Holiday Reads on the Kindle

During the holiday season, there are always a number of Christmas themed books that debut and this year is no different. They genres run the gamut from the traditional religious to the inspirational to the humorous to family oriented/childres to the romantic, both contemporary and historical, to urban fantasy (Vampires at Christmas? Really?), but all have a holiday theme. Here are a sampling of the most popular this year that are available for the Kindle (with paperback or hardcover prices, if in that format as well, for those without a Kindle), none over $9.99 and some that are currently at bargain prices. Even if you haven't opened your Kindle from under the tree, if it is registered in your account, you can go ahead and start ordering books - they'll magically appear almost as soon as you turn it on (just plug in the charger and turn on both buttons on back - it can charge while you read).

The First Christmas, by Marcus J., Borg; $9.99 (Hardcover $15.61)

A Treasury of Christmas Miracles: True Stories of Gods Presence Today, by Karen Kingsbury; $7.99 (Hardcover $10.97)

The Purpose of Christmas, by Rick Warren; $9.59 (Hardcover $12.23)

Miraculous Journeys through London, by V. T. Valonius $4.79. This collection of 20 short stories have one thing in common: they describe "extraordinary things that might happen to ordinary people." Although the sample is, of course, free, you can buy an abbreviated version of this book as well: London: Miraculous Journeys (6 short stories) for 24 cents.

The Christmas Sweater, by Glenn Beck $9.99 (Hardcover $10.99)

The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits, by Les Standiford; $9.99 (Hardcover $13.57)

The Paper Bag Christmas, by Kevin Alan Milne; $7.42 (Hardcover $10.19)

An Irish Country Christmas, by Patrick Taylor; $9.99 (Hardcover $16.47)

Immoveable Feast, by John Baxter; $8.76 (Paperback $11.16)

A Cedar Cove Christmas, by Debbie Macomber; $9.99 (Hardcover $11.53)

Dashing Through the Snow by Mary Higgins Clark & Carol Higgins Clark; $9.99 (Hardcover $15.64)

A Dog Named Christmas, by Greg Kincaid; $9.99 (Hardcover $10.17)

Junie B., First Grader: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (P.S. So Does May.), by Barbara Park; $9.37 (Hardcover $9.37)

A Wallflower Christmas, by Lisa Kleypas; $9.99 (Hardcover $11.53)

A Stone Creek Christmas, by Linda Lael Miller; $3.60 (Paperback $4.99)

A McKettrick Christmas, by Linda Lael Miller; $6.94 (Hardcover $11.53)

It Happened One Night, by Mary Balogh, et al; $6.39 (Paperback $7.99)

Silver Bells, by JoAnn Ross, Fern Michaels; $4.54 (Paperback $7.99)

Snowy Night with a Stranger, by Jane Feather, et al; $4.54 (Paperback $7.99). A trilogy from Regency Romance authors.

A Historical Christmas Present, by Lisa Kleypas, Lynsay Sands, Leigh Greenwood; $3.19, a reissued anthology.

Christmas Train, by David Baldacci, $3.99 (Paperback $5.99)

All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire, by Kerrelyn Sparks; $4.54 (Paperback
$6.99)

The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore; $9.56 (Hardcover $10.87)

And for those not in the mood for a Christmas story and who want a little more action and perhaps practicality(!!) in their reading, be sure to check out The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, by Max Brooks, $9.99 (Paperback $11.16). After all, you never know when a you might need a zombie survival kit, containing at least "two emergency flares, a signaling mirror, daily rations, a personal mess kit and two pairs of socks." With Brook's experience as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, this one is bound to keep you laughing, which can be a good thing, this time of year.

Win a Sony PRS-505 in Sangria Red from BooksOnBoard!

As you may have guessed, I like ebooks a lot - they don't take up room on the shelves, I can carry my entire library with me (although I really only take the unread ones), letting me skip to another book as the mood strikes, a backup of my library fits on a single disk and can be stored offsite for recovery in the case of disaster (try that with a thousand or so paper books).

I currently use the Amazon Kindle for reading, but have used other devices in the past, including Palm readers and phones, my HTC phone and an iPod Touch. For those who don't yet have a reader or want to pick up another, and don't mind that it isn't compatible with the Amazon Kindle store, the Sony Reader is another alternative and Books onBoard is giving one away, in Sangria Red! Even though this reader isn't compatible with my Kindle Library, I have more than enough book in PDF, EPUB and eReader formats that this would be a welcome addition here.

I like Books on Board, even though their books are not Kindle compatible, as they can be read on the computer or the iPhone/iPod touch. They have a no-nonsense pricing structure, no club to join and when they have a book with reward dollars offered, you can use your existing reward dollars to buy it. They even have a free book now and then that lets you build you Reward Dollars balance without even giving them any money at all.

Be sure and enter the contest!

Rand McNally Atlas out for Kindle

I love Rand McNally's Road Atlas, but they can be awkward to use, folding out to take the entire dash or tabletop. They have now migrated three states to the Kindle, where they'll definitely cost less ($1.59), take less room (but do take about 4MB of space, each), but where I wonder if they'll be as useful. I can see why Washington is one of the first states included and it makes sense they stay on the west coast with their initial picks. You can now drive all over California (Northern and Southern) and Washington state with just your Kindle in hand, but if you want to get from one to the other, I guess you'd better stick with the interstate, for now, as Oregon hasn't been released yet.

Kindle Magazine Price Lowered

Cash: Personal Finance for Real People has as it's goal to help American consumers evaluate their options for spending, saving and investing across the broad range of decisions they confront every day. 

When I pointed out the the publisher that it was cheaper to just buy the weekly issues at $0.49/week versus subscribing at $2.49/month, that anyone who was serious about managing their cash would quickly conclude the same, and that relying on memory to go buy the issue would no doubt result in most people just reading an issue now and then, not to mention that their own press releases stated that the price would be $1.49/mnonth (a $12/year difference), they quickly agreed that the pricing was a problem and that they were working with Amazon to correct it. Only a few hours later, the price has been lowered to $1.49, perhaps one of the swiftest (hopefully permanent) price drops for a Kindle subscription. This magazine is a Kindle exclusive, also, something that the Amazon blog didn't make clear, but which is clearly spelled out in the companies press releases that were posted in news agencies across the web (but which are, oddly, difficult to impossible to find on the publisher's own web site). So, enjoy the price break - you can get this magazine for free for the rest of the year (first billing 12/31 if you order today or after 1/1 if you order tomorrow), then keep it for $1.49/month after that.

Free Ebook on Kindle: Private

Let's hope this one lasts longer than Flood (which was announced to be free thru January 3rd, but was only free for a few hours).

Kate Brian's new book, Privilege, is due out December 30th. To get you hooked on the author, you can download Private for free until January 15th. This is a young adult/children's selection.

Fifteen-year-old Reed Brennan wins a scholarship to Easton Academy--the golden ticket away from her pill-popping mother and run-of-the-mill suburban life. But when she arrives on the beautiful, tradition-steeped campus of Easton, everyone is just a bit more sophisticated, a bit more gorgeous, and a lot wealthier than she ever thought possible. Reed realizes that even though she has been accepted to Easton, Easton has not accepted her. She feels like she's on the outside, looking in.


Until she meets the Billings Girls...