A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly Jun 26/Jul 3

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the June 26th/July 3 issue include:


The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Lifeby Pam Grout. National Geographic. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "Who doesn't need some serious karma on their side." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"From building houses in Appalachia to saving sea turtles in Costa Rica to teaching English in Thailand, this book is a rich resource of ways to use your skills to help out the world and reap some lasting benefits yourself. Like its two predecessors, it includes an engagingly descriptive menu of choices for tastes and talents of all kinds, along with detailed specifics to turn good intentions into satisfying reality. Throughout, sidebars describe nearby places to visit, little-known facts, and more, providing depth and variety, while a comprehensive resource listing gives additional information about the different organizations offering volunteer vacations." - Amazon.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Random House. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes...the novel feels not discordant, but vibrantly whole." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (30 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"It's August of 1974, a summer 'hot and serious and full of death and betrayal,' and Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous universe of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives - a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge. All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges, occasionally converging. And when they coalesce in the final pages, the moment hums with such grace that its memory might tighten your throat weeks later..." - Mari Malcolm.

Boy Alone: A Brother's Memoirby Karl Taro Greenfeld. HarperCollins. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $14.29.
"Karl Taro Greenfeld knew from an early age that his little brother, Noah, was not like other children...No doctor, social worker, or specialist could pinpoint what was wrong with Noah beyond a general diagnosis: autism. The boys' parents, Josh and Foumi, dedicated their lives to caring for their younger son with myriad approaches - a challenging, often painful experience that the devoted father detailed in a bestselling trilogy of books. Now, for the first time, acclaimed journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld speaks out about growing up in the shadow of his autistic brother, revealing the complex mix of rage, confusion, and love that defined his childhood...Seamlessly weaving together the social history of autism and autism research - as the Greenfelds lived through it in seeking treatment for Noah - with the deeply affecting story of two very different boys growing up side by side..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin.

Capturing Lives: New Biographies & Memoirs for the Kindle (28 Jun 09)

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory - Antonio Porchia.

Given the burgeoning popularity of social media on the Internet, it is not surprising that biographies and memoirs are among the most popular reading choices of Kindle readers. Whether you enjoy reading of exemplary lives or living vicariously through celebrity memoirs, now you can spend less time searching and more time reading, as I watch for new biographies and memoirs in the Kindle Storeso you don't have to.



At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Lifeby Wade Rouse. Harmony. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life and a job he hates, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision of his life or the worst mistake since his botched Ogilvie home perm: to uproot his life and try, as Thoreau did some 160 years earlier, to 'live a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions.' In this rollicking and hilarious memoir, Wade and his partner, Gary, leave culture, cable, and consumerism behind and strike out for rural Michigan - a place with fewer people than in their former spinning class. There, Wade discovers the simple life isn’t so simple. Battling blizzards, bloodthirsty critters, and nosy neighbors equipped with night-vision goggles, Wade and his spirit, sanity, relationship, and Kenneth Cole pointy-toed boots are sorely tested with humorous and humiliating frequency. And though he never does learn where his well water actually comes from or how to survive without Kashi cereal, he does discover some things in the woods outside his knotty-pine cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan, that he always dreamed of but never imagined he’d find..." - Amazon.

Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyangby Adi Ignatius. Simon & Schuster. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (16 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give readers a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts...The premier spent the last sixteen years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion. An occasional detail about his life would slip out: reports of a golf excursion, a photo of his aging visage, a leaked letter to China's leaders. But China scholars often lamented that Zhao never had his final say. As it turns out, Zhao did produce a memoir in complete secrecy. He methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on what had happened behind the scenes during many of modern China's most critical moments. The tapes he produced were smuggled out of the country and form the basis for Prisoner of the State... Although Zhao now speaks from the grave in this moving and riveting memoir, his voice has the moral power to make China sit up and listen." - Simonandschuster.com.

Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilotby Andrea Leininger. Grand Central Publishing. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (35 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"This is the story of James Leininger, who - a little more than two weeks after his second birthday - began having blood-curdling nightmares that just would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like, 'Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!' the Leiningers finally admitted that they truly had to take notice. When details of planes and war tragedies no two-year-old boy could know continued - even in stark daylight - Bruce and Andrea Leininger began to realize that this was an incredible situation. Soul Survivor is the story of how the Leiningers pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that he was reliving the past life of World War II fighter pilot James Huston. As Bruce Leininger struggled to understand what was happening to his son, he also uncovered details of James Huston's life - and death - as a pilot that will fascinate military buffs everywhere." - Amazon.

The Art of Making Moneyby Jason Kersten. Gotham. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30.
"The true story of a brilliant counterfeiter who made millions, outwitted the Secret Service, and was finally undone when he went in search of the one thing his forged money couldn't buy him: family. Art Williams spent his boyhood in a comfortable middle-class existence in 1970s Chicago, but his idyll was shattered when, in short order, his father abandoned the family, his bipolar mother lost her wits, and Williams found himself living in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. He took to crime almost immediately, starting with petty theft before graduating to robbing drug dealers. Eventually a man nicknamed DaVinci taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeiting. After a stint in jail, Williams emerged to discover that the Treasury Department had issued the most secure hundred-dollar bill ever created: the 1996 New Note. Williams spent months trying to defeat various security features before arriving at a bill so perfect that even law enforcement had difficulty distinguishing it from the real thing. Williams went on to print millions in counterfeit bills, selling them to criminal organizations and using them to fund cross-country spending sprees. Still unsatisfied, he went off in search of his long-lost father, setting in motion a chain of betrayals that would be his undoing..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegerenby Jonathan Lopez.

Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legendby Larry Tye. Random House. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in the Negro Leagues. Through dogged detective work, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher, interviewing more than two hundred Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers, talking to family and friends who had never told their stories before, and retracing Paige’s steps across the continent...More than a fascinating account of a baseball odyssey, Satchel rewrites our history of the integration of the sport, with Satchel Paige in a starring role..."- Amazon.

A Final Arc of Sky: A Memoir of Critical Careby Jennifer Culkin. Beacon Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 (6 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"Over three decades, more than 4,000 patients and their loved ones have shared their most wrenching ultimate experiences with Culkin, a critical care nurse living near Seattle. In this compelling memoir, her moving reflections on life and death interweave clinical encounters with her own life. She looks back at the clockwork of hormones as she began her relationship with her future husband while working 12-hour shifts in a San Francisco intensive-care nursery, moving on to become a traveling nurse in Anchorage, then living in the Alaskan wilderness, completely alone at the edge of the civilized universe. Her marriage, sons, problems with her parents and family dynamics intertwine with memories of patients extricated from wreckage and an impromptu procedure in a helicopter on a patient who couldn't breathe..." - Publishers Weekly.

Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moonby Buzz Aldrin and Ken Abraham. Harmony. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $14.85.
"The flight of Apollo 11 made Aldrin one of the most famous persons on our planet, yet few people know the rest of this true American hero’s story. In Magnificent Desolation, Aldrin not only gives us a harrowing first-person account of the lunar landing that came within seconds of failure and the ultimate insider’s view of life as one of the superstars of America’s space program, he also opens up with remarkable candor about his more personal trials - and eventual triumphs - back on Earth. From the glory of being part of the mission that fulfilled President Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon before the decade was out, Aldrin returned home to an Air Force career stripped of purpose or direction, other than as a public relations tool that NASA put to relentless use in a seemingly nonstop world tour. The twin demons of depression and alcoholism emerged - the first of which Aldrin confronted early and publicly, and the second of which he met with denial until it nearly killed him...As an adventure story, a searing memoir of self-destruction and self-renewal, and as a visionary rallying cry to once again set our course for Mars and beyond, Magnificent Desolation is the thoroughly human story of a genuine hero." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrongby James R. Hansen.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (26 Jun 09)

JUNE 27 UPDATE: If thrillers are your genre of choice, go grab this new free offering at Amazon: Joseph Finder's Paranoia.St. Martin's Press, 2004.
"In another age, a genre thriller fairly required the brandishing of a weapon and blood smeared on the floor. Finder's latest is the archetype of the thriller in its contemporary form: e-mail is the means of communication and threat, industrial espionage among nasdaq competitors the field of violence." - The New Yorker.
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Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. In this weekly Kindle Reader feature, I point you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free Kindle e-books this week include two science fiction short stories, a novel of life after death, an omnibus collection of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, philosophical essays of a remarkably modern nineteenth century thinker, and the Agatha Christie mystery that first introduced the characters of Tommy and Tuppence to Christie's readers.

The Man Who Could Not Forget by MIchael Graeme. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Mobipocket/Kindle. Price: FREE.
"...I have a problem with my memory. It isn't that it ever fails me - quite the opposite in fact. Indeed, my recall of events from all but the earliest years of my life is truly photographic, so there was little doubt in my mind the woman before me now was the one who had stolen the book...." - Feedbooks.

The Matt Zander Journals by Gary Denne. NOVEL. Download site: Author's web site. Format: Click on "Alt Formats" to get the Kindle/PRC file. It's zipped up along with the PDF, HTML, etc. versions. Price: FREE.
Also available in a paperback edition for the Kindle-less.
"Matt Zander, under-achieving supermarket clerk, wakes in a downtown Toronto hospital after he was shot during a bungled robbery of his bosses' luxurious home. As memory of his near-death experience begins to fade, he furiously scribbles down everything he remembers of his journey to the other side..." - Amazon.

Oz Omnibus by L. Frank Baum. FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: PRC. Price: FREE.
An omnibus collection of all of the fourteen Oz books plus the short story collection.

Post-Prandial Philosophyby Grant Allen, 1848-1899. ESSAYS. Download site: Amazon. Format: AZW. Price: FREE.
I couldn't resist finding out more about the author of this collection of essays with the intriguing title. Born in Canada and educated in Great Britain and France, Grant Allen was a truly prolific writer, polymath and passionate advocate of the theory of evolution about whom Frank Harris said he "...could turn you out a first-rate article on almost any subject from the growth of the idea of God to the habits of the caterpillar, at a moment's notice, and without perceptible exertion." This collection of essays is a good introduction to the mind of the man. I especially enjoyed the first essay, The Struggle for Life Among Languages, Allen's response to a friend's insistence that Italian was destined to become the predominant world language of the future. Allen is best known for his novels The Woman Who Didand An African Millionaire.

Reel Life Films by Sam Merwin. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY (19 pages). Download site: Manybooks.net. Format: AZW. Price: FREE.
"At least a contributing factor to the current cycle of science fiction movies being made in Hollywood is the touchiness of minorities having their nationals being portrayed as villains. Cinema-makers are now trying to avoid further boycotts by using space aliens for villains. But suppose some of our Extraterrestrial neighbors are also a bit touchy? Pity the poor purveyor of mere entertainment in today's world. He can't afford to offend a soul, yet must have a villain." - Manybooks.

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. MYSTERY. Download site: Manybooks.net. Format: AZW. Price: FREE. Also available for $0.99 from Amazon.
"Set in 1919, young couple Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley form a partnership, hiring themselves out as 'young adventurers'. Their first case, however, is more of an adventure than they expect - working to find documents that, if they were known to the general public, would fuel a communist revolution in Britain." - Manybooks.

PC Magazine Now Available for the Kindle

Amazon has just added PC Magazine
to its roster of magazines available for the Kindle. The price of $1.49 per month includes free automatic wireless delivery of each issue at the same time the paper version hits the newsstands. All subscriptions begin with a 14-day free trial period.

"Business buyers and consumers of computing and consumer electronic products turn to PC Magazine as the trusted online brand for lab-based product reviews, news, buying guides, expert analysis and commentary, and special features. Our readers use this information to make informed purchasing decisions for themselves and to advise others on a wide range of products from desktops and printers to digital cameras and software and services. The Kindle Edition of PC Magazine contains most articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images." - PC Magazine.

Kindle Genre Watch (23 Jun 09)

Genre fiction - as opposed to nonfiction, graphic novels and picture books - lends itself to enjoyable Kindle reading because when you pick up a book of fiction you don't necessarily expect it to be illustrated. Authors of mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, romance novels and westerns paint word pictures and their readers use their own imagination to picture the scene of the crime or the stare of a vampire or the track of an alien space craft hurtling towards earth.

Now you can spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Storeso you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases include:

MYSTERIES

Relentless by Dean Koontz. Bantam. Kindle edition $9.99.
"Bestselling novelist Cullen 'Cubby' Greenwich is a lucky man and he knows it. He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children’s book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old,... and a non-collie named Lassie, who’s all but part of the family... So Cubby knows he shouldn’t let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to him - even if it does appear in the nation’s premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic, Shearman Waxx...Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a career - or a life. But Shearman Waxx isn’t what Cubby expects; and neither is the escalating terror that follows..." - Amazon.

The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner. Bantam. Kindle edition $9.99.
"It was a case guaranteed to spark a media feeding frenzy - a young mother, blond and pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter as the only witness and her handsome, secretive husband as the prime suspect. But from the moment Detective Sergeant D. D. Warren arrives at the Joneses’ snug little bungalow, she senses something off about the picture of wholesome normality the couple worked so hard to create... " - Amazon.

Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novelby Jeffery Deaver. Simon & Schuster. Kindle edition $9.99.
"The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways - not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intention to kill. And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways: using the personal details about the victims that they've carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites. The case lands on the desk of Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation's foremost kinesics - body language-expert. She and Deputy Michael O'Neil follow the leads to Travis Brigham, a troubled teenager whose role in a fatal car accident has inspired vicious attacks against him on a popular blog, The Chilton Report. As the investigation progresses, Travis vanishes...In signature Jeffery Deaver style, Roadside Crosses is filled with dozens of plot twists, cliff-hangers and heartrending personal subplots. It is also a searing look at the accountability of blogging and life in the online world. - Amazon.

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Deceptionby Robert Ludlum and Eric Van Lustbader. Grand Central Publishing. Kindle edition $9.99.
"After Bourne is ambushed and nearly killed while in Indonesia, he fakes his death to take on a new identity and mission - to find out who is trying to assassinate him. In the process, Bourne begins to question who he really is and what he would become if he no longer carried the Bourne identity. Across the globe, an American passenger airliner is shot down over Egypt - apparently by an Iranian missile - leaving the world wondering if it was an accident or an act of aggression. A massive global team lead by Soraya Moore is assembled to investigate the attack before the situation escalates..." - Amazon.

FANTASY

Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Storeby Robin Sloan. Robinsloan.com. Kindle edition $0.80. Short story.
"This is a modern fairy tale. It's a story about finding a job, having a weird boss, and meeting someone you like. But behind it all, there's a mystery: What is the secret of Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store? This is also a story about books, writing, and technology. So, if you're someone who's interested in the Kindle itself - if you're interested in what it suggests about the future - then you'll probably find something to enjoy here." - Amazon.

Santa Oliviaby Jacqueline Carey. Grand Central Publishing. Kindle edition $9.99.
"After her mother dies, Loup goes to live among the misfit orphans at the parish church, where they seethe from the injustices visited upon the locals by the soldiers. Eventually, the orphans find an outlet for their frustrations: They form a vigilante group to support Loup Garron who, costumed as their patron saint, Santa Olivia, uses her special abilities to avenge the town..." - Amazon.

ROMANCE

Finding Julietby Frank Sennett. Soft Touch Press. Kindle edition $0.99.
"Dearest Juliet, Rather than kill myself, I have decided to pour my grief into a letter this night. Would only that you had done the same upon finding your lover dead with lips still warm and touched with poison." ...Lia Cattaneo never thought she’d be living back home in Verona, Italy, at 28. But here she is, hiding from the world and her philandering husband in her father Salvatore’s apartment for yet another day as she works up the courage to take an intensive cooking class she’s had her eye on...Nick Moore, a literature grad student at Southern Oregon University, home of the well-regarded Ashland Shakespeare Festival, meanwhile has written the above letter as a seminar assignment. Every year, the professor sends the best letter to Juliet’s Club in Verona, where volunteer scribes reply to letters addressed to Shakespeare’s Juliet. Nick has recently ended a long-term relationship, and he drew on this pain to craft his note. Soon, Nick receives a reply so moving that it inspires him to meet the real woman behind it during Verona's annual Juliet festival, setting in motion a series of events that leads to a dramatic, romantic and suitably Shakespearean climax on the festival’s closing day... - Amazon.

Hidden Currentsby Christine Feehan. Jove. Kindle edition $6.39.
"Kidnapped by Stavros Gratsos, a powerful and sadistic psychic businessman, Elle Drake, the fiery-tempered telepathic youngest of the magically gifted Drake sisters, is rescued by her family and the man she loves, Jackson Deveau, but returns home a shattered shell. Jackson gradually draws her out of her mental hell, but Stavros wants Elle back, and he threatens to destroy everyone she loves to make it happen." - Kristin Ramsdell for Library Journal.

Matters of the Heart by Danielle Steel. Delacorte Press. Kindle edition $9.99.
"Hope Dunne is one of the best photographers in the world, so naturally National Book Award winner Finn O’Neill wants her to do the portrait for his next book cover. Hope goes to London, expecting a photo shoot that lasts a couple of days, tops, but soon succumbs to Finn’s devilish good looks and endless charm. The trip to love is short, and Finn soon talks Hope into staying at his Irish family’s ancestral home. But Ireland isn’t the paradise Hope imagined. Discovering that Finn has told her one untruth after another, Hope has to accept that he is a sociopathic liar..." - Shelley Mosley for Booklist.

The Angelby Carla Neggers. Mira. Kindle edition $5.76.
"...When Keira Sullivan, a young Boston illustrator and folklorist, decides to travel to Ireland to research a Celtic legend about three brothers battling for a stone angel, she pays no heed to warnings not to go from eccentric antiques collector Victor Sarakis, even after Victor drowns under suspicious circumstances in the Public Garden pond. At a Beacon Hill benefit, Keira fortuitously meets FBI agent and search-and-rescue expert Simon Cahill, who later volunteers to locate Keira after she goes missing in southwest Ireland. When Simon rescues the trapped Keira from an ancient ruin, the stone angel she claims to have found disappears and mysteriously reappears in the United States. Is it magic or the work of a madman? Either way, fans of romantic suspense will be charmed." - Publishers Weekly.

Rogue of My Own by Johanna Lindsey. Pocket Ebooks. Kindle edition $14.29.
"How does an innocent lady find herself forced to wed a royal spy who seduced her - by mistake? For Lady Rebecca Marshall, a whirlwind of passion and excitement begins when, to her mother's great delight, she becomes a maid of honor at the court of Queen Victoria. Rebecca's mother sees this appointment as a golden opportunity for Rebecca to make a good match. At court, Rebecca innocently steps into the rivalry between the queen's spymaster and the noblewoman in charge of the maids of honor who is using the maids to spy on powerful courtiers. Soon Rebecca is entangled in a web of deceit with the charming marquis Rupert St. John...What she doesn't know is that Rupert is a secret agent of the crown who leads a double life. " - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: The Devil Who Tamed Her- an earlier historical romance by Lindsey.

SCIENCE FICTION

Hazeby L. E. Modesitt, Jr. Tor. Kindle edition $9.99.
"What lies beneath the millions of orbiting nanotech satellites that shroud the world called Haze? Major Keir Roget’s mission is to make planetfall in secret, find out, and report back to his superiors in the Federation, the Chinese-dominated government that rules Earth and the colonized planets. For all his effectiveness as a security agent, Roget is troubled by memories of an earlier mission. When he was assigned to covert duty in the Noram backcountry town of St. George, he not only discovered that the long-standing Saint culture was neither as backward nor as harmless as his superiors believed, but he barely emerged with his life and sanity whole. Now, scouting Haze, he finds a culture seemingly familiar, yet frighteningly alien..." - Amazon.

The Works of Andre Alice Norton. Douglas Editions. Kindle edition $0.80.
13 works of A. A. Norton in one collection. Includes All Cats Are Gray, The Defiant Agents, The Gifts of Asti, Key Out of Time, Plague Ship, Ralestone Luck, Rebel Spurs, Ride Proud, Rebel!, Star Born, Star Hunter, Storm Over Warlock, The Time Traders and Voodoo Planet. Please note that all these books are also available individually for free download from Manybooks.net.

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi. Omen by Christie Golden. LucasBooks. Kindle edition $14.85.
"...Han and Leia are at home on Coruscant, as more Jedi go crazy, government pressure on the Jedi increases, and the media swarm the Temple. Ben and Luke continue their quest to uncover Jacen’s secrets as each of the crazed Jedi was in contact with him and is exhibiting powers previously only displayed by Jacen. They travel deep into the Rift to encounter a mysterious group of beings with a strange relationship with the Force, using it to power their ships and see the future. A new complication is introduced with a secret lost planet full of Sith...and Jacen’s trail appears to be leading Luke and Ben into their midst... - Jessica Moyer for Booklist.
$9.99 or less alternative: The first book in this series - Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi. Outcast by Aaron Allston. Text-to-speech is disabled for this book.

Star Trek: The Original Series. Troublesome Minds by Dave Galanter. PKT HC JV eBooks. Kindle edition $7.99.
"While exploring the unmapped frontier, the Starship Enterprise responds to a distress call from an unknown ship. Captain James T. Kirk turns first contact into a threat of interstellar war - by saving the life of a man left to die by his own people. Berlis, colony leader of a telepathic race calling themselves the Isitri, claims not to know why those from his homeworld want him dead. Kirk wants to believe him, but it matters little since the damage is already done: the Enterprise can neither leave the stranger to die nor turn him over to those who would kill him without trial..." - Amazon.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

WESTERNS

The Log of a Cowboy A Narrative of the Old Trail Daysby Andy Adams. Kindle edition $0.99. Also available for free download from Manybooks.net.
"The most significant fictional treatment of the cattle drive alongside Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove." - Richard W. Etulain, in his introduction.

Smoke from This Altarby Louis L'Amour. Bantam. Kindle edition $9.99. Not a western, but I thought that Louis L'Amour fans might like to know it is now available for the Kindle.
"...a book that has become legendary among Louis L'Amour readers - the very first book he ever published. It appeared, to great critical praise, for sale only in Oklahoma bookstores more than fifty years ago. Since then it has become the most sought-after L'Amour title of all, with the few circulating copies from the small print run commanding top dollar from rare book collectors...the poems in this book are inspired by his experiences and memories of his journeys across oceans and continents. It is vintage L'Amour storytelling - in verse - about nature, the land, and the people who loved and braved it." - from the publisher.

The Man With The Iron Badgeby J. R. Roberts. (The Gunsmith, 331). Jove. Kindle edition $4.79.
"Young Sheriff Dan Starkweather sure hates his outlaw father - but he sure can shoot. Clint Adams is impressed and agrees to help track the senior Starkweather’s ruthless gang." - penguingroup.com.

The Kindle Reads Oprah's Books of Summer 2009

In the July 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazinefeatures 25 Books You Can't Put Down, a list of recommended books for summer reading.

Interested in finding out how many of these books Oprah will actually be able to read on her Kindle, I checked and found that 15 of the 25 titles are now available for Kindle readers. Ten are only available in dead tree form.

Kindle Editions:

Admissionby Jean Hanff Korelitz. NOVEL. Grand Central Publishing, 2009. $9.99.
"Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its core." - Amazon.

Columbineby Dave Cullen. NONFICTION. Twelve, 2009. $9.99.
"In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers-an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times." - Amazon.

Eye of My Heartby Barbara Graham. ESSAYS. HarperCollins, 2009. $9.99.
"In illuminating, unsentimental essays, 27 writers offer up insights on the tricky art of grandmothering." - People Magazine.

The Glisterby John Burnside. NOVEL. Nan A. Talese, 2009. $9.99.
"...a cautionary tale illustrating that greed and an indifference to suffering are the real horrors of modern life. In recent years, five teenage boys have disappeared from the coastal village of Innertown, where an abandoned chemical plant deep in the forest is slowly poisoning its rapidly declining population. The official line is that the missing boys are seeking a better life away from the town whose sole business is slow decay. A 15-year-old lad, who's found solace in books and foreign films that he can barely understand, is determined to find out what happened to his friends..." - Publishers Weekly.

Farm Cityby Novella Carpenter. MEMOIR. Penguin Press, 2009. $14.27.
"Urban and rural collide in this wry, inspiring memoir of a woman who turned a vacant lot in downtown Oakland into a thriving farm...an unforgettably charming memoir, full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmers' tips, and a great deal of heart. It is also a moving meditation on urban life versus the natural world and what we have given up to live the way we do." - Amazon.

The Food of a Younger Landby Mark Kurlansky. NONFICTION. Riverhead, 2009. $9.99.
"...Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional... " - Amazon.

Heroic Measuresby Jill Ciment. NOVEL. Pantheon, 2009. $9.99.
"A gasoline tanker truck is 'stuck' in the Midtown Tunnel. New Yorkers are panicked...Is this the next big attack? Alex, an artist, and Ruth, a former schoolteacher with an FBI file as thick as a dictionary, must get their beloved dachshund, whose back legs have suddenly become paralyzed, to the animal hospital sixty blocks north... In shifting points of view - Alex’s, Ruth’s, and the little dog’s - man, woman, and one small tenacious beast try to make sense of the cacophony of rumors, opinions, and innuendos coming from news
anchors, cable TV pundits, pollsters, bomb experts, hostages, witnesses, real estate agents, house hunters, bargain seekers, howling dogs, veterinarians, nurses, and cab drivers." - Amazon.

Let the Great World Spinby Colum McCann. NOVEL. Random House, 2009. $9.99.
"...a novel of electromagnetic force that defies gravity. It's August of 1974, a summer "hot and serious and full of death and betrayal," and Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous universe of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives - a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge. All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges, occasionally converging. And when they coalesce in the final pages, the moment hums with such grace that its memory might tighten your throat weeks later..." - Mari Malcolm.

Lime Tree Can't Bear Orangeby Amanda Smyth. NOVEL. Three Rivers Press, 2009. $9.99.
"Raised in the tropics of Tobago by an aunt she loves and an uncle she fears, Celia has never felt that she belonged. When her uncle - a man the neighbors call Allah because he thinks himself mightier than God - does something unforgivable, Celia escapes to the bustling capital city. There she quickly embraces her burgeoning independence, but her search for a place to call home is soon complicated by an affectionate friendship with William, a thoughtful gardener, and a strong sexual tension with her employer..." - Amazon.

A Moveable Feastby Ernest Hemingway. MEMOIR. Scribner, 2004. Originally published in 1964. $9.99.
"Hemingway's memories of his life as an unknown writer living in Paris in the 1920s are deeply personal, warmly affectionate and full of wit. He recalls the time when, poor, happy and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation." - Amazon.

A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden McClure. MEMOIR. HarperCollins, 2009. $14.29.
"During June 1998, Tori McClure set out to row across the Atlantic Ocean by herself in a twenty-three-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail. Within days she lost all communication with shore, but nevertheless she decided to keep going. Not only did she lose the sound of a friendly voice, she lost updates on the location of the Gulf Stream and on the weather. Unfortunately for Tori, 1998 is still on record as the worst hurricane season in the North Atlantic. In deep solitude and perilous conditions, she was nonetheless determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. When she was finally brought to her knees by a series of violent storms that nearly killed her, she had to signal for help and go home in what felt like complete disgrace. Back in Kentucky, however, Tori's life began to change in unexpected ways. She fell in love. At the age of thirty-five, she embarked on a serious relationship for the first time, making her feel even more vulnerable than sitting alone in a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic. She went to work for Muhammad Ali, who told her that she did not want to be known as the woman who 'almost' rowed across the Atlantic Ocean." - Amazon.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. NOVEL. Quirk Books, 2009. $7.77.
"This may be the most wacky by-product of the busy Jane Austen fan-fiction industry - at least among the spin-offs and pastiches that have made it into print. In what’s described as an 'expanded edition' of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with 'ultraviolent zombie mayhem.' For more than 50 years, we learn, England has been overrun by zombies, prompting people like the Bennets to send their daughters away to China for training in the art of deadly combat, and prompting others, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to employ armies of ninjas. Added to the familiar plot turns that bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together is the fact that both are highly skilled killers, gleefully slaying zombies on the way to their happy ending..." - Mary Ellen Quinn for Booklist.

Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on the Planetby Susan Brackney. NONFICTION. Perigee, 2009. $9.99.
"Featured recently in major national news stories because they are disappearing at an alarming rate, bees are the unsung - and absolutely essential - heroes of the food chain. Now they get their due in this delightfully illustrated, fact-filled book, courtesy of a professional beekeeper and nature writer..." - penguingroup.com.

Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horneby James Gavin. BIOGRAPHY. Atria, 2009. $14.85.
"...At the 74th annual Academy Awards in 2002, Halle Berry thanked Lena Horne for paving the way for her to become the first black recipient of a Best Actress Oscar. Though limited, mostly to guest singing appearances in splashy Hollywood musicals, 'the beautiful Lena Horne,' as she was often called, became a pioneering star for African Americans in the 1940s and fifties. Now James Gavin...draws on a wealth of unmined material and hundreds of interviews - one of them with Horne herself - to give us the defining portrait of an American icon..." - Amazon.

What I Thought I Knewby Alice Eve Cohen. MEMOIR. Viking, 2009. $9.99.
"...At age forty-four, Alice Eve Cohen was happy for the first time in years. After a difficult divorce, she was engaged to an inspiring man, joyfully raising her adopted daughter, and her career was blossoming. Alice tells her fiancé that she's never been happier. And then the stomach pains begin. In her unflinchingly honest and ruefully witty voice, Alice nimbly carries us through her metamorphosis from a woman who has come to terms with infertility to one who struggles to love a heartbeat found in her womb - six months into a high-risk pregnancy..." - Amazon.

Paper Editions:

Camillaby Madeleine L'Engle. NOVEL. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. $11.53.
"Fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson has led a sheltered life on the Upper East Side with her architect father and stunningly beautiful mother. But this winter the security she has always known has vanished, because her parents’ marriage is coming apart - and Camilla is caught in the middle. She finds a way to escape her troubles when she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who is someone she can really talk to about life, death, God, and her dream of becoming an astronomer. When Frank introduces her to the important people in his life, who are so different from anyone she has met before, he opens her eyes to worlds beyond her own, almost as if he were a telescope helping her to see the stars." - Amazon.

Dreaming in Hindiby Katherine Russell Rich. MEMOIR. Houghton Mifflin, 2009. $17.16.
"Having miraculously survived a serious illness and now at an impasse in her career as a magazine editor, Rich spontaneously accepted a free-lance writing assignment to go to India, where she found herself thunderstruck by the place and the language...In this inspirational memoir, Rich documents her experiences in India ranging from the bizarre to the frightening to the unexpectedly exhilarating using Hindi as the lens through which she is given a new perspective not only on India, but on the radical way the country and the language itself were changing her." - Amazon.

Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloudedited by Robert Pinsky. POETRY. W. W. Norton & Co., 2009. $19.77.
"A vibrant anthology and accompanying CD that revive a great American tradition: the joy of reciting poetry aloud...Robert Pinsky, beloved for his ability to bring poetry to life as spoken language, has collected poems that sound marvelous..., including poems by William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost, placed among contemporary poems by John Ashbery, Louise Glück, Yusef Komunyakaa, and many others. This is an inviting and distinguished collection and an essential book for every home." - Amazon.

The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastardsby Robert Boswell. SHORT STORIES. Graywolf Press, 2009. $13.74.
"Set mainly in small, gritty American cities no farther east than Chicago and as far west as El Paso, each of these stories is a world unto itself. Two marriages end, one by death, the other by divorce, and the two wives, lifelong friends, become strangers to each other. A young man’s obsession with visiting a fortune-teller leaves him nearly homeless. And in the unforgettable title story, a man dubbed Keen recounts the summer he spent on a mountain with his best friend, Clete, and a loose band of slackers, living in a borrowed house, abstaining from all drugs (other than mushrooms and beer) - and ultimately asking just what kind of harm we can do to one another." - Amazon.

A Meaningful Lifeby L.J. Davis. NOVEL. NYRB Classics, 2009. Originally published in 1971. $10.17.
"...a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’s novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his wife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it." - Amazon.

One D.O.A., One on the Wayby Mary Robison. NOVEL. Counterpoint, 2009. $15.64.
"...effortlessly smart, deliriously off-kilter story of an extended New Orleans family trying to reclaim a shadow of their former selves...With her trademark biting humor and breathtaking facility with language, Mary Robison thus sets the stage for a beguiling Southern Gothic sure to delight both her fanatical following and new readers alike." - Amazon.

The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighborsby Hal Niedzviecki. NONFICTION. City Lights Publishers, 2009. $12.21.
"We have entered the age of 'peep culture': a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security, and even humanity. Peep culture is reality TV, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, over-the-counter spy gear, blogs, chat rooms, amateur porn, surveillance technology, Dr. Phil, Borat, cell phone photos of your drunk friend making out with her ex-boyfriend, and more. In the age of peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing. With hilarious, exasperated acuity, social critic Hal Niedzviecki dives into peep..." - Amazon.

Poems from the Women's Movement (American Poets Project)by Honor Moore. POETRY. Library of America, 2009. $13.60.
"The women's movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s generated an extraordinary outpouring of poetry that captured an age of expectancy, of defiant purpose, and exuberant exploration. Here, brought together for the first time, are the poems that gave voice to a revolution, including works by Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Anne Sexton, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, May Swenson, Alice Walker, Anne Waldman, Sharon Olds, and many others." - Amazon.

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Artby Margaret Leroy. NONFICTION. Penguin Press, 2009). $17.79.
"Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices...The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars...Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and...meticulously researched..." - Amazon.