Jessica Day George, is the Nook Daily Find for Families, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celia’s favorite days. That’s because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing to itself. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one - other than Celia, that is - takes time to map out the new additions. But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and reportedly killed, it’s up to Celia with her secret knowledge of the Castle’s many twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom.

Age Level: 8 and up

Today's Deals

Audible's bi-annual Buy One Get One Free Sale is back for Members. Pick two audiobooks from the list, click to checkout and you'll use a single credit. If you are out of credits, you should make sure to use the Extra Credits page, which lets you buy three credits at a 20% discount ($35.88; exp 8/31).

The Kindle Big Deal is back, with more than 500 books starting at 99 cents.

Another new promotion at Kobo, which they are calling their Back To School Offer: Get 75% off Youth Fiction with code percyartemis75 (exp Aug 20). At least one good deal on the list: The Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer, for $2.99 with coupon (it appears that may be the only selection on the list for those in the UK).

The problem with the enhanced format for The End of the Affair has apparently been fixed at Audible. You should now be able to send it to your Kindle or download the best audio format and it is still free, if you haven't picked it up yet.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Pharmacology ($1.99), by Christopher Herz.

Book Description
1993. San Francisco. The digital and pharmaceutical industries are booming. They're looking for the young, the hip, and those on the counterculture fringe to be both the face and consumer of their new world order. Recruited by an advertising agency focused on targeting a new drug to her own age demographic, Sarah Striker is grateful for the steady income, but begins to question the side effects of the products she's pushing.

Sarah begins publishing an underground 'zine to expose the secrets behind the pharmaceutical industry's aims. Fulfilled by her quest to spread the truth, her new life seems to be working out perfectly--until she realizes that she herself is perilously close to becoming a victim of this new corporate world.

A kinetic, hyper-stylized jolt of pure energy, Herz delivers a strong follow up to his debut novel, The Last Block in Harlem. Full of vibrant characters and razor-sharp dialogue, Pharmacology captures the voice of the Internet generation with style, heart, and soul.

Your Writing Coach 2nd ed: From Concept to Character, from Pitch to Publication ($1.70 / £1.09 UK), by Jurgen Wolff, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Featuring exercises, quotes and encouragement Your Writing Coach,2nd edition shows you how to hook readers and keep them engaged and offers powerful tips on how to stay motivated and how to transform the inner critic into a constructive guide to get past the dreaded writer's bloc. Finally, this book offers updated advice on marketing yourself and your work, on ‘getting started’ and on the tremendous opportunities offered by the new media.

About the Author
Jurgen Wolff is a writer, teacher, and hypnotherapist. He is the author or co-author of five books, and the editor/publisher of BRAINSTORM, the creativity newsletter. In America, he was a Research Scientist for the American Institutes for Research, and a Senior Consultant to Learning Achievement Corporation.He has taught at the University of Southern California, been a Guest Lecturer at Le Conservatoire Europeen D'Ecriture Audiovisuelle, Paris, and a Tutor at the London School of Journalism.

The Edge of Grace ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Christa Allan, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
In a matter of seconds her entire world shifted...

An early morning call shatters Caryn Becker's world. Unable to cope with her brother’s news that he is gay, Caryn rejects him and disappears into her own turbulent life as a young widow and single mom. But when David is attacked and nearly killed, Caryn is forced to make hard choices about family, faith, and her own future; choices that take her to the very edge of grace.

Knitty Kitty and the Magic Ball of Yarn ($4.99 Kindle, $0.99 B&N), by Michael LeFort, Tamara Kowal and Katya Kotlyar, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad; note that the Kindle edition works only on Kindle Fire, Kindle for Android, Kindle for iPad or with Kindle Cloud Reader).

Book Description
Knitty Kitty lives in the beautifully upholstered and colorful Town of Yarn. Knitty comes from a long line of adventurous kitties. One day, Knitty uncovers a family tradition – The Magic Ball of Yarn that inspires amazing adventures to fabulous places. Join Knitty Kitty on a journey from a very small town to a very exciting new destination…The Big City! Knitty meets a new friend and starts a new life as an explorer!

Kindle DX $269!

Today only, the Kindle DX, Free 3G, 9.7" E Ink Display is $110 off, for a total of $269! In addition, it looks like most of today's Gold Box deals are Kindle related (mostly Kindle Fire accessories), so you'll want to keep an eye out on those today, tool.

This model includes 3G cellular service at no charge, including web browsing (which has been limited to WiFi mode with the Kindle Touch and that trend will no doubt continue). The promotional price will continue until midnight in Seattle or while supplies last. The dropdown will let you try to order up to 999 of these at the special price, but I didn't actually place them in the cart to see if it would really work.

Description
With a large, easy-to-read 9.7" E Ink display that reads like real paper and adjustable font sizes Kindle DX is the ideal e-reader for Dad. With free 3G wireless (no monthly payments or annual contracts), Dad can shop, download, and read right out of the box--no need to worry about Wi-Fi connections, passwords, or internet charges.

High Contrast E Ink Pearl Screen: Our graphite Kindle DX display uses the latest generation E Ink Pearl technology with 50% better contrast for the clearest text and sharpest images

Beautiful Large Display: The 9.7" diagonal E Ink screen is ideal for a broad range of reading material, including graphic-rich books, PDFs, newspapers, magazines, and blogs

Read in Sunlight with No Glare: Unlike backlit computer or LCD screens, Kindle DX's display looks and reads like real paper, with no glare. Read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Books In Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered wirelessly in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Free 3G Wireless: No monthly payments, no annual contracts. Download books anywhere, anytime

Today's Deals

Over at O'Reilly Books, they are running a 50% off sale on their 5-star ebooks (all DRM-free). Enter coupon code WK5STAR (expires August 16, 2012) during checkout. Mostly technical/computer type books, there's also mathematics, home chemistry experiments and one on training your brain included (which is also half-price and DRM-free on Kindle, no coupon required)

Today's the last day to use the surrender75 (75% off selected Romance) and GBAug04Save70 (70% off Bestsellers, UK only) coupon codes at Kobo. A new code, worth 40% off select amazing debut novels, is debut40 (exp 8/13).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is A Word Child ($1.99), by Iris Murdoch (Open Road).

Book Description
A brilliant but deeply flawed man struggles to earn absolution

Hilary Burde was a rising star in academia until a tragic accident plunged him and his mentor and rival, Gunnar Jopling, into two decades of depression and guilt. Hilary, unable to overcome his pain, abandoned his promising career for an unfulfilling job as a civil servant. But at age forty-one, Hilary crosses paths again with Gunnar—initiating a series of events that will change their lives forever.

Set against a richly drawn backdrop of post-war London, A Word Child is a gripping story of passion and the redemptive power of love.

Fold ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Tom Campbell, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
Five friends. One year. All bets are off.

Reading, 2009. It may not be Vegas, but for Nick, Doug, Vijay, Alan and Simon, it’s as good as they’re going to get.

Each in their forties, and beset by anxieties, flaws and frustrations, they meet monthly in each other’s houses for a ’friendly’ game of poker, enabling Doug to show off his new-minted wealth, Simon to insist on serving only red wine and goats’ cheese and Nick - swimming in a cocktail of envy, fear, bravado and disappointment - to make increasingly desperate attempts to bring an end to his interminable losing streak.

While Vijay meticulously records every win and loss on his spreadsheet, and Alan frets about his propensity to break into sweat and his inability to get his wife pregnant, Nick becomes obsessed with the idea of engineering Doug’s downfall: Doug, who with his big house, his successful business and his appalling taste is both everything that Nick aspires to and resents. Convinced of the heroic nature of his task, he aims to triumph over Doug in poker, as well as in life, and in doing so he comes into troubling proximity to Sophia, Doug’s clever and beautiful wife ...

Spartacus: Swords and Ashes ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by J.M. Clements, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Spartacus is the hit TV show which combines blood-soaked action, exotic sexuality, villainy and heroism. This original novel from the world of Spartacus: Blood and Sand tells a brand new
story of blood, sex and politics set in the uncompromising, visceral world of the arena.

The gladiator Spartacus, the new Champion of Capua, fights atthe graveside of a rich man who was brutally murdered by his own slaves. Seeing an opportunity, ambitious lanista Quintus Batiatus plots to seize the dead man’s estate.

In the arena blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands...

STAR FIGHTERS 1: Alien Attack ($3.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Max Chase, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Peri is a first-year student at the IF Academy and has been selected for a rare unsupervised exercise in space, paired with Diesel, a half-Martian from the Academy. While performing a routine exercise, they witness Earth coming under bombardment from Xion spaceships and soon find themselves behind the controls of the Phoenix, the most advanced space vessel known to man. As the Solar System is torn apart by a war between the Xions and Meigwors, Peri and Diesel are drawn helplessly into the intergalactic conflict. Now they - along with stowaway girl Selene - must work together to find a way home.

Age Level: 7 and up

Two Free Audiobooks - Skulduggery Pleasant and Dead Men Kill

There are two new free audiobook from Sync today. First, I've linked in the info from the ebook or audiobook version of each title (Amazon has the best reviews), followed by the link to get your copies free, with directions to ensure you get the complete download.

Start off with Scepter of the Ancients ($7.99 Kindle; $16.95 Audible), the first title in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, narrated by Rupert Degas. If you've been following the blog for a while, you have the ebook in your library, as it was free in all formats last October.

Book Description
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant

• Ace Detective
• Snappy Dresser
• Razor–tongued Wit
• Crackerjack Sorcerer
and
• Walking, Talking, Fire-throwing Skeleton

—as well as ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old.

These two alone must defeat an all-consuming ancient evil.

The end of the world?

Over his dead body.

Grade Level: 5 and up

Dead Men Kill ($0.00 Kindle $2.95 Audible), by L. Ron Hubbard, narrated by Jennifer Aspen and a Full Cast, is the second selection for this week.

Book Description
When several of the city's most respected citizens are inexplicably killed by what appear to be zombies, all Detective Terry Lane has to go on is a blue-grey glove, a Haitian pharmacy bill for some very unusual drugs, and a death threat from a mysterious stranger.

Matters are soon complicated when a beautiful nightclub singer shows up, claiming to have information that could solve the case. But her motives are plainly suspect. Against his better judgement, Terry investigates her lead, only to find himself sealed in a coffin en route to the next zombie murder - his own.

First published in 1934 in Thrilling Detective magazine, Hubbard's rollicking horror yarn just happens to tap into the current craze for zombies. Heroic Det. Sgt. Terrence "Terry" Lane looks into a deeply disturbing series of murders of powerful businessmen. Dawn Drayden, a pretty Club Haitian entertainer, confirms Lane's hunch that the killers are dead men "coming back from the grave and killing their employers." The zombie mastermind is the nefarious Dr. Leroux, originally of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, aka Loup-garou (or human hyena).

In the end, Drayden and Lane must face heart-pounding dangers once Dr. Leroux's secrets are revealed. This fun, campy novella reflects a contemporary revenge vibe felt by those who wouldn't mind dispatching a few zombies to punish criminally inclined businessmen.

Click HERE to get the free downloads (you'll need to enter your name and an email address. You'll end up clicking about three pages (for each book), before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up; there is a link at Sync, if you don't already have Overdrive installed).

Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started). Make sure your audiobook is fully downloaded before the end of the week, as once the promo period is over, you won't be able to get them free.

You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). Two new titles each Thursday!

Goodbye Kindle Touch?

If you've been thinking about buying a Kindle Touch, you may have waited too long. Specifically, the 3G edition is now marked as Currently unavailable, which usually indicates a Kindle model has been removed as an active item (although you can still buy some refurbished units, at least, for now). The WiFi only model appears to still be available, with Ads, but is on a 8-9 day backorder (the no-Ads model is gone and no refurbs appear to be available, either).

Rumors have been swirling for some time of a new Kindle model, perhaps in reaction to the nook Glow (which I've seen comments on returns and hassles with the lighting - I'm not surprised, as my Sony with edge lighting wasn't that great, either and it caused glare on the eInk screen due to the added glass layer). In the Kindle Store, you'll see the new picture above, which claims the Kindle family has only two entries now - the low end Kindle and the high end Kindle Fire. Left out are the Kindle Keyboard 3G and Kindle DX 3G, both of which are still available. I expect that sometime this month, that family will grow again, with a new eInk Kindle that is WiFi only and has some type of side-lighting (Amazon often reacts to a perceived lack of product features, even if it does mean the new model is less desirable by current customers, pandering to press reviews, rather than it's customers). I do know one thing - it most likely won't be called the "Kindle Glow", not only because the NOOK already is using Glow in it's name, but also because there is an outdoor space heater of that name (which, I suppose, you could use to read your current Kindle while staying warm outside, at night).

There are also rumors of a new, larger Kindle Fire. I'd love to see it; I already see that Amazon now allows us to view their new Kindle Textbooks on Android, not just on Apple's proprietary devices. Now, we just need to be able to view our Enhanced Content Kindle Books, complete with the embedded music and videos, on our Fires and I'll have one less reason to upgrade to Apple's new iPad. Hopefully, too, Amazon will add both a camera and the ability to add an SD/microSD card to their new tablet - the 8GB Fire is extremely limited (especially if you have a large library, as it wastes space on thumbnail cover images for every book in your library, space you can't get back if you keep any Kindle books on it). It would put them one step up on features vs. the iPad, but just keep them even with all the other Android Tablets out there (most of which are far superior to Amazon's device, but lack the integration with Amazon's content, something the iPad has been catching up on, since you can now watch Amazon Instant Videos on it).

I do know that one of Amazon's cover vendors, M-Edge, is in on the secret - they have already announced the new Kindle on their Facebook page (if it hasn't been pulled) and are running a sign-up list for the date the new covers are available for sale. Their contest ends TODAY, so the release must be imminent.

Did you know a new Kindle device is coming soon? What do you think will be the new, prime feature?

Answer in the comment box below for a chance to win any one FREE product from our website! Contest ends Thursday the 9th 5 pm EST.

Also, sign up here to be notified when your favorite M-Edge accessories hit the market:
http://app.medgestore.com/promos/newamazondevices.psp

Update: One rumor mentions that the current $47.40 price on the Kindle (see coupon code on right sidebar) will end on Aug 15. It's very unlikely that a new Kindle model will ship before then and we may even see the 16th as the date that pre-orders begin. It will be a long time without a touch model available, but the mini-Kindle will fill the void for those that don't want to step all the way up to a Kindle Keyboard or who don't want the heavier and less reading-friendly Kindle Fire tablet.