Get $2 in Instant Videos for Free

If you have a Facebook account, you can claim a $2 Instant Videos credit by letting Amazon post to your wall. You enter a movie you like (or whatever you want posted to your wall) and click; the credit is then added to your account automatically (no codes to keep track of).

Some of the Fine Print

• Promotional credits must be redeemed by 11:59 PM PST on May 29, 2012. (that's today, guys and gals!)
• Limit one promotional credit per Amazon customer
• Amazon Instant Video is available to customers located and with billing addresses in the United States.

ETA: You need to sign up for the credit today and use it today, as well. However, if you purchase a video, you can watch it at any time and most rentals give you 30 days to start watching them (a few don't; you can always check in the Rights & Requirements section to see the rules for each video). I'm combining this credit with a $3 credit I had (that expires soon) to grab two rentals that I can watch anytime in the next month!

Today's Deals

For those in the UK only: The Kindle Touch Prize Draw: Amazon.UK is giving away a Kindle Touch or a £100 Amazon.co.uk gift card to ten randomly drawn fans who enter their prize draw. Simply 'Like' their Amazon Kindle UK Facebook page, and then submit your details in the form on the "Kindle Touch Prize Draw" tab for a chance to win.

The Borrowers ($1.49 Kindle, B&N), by Mary Norton, Beth Krush (Illustrator) and Joe Krush (Illustrator), is the Nook Daily Find for Families, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
The Borrowers—the Clock family: Homily, Pod, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Arrietty, to be precise—are tiny people who live underneath the kitchen floor of an old English country manor. All their minuscule home furnishings, from postage stamp paintings to champagne cork chairs, are “borrowed” from the “human beans” who tromp around loudly above them. All is well until Pod is spotted upstairs by a human boy! Can the Clocks stay nested safely in their beloved hidden home, or will they be forced to flee? The British author Mary Norton won the Carnegie Medal for The Borrowers in 1952, the year it was first published in England.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating ($1.99), a memoir by Elisabeth Tova Bailey.

Book Description
In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a Neohelix albolabris -a common woodland snail.

While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater under standing of her own confined place in the world.

Intrigued by the snail-s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and mysterious courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, providing a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.-

Told with wit and grace, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world illuminates our own human existence and provides an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.

Wahoo Rhapsody ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Shaun Morey, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.99/KLL Eligible).

Book Description
Take one sea-loving captain, a drug-smuggling first mate, and a novice deckhand with a secret, and you have the motley crew of the Wahoo Rhapsody, a ramshackle fishing charter plying the Pacific’s waters off the coast of Cabo San Lucas. Captain Winston Weber makes an honest, if lean, living running fishing charters between Mexico and California, with no inkling of the fact that his first mate, Weevil Ott, is smuggling marijuana inside the yellowfin tuna stacked in the boat’s hold. But when Weevil decides to skim a small fortune for himself, goons under orders from the mysterious drug lord known only as “La Cucaracha” descend upon the Wahoo Rhapsody. What ensues is a madcap romp that will catapult readers from Cabo San Lucas to Tucson and San Diego, as Winston, Weevil, and an expat American lawyer by the name of Atticus Fish try to outrun La Cucaracha’s bloody reach. Fans of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard will relish this rollicking satirical adventure from award-winning writer Shaun Morey.

Friday Nights ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Joanna Trollope, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
From the master of literary domestic drama, a page-turning novel that dissects the complexities of female friendship and the choices that define women’s lives.

It is Eleanor who starts the Friday night get-togethers. From her window she sees two young women, with small children, separate, struggling, and plainly lonely—and decides to ask them in.

What began as a lark soon becomes a ritual, and the circle widens to include six very different women. They range in age from Jules, who is twenty-two and wants to be a DJ, to Eleanor herself, a retired professional who walks with a stick. They include one wife, three mothers, three singles, and five working women. All of them, variously, value Friday nights.

Until one of them meets a man—an enigmatic, significant man—and the whole dynamic changes. The bonds that have been so closely forged are tested—and some of them break.

With wit and warmth, Joanna Trollope explores the complexities, the sabotages, and the shifting currents of modern female friendship.

Today's Deals Update

There are a lot of free books today, so my Daily Deals post is probably on page 2 by now (if not page 3). The Nook Daily Find for Families was finally updated (although I think my pick was a better deal), so I'm including it below. Also, don't forget to leave a comment to get into the contest for the iTunes codes; I'll draw the winners tomorrow.

Mater the Greater (Cars Toons) ($1.99 B&N), by Disney, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad). This is just one of the stories originally published in Cars Toons: Mater's Treasury of Tall Tales; there are no Kindle editions for the collection or most of the individual stories.

Book Description
As a daredevil, Mater the Greater performs terrifying stunts in front of huge audiences. He leaps over long lines of cars, shoots through a ring of flames, even rides on the wings of an airplane! Will he be able to perform his biggest stunt yet?

In this NOOK Kids Read to Me book, children can choose to hear the story read aloud, tap to enlarge text and pinch & stretch to zoom in on pictures.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Summer Son ($0.99), by Craig Lancaster. Looks like it was on sale for this price in early 2011, as this is the same price I paid for it then.

Book Description
Product Description
He owed a lot of people, but I was the only one left to collect. I told myself that I didn’t care about him, only about what he owed me, whatever that was.

I even tried to believe it.

When Mitch Quillen’s life begins to unravel, he fears there is no escape. His marriage and his career are both failing, and his relationship with his father has been a disaster for decades. Approaching forty, Mitch doesn’t want to become a middle-aged statistic. When his estranged father, Jim, suddenly calls, Mitch’s wife urges him to respond. Ready for a change, Mitch heads to Montana and a showdown that will alter the course of his life. Amid a backdrop of rugged peaks and valleys, the story unfolds: a violent episode that triggered the rift, thirty years of miscommunication, and the possibility of misplaced blame. In Craig Lancaster’s powerful novel, The Summer Son, readers are invited into a family where conflict and secrets prevail, and where hope for healing and redemption is possible.

The Spa Decameron ($1.55 / £0.99 UK), by Fay Weldon, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $8.15).

Book Description
Ten high achieving ladies are gathered together in the week between Christmas and the New Year, at the expensive Castle Spa, seeking, through Botox, aromatherapy and general all round pampering, a new beginning to their lives.

The Ladies lounge around in the Jacuzzi, drinking champagne and eating chocolate telling each other the stories of their lives. Starting with the Trophy wife's tale: her spell in a Greek prison has left her in serious need of a makeover; the Brain Surgeon's tale: of twins and mistaken identity; the Judge's tale: of the sex change which allowed him to judge the pleasures of the bedchamber from both male and female perspectives. The manicurist, the public speaker, the journalist, the company director, the ex vicar's wife, the screenwriter, all share their stories, ending with the stepmother's tale, a reversal of Cinderella's fate, with the stepmother as victim… Sparkling, witty, always compassionate and occasionally libidinous, Fay Weldon's new novel recalls Boccaccio's late medieval masterwork, The Decameron. Boccaccio dedicated his book to the ladies of his time, who were forced to hide their amorous passions under a veil of discretion, while men were free to indulge theirs.

Those Who Save Us ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jenna Blum, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.

Sally Goes to the Beach ($13.83 Hardcover, $0.99 B&N), by Stephen Huneck, is my pick forthe Nook Daily Find for Families (which is apparently taking the day off); no Kindle edition. One of his childrens's books was the Nook DFF choice at the end of April (at $2.49), but right now you can get all the books in the series for 99 cents apiece, so you may want to stock up. Requires NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad.

Book Description
Sally, a spirited black Labrador retriever, is very excited. She is going to the beach! When she arrives, Sally encounters new friends, new smells, new games, and, best of all, new adventures. Told from the dogs point of view and brought to life through charming and brightly colored artwork, this endearing story of Sally's vacation is the perfect companion to a child's own trip to the beach or any new place. Beautifully illustrated, this classic tale captures the imagination of readers and dog lovers of all ages and inspires a love of reading.


Stephen Huneck's Sally Series follows Sally the iconic black Labrador retriever throughout her many exciting adventures. Sally is a curious and fun-loving dog. Sally makes the acquaintance of many interesting characters and visits fascinating places along the way. These digital stories are presented with robust color illustrations created directly from Huneck's exquisite woodcut prints.

Contest - iTunes Codes

OK, I promised you guys another contest and here it is. I have a number of extra iTunes codes that are up for grabs. All you have to do is leave a comment, along with your first and second choice and some method to get in touch with you. Any comment that doesn't include contact info will be disqualified.

Here's what there is to choose from:

• App - Lostwinds (2)
• App - Golfplan (2)
• Song - Banjo by Leonard Cohen (2)
• Book - After Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger (4)
• TV Episode - No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain - Naples (2)

The book looks pretty short and is iBooks compatible only.