The Kindle Does Halloween: Mystery Fiction for the Holiday

Once the trick-or-treaters are gone and you've eaten all those Snickers bars you cleverly held back for yourself, relax, curl up with your Kindle, and enjoy one of these Halloween-themed books for folks like me who enjoy a good mystery with a Halloween theme.

A Catered Halloween, by Isis Crawford. Kensington Books. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"With the promise of a hefty commission and some valuable word-of-mouth for their catering business, A Little Taste of Heaven, sisters Bernadette and Libby Simmons agree to cater the charity haunted house being staged at the old Peabody School. But when wealthy socialite Amethyst Applegate is found dead in the haunted house, Bernie and Libby wonder if a murderer might also be lurking about Peabody's gloomy halls." - Amazon.

Ladies Courting Trouble, by Dolores Stewart Riccio. Kinsington. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $8.55. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When Cass Shipton, a Wiccan, is invited to speak to a neighborhood church's Ladies' League, she has no idea that hemlock-laced brownies are on the menu. Not everyone survives the murder attempt, and soon Cass, owner of Earthlore Herbal Preparations and Cruelty-Free Cosmetics, and her brave Wiccan cohorts - wise woman-librarian Fiona Ritchie, doll designer Deidre Ryan, wealthy animal advocate Heather Devlin, and television chef Phillipa Stern - are on the case... A selection of Riccio's wonderful recurring characters add to the fun, including Freddie, the young telekinetic computer whiz; Tip, a Native American teenager and expert tracker; Cass' Greek husband, Joe, a militant Greenpeace activist; and Scruffy, the sassy, telepathic pooch." - Booklist.

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man, by Wendelin Van Draanen. Knopf. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (14 reviews) Kindle edition $5.20. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"What does Frankenstein have that a skeleton wants? Sounds like a bad Halloween joke. But Sammy Keyes isn't laughing. She's the one who collided with the skeleton while he was making his getaway. And she's the one who discovered Frankenstein tied to a chair with his head twisted around. Someone's taken 'trick or treat' way too far. When Sammy tries to puzzle out what really happened Halloween night, she's amazed at how many people have something to hide - and how far they'll go to keep their disguises intact." - from the hardcover. edition.
"If Kinsey Millhone ever hires a junior partner, Sammy Keyes will be the first candidate on the list. She's feisty, fearless, and funny. A top-notch investigator!" - Sue Grafton.

North Pole Lost and Other Holiday Stories, by William H. Cooke. Undertaker Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $1.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Strange. Disturbing. Bizarre even. That is the world through William H. Cooke's eyes. And he shares his decidedly different vision of culture and politics in these four short stories and two novelettes. From a zombie family Thanksgiving, through Santa's failing holy war on the Leprechauns, to the inquest into the death of the Easter Bunny lead by a disillusioned, dope-smoking cat prosecutor named Edgar, the author presents a disturbing world set against the horror that is the holidays. Curl up with your back against the wall and visit..." - Amazon.

Halloween Rain (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), by Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden. Simon Spotlight Entertainment. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (53 reviews). Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in the all the world, to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. Around Sunnydale, they say a scarecrow saturated with Halloween rain will come alive and slaughter anyone in sight. (Lovely place, Sunnydale.) Buffy's best friends, Xander and Willow, used to think the tale was nonsense - but after a few adventures with Buffy, they're not so sure. Even without a maniacal scarecrow, a Sunnydale Halloween is a truly horrific happening. There are enough zombies and vampires about, ready to party hearty and eat some brains, to keep the Slayer and her friends up all night. And then rain starts to fall..." - Amazon.

Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie. Publisher. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (37 reviews). Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Mystery writer Ariadne Oliver has been invited to a Hallowe'en party at Woodleigh Common. One of the other guests is an adolescent girl known for telling tall tales of murder and intrigue - and for being generally unpleasant. But when the girl, Joyce, is found drowned in an apple-bobbing tub, Mrs Oliver wonders after the fictional nature of the girl's claim that she had once witnessed a murder. Which of the party guests wanted to keep her quiet is a question for Ariadne's friend Hercule Poirot. But unmasking a killer this Hallowe'en is not going to be easy - for there isn't a soul in Woodleigh who believes the late little storyteller was actually murdered." - Amazon.

Halloween, by Melanie Jackson. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $2.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Do you remember your scariest Halloween ever? James Henderson does. It was the year he turned ten. What started out as a sensible plan to collect the most candy while trick-or-treating soon turned into a terrifying adventure for James, his two friends and his kid brother, Ricky." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 30 Oct 09

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the October 30th issue include:


Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving. Random House. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...if you're a fan of ambitious, chaotic, plot-and-character-driven storytelling, you'll love this book." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (27 reviews). Kindle edition $15.40. Price Alert: Hardcover edition of this book is selling for $15.47 at Amazon. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County - to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto - pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River...depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.' From the novel’s taut opening sentence...to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving’s breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp."
$9.99 or less alternative: Irving's earlier novel A Widow for One Year.

Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk. Knopf. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...Pamuk successfully retains his role as literature's guide to Istanbul...which, like Pamuk is caught between two worlds and fully belongs to neither." Amazon customer rating: 3 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $15.92. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeoisie... A stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and of the mysterious allure of collecting, The Museum of Innocence also plumbs the depths of an Istanbul half Western and half traditional - its emergent modernity, its vast cultural history." - from the hardcover edition.
$9.99 or less alternative: Pamuk's earlier novel, Snow.

Tempted, by P. C. Cast & Kristin Cast. Book 6 in the House of Night series that began with the publication of Marked in 2007. St. Martin's Press. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...It's only when they reach the killer cliff-hanger that you'll accuse them of moving too swiftly." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Price Alert: Hardcover edition of this book is selling for $9.89 at Amazon. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"So...you’d think after banishing an immortal being and a fallen High Priestess, saving Stark’s life, biting Heath, getting a headache from Erik, and almost dying, Zoey Redbird would catch a break. Sadly, a break is not in the House of Night school forecast for the High Priestess in training and her gang. Juggling three guys is anything but a stress reliever, especially when one of them is a sexy Warrior who is so into protecting Zoey that he can sense her emotions... Aphrodite’s visions warn Zoey to stay away from Kalona and his dark allure, but they also show that it is Zoey who has the power to stop the evil immortal. Soon it becomes obvious that Zoey has no choice: if she doesn’t go to Kalona he will exact a fiery vengeance on those closest to her..." - us.macmillan.com.

The Children's Book, by A. S. Byatt. Knopf. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...massive, highly researched...brings to life England between Victoria 1895 and the end of World War I." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (26 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"If you buried The Children's Book under a few inches of leafy mulch, it might begin to sprout - that's how alive it is, how potent. David Copperfield, Prospero, Jane Eyre, and others haunt this novel, poised on the cusp of the 20th century, in which a raggedy kiln worker's son crosses class boundaries to practice pottery; a lovely matriarch writes dark fairy tales; children waste away from toxic family secrets; and ambitious women strain against tradition. Byatt is a master storyteller, but even more spellbinding than this novel's descriptions of nature and the supernatural is its intensely personal narrative of the Great War, where dreams of justice and mercy die hard." - Cathleen Medwick for O, The Oprah Magazine .

The Humbling, by Philip Roth. Houghton Mifflin. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...an entertaining inquiry into the relationship between sex and creativity, sex and age, and sex and the ego (see a theme?)" Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $14.30. Price Alert: Hardcover edition of this book is selling for $12.87 at Amazon. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Everything is over for Simon Axler, the protagonist of Philip Roth's startling new book. One of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his sixties, he has lost his magic, his talent, and his assurance. His Falstaff and Peer Gynt and Vanya, all his great roles, 'are melted into air, into thin air.' When he goes onstage he feels like a lunatic and looks like an idiot. His confidence in his powers has drained away; he imagines people laughing at him; he can no longer pretend to be someone else. 'Something fundamental has vanished.' His wife has gone, his audience has left him, his agent can't persuade him to make a comeback. Into this shattering account of inexplicable and terrifying self-evacuation bursts a counterplot of unusual erotic desire, a consolation for a bereft life so risky and aberrant that it points not toward comfort and gratification but to a yet darker and more shocking end." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Roth's novella, The Dying Animal.


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Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (27 Oct 09)

Follow the talk shows? Here's a selection of forthcoming Kindle books by authors scheduled for interviews on TV and radio programs. Books are arranged in chronological order by the date of the scheduled interview.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (02 NOV 09):

More Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, by Guy Fieri. HarperCollins. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Guy Fieri strikes again with More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, giving you a road map to road food that's earned its culinary citizenship in 'Flavortown.' Join Guy on a cross-country noshing parade, mapping out the best places you've never heard of - more than fifty establishments off the beaten path. Compete in a (no hands) apple-pie-eating contest at Bobo Drive-In in Topeka, Kansas, dip your taste buds in Sweet Spicy Love sauce at Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken in Memphis, Tennessee, and get a load of the killer four-cheese mac-and-cheese at Gorilla Barbeque in Pacifica, California..." - www.harpercollins.com.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (02 NOV 09)

Unsweetined, by Jodie Sweetin. Simon Spotlight Entertainment. Kindle edition $14.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Jodie Sweetin grew up in front of America, melting our hearts and making us laugh for eight years as the cherub-faced middle child on Full House. Her ups and downs seemed not so different from our own, but more than a decade after the popular television show ended, the star we knew as goody-two-shoes Stephanie Tanner publicly revealed her shocking recovery from methamphetamine addiction. Even then, Jodie still kept a painful secret - one that could not be solved in thirty minutes with a hug, a stern talking-to, or a bowl of ice cream around the family table. In her deeply personal, utterly raw, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Jodie comes clean about the double life she led - the crippling identity crisis that began at her birth, the hidden anguish of juggling a regular childhood with her Hollywood life, and the vicious cycle of abuse and recovery that led to a relapse even as she wrote this book. Today, Jodie's life is a work in progress. Resilient, charming, and funny, she writes candidly about taking each day at a time." -books.simonandschuster.com.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (05 NOV 09)

My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times, by Harold Evans. Little, Brown & Company. Kindle edition $14.78. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In My Paper Chase, Harold Evans recounts a wild and wonderful tale of newspapering life. His story stretches from the 1930s to his service in WWII, through towns big and off the map. He discusses his passion for the crusading style of reportage he championed, his clashes with Rupert Murdoch, and his struggle to use journalism to better the lives of those less fortunate. There's a star-studded cast and a tremendously vivid sense of what once was: the lead type, the smell of the presses, eccentrics throughout, and angry editors screaming over the intercoms. ...Evans is the author of the New York Times bestseller The American Century."- Amazon.

ON ABC'S 20/20 (06 NOV 09) and ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (10 NOV 09) and
ON COMEDY CENTRAL'STHE COLBERT REPORT (12 NOV 09)

Under the Dome, by Stephen King. Scribner. Hardcover edition $9.99. The Kindle edition (to be released December 24) is not yet available for pre-order.
"On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as 'the dome' comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when - or if - it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens - town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing - even murder - to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out." - Amazon.


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Savoring the Past: New Kindle Books for History Buffs (25 Oct 09)

History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity. - Dexter Perkins.

The American philosopher George Santayana is quoted as saying that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. With more than 27,000 books in the Amazon Kindle bookstore "history" category, Kindle-owning history buffs will not run out of reading material any time soon. Recent history nonfiction includes:

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, by Antony Beevor. Viking. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (14 reviews). Kindle edition $18.12. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's not the title of Antony Beevor's new book that tells the tale, but the subtitle. One third of the way through his more than 500 pages of text, Beevor has finished off D-Day. Allied troops and materiel have successfully (if bloodily) secured the beaches of Normandy, but their job has only just begun. Ahead lies the battle for Normandy itself, two and a half months of vicious fighting, frequently hand to hand, before the liberation of Paris in late August. It is a dramatic, important and instructive story, and Beevor tells it surpassingly well. D-Day is very much a work of military history, so of necessity it is chockablock with the sort of battlefield chess-playing that can leave the nonmilitary mind in a state of considerable confusion. But Beevor is less interested in moving troops from pillar to post than in telling us what war was like for them and for the civilians whose paths they crossed. Readers fortunate enough to know his previous books - among them Paris After the Liberation (with Artemis Cooper, 1994), Stalingrad (1998) and The Fall of Berlin 1945 (2002) - are aware that his fascination with warfare is compounded by a deep knowledge, not always encountered in military histories, that war is hell." - Jonathan Yardley for The Washington Post.

Dancing in the Dark, by Morris Dickstein. Countryman. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $15.82. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"From Agee to Astaire, Steinbeck to Ellington, the creative energies of the Depression against a backdrop of poverty and economic disaster. In this timely and long-awaited cultural history of the 1930s, Morris Dickstein, whom Norman Mailer called 'one of our best and most distinguished critics of American literature,' explores the anxiety and hope, the despair and surprising optimism of distressed Americans at a time of dire economic dislocation. Bringing together a staggering range of materials-from epic Dust Bowl migrations and sharecropper photographs to zany screwball comedies, wildly popular swing bands, and streamlined Deco designs-this eloquent work highlights the pivotal role of culture and government intervention in hard times. Exploding the myth that Depression culture was merely escapist, it concentrates instead on the dynamic energy and insight the arts could provide and the enormous lift they gave to the nation's morale." - Amazon.

The American Civil War, by John Keegan. Knopf. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $19.25. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name. Now Keegan examines these and other puzzles with a peerless understanding of warfare, uncovering dimensions of the conflict that have eluded earlier historiography... Out of a succession of mythic but chaotic engagements, he weaves an irresistible narrative illuminated with comparisons to the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and other conflicts." - from the hardcover edition.

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy, by David Hoffman. Doubleday. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $18.48. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"During the Cold War, world superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the 'Dead Hand,' a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses... Drawing on top-secret documents from deep inside the Kremlin, memoirs, and interviews in both Russia and the United States, David Hoffman introduces the scientists, soldiers, diplomats, and spies who saw the world sliding toward disaster and tells the gripping story of how Reagan, Gorbachev, and many others struggled to bring the madness to an end. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the danger continued, and the United States began a race against time to keep nuclear and biological weapons out of the hands of terrorists and and rogue states." - from the hardcover edition.

The War That Killed Achilles, by Caroline Alexander. Viking. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The story of the Trojan War is immortalized in Homer's epic of epic poems, the Iliad, and brought to new life in Caroline Alexander's The War That Killed Achilles. Beyond the trial of Paris, the battle over Helen of Troy, and the incessant intervention of the gods lies a sincere tale of war. While Homer touches on only a few weeks of what is said to have taken ten years, Alexander brings to light the forgotten message behind the poem: the misery of war and the sacrifice and courage of its soldiers. Through the hero Achilles, the Iliad draws on the true nature of what it means to be a soldier, to fight a bloody conflict whose hallmarks are not honor and glory so much as deception, betrayal, petulance, pride, violence, and the inescapability of fate. The War That Killed Achilles is a poignant dissection of the epic poem relevant to all wars, past and present." - The New York Society Library, Library Notes.

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood. (Oxford History of the United States). Oxford University Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (28 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Integrating all aspects of life, from politics and law to the economy and culture, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation. Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University." - Amazon.

Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth, and Power - A Dispatch from the Beach, by Gerald Posner. Simon & Schuster. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $14.85. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Here, in all its neon-colored, cocaine-fueled glory, is the never-before-told story of the making of Miami Beach. Gerald Posner, author of the groundbreaking investigations Case Closed and Why America Slept, has uncovered the hair-raising political-financial-criminal history of the Beach and reveals a tale that, in the words of one character, 'makes Scarface look like a documentary.' From its beginnings in the 1890s, the Beach has been a place made by visionaries and hustlers. During Prohibition, Al Capone had to muscle into its bootlegging and gambling businesses. After December 1941, when the Beach was the training ground for half a million army recruits, even the war couldn't stop the party. After a short postwar boom, the city's luck gave out. The big hotels went bankrupt, the crime rate rose, and the tourists moved on to Disney World and the Caribbean. Even after the Beach hosted both national political conventions in 1972, nobody would have imagined that this sandy backwater of run-down hotels and high crime would soon become one of the country's most important cultural centers. But in 1981, 125,000 Cubans arrived by the boatload. The empty streets of South Beach, lined with dilapidated Art Deco hotels, were about to be changed irrevocably by the culture of money that moved in behind cocaine and crime." - Amazon.

Inside the Kingdom, by Robert Lacey. Viking. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $14.76. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox. It is a modern state driven by contemporary technology and possessed of vast oil deposits, yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back a thousand years to match those of the prophet Muhammad. With Inside the Kingdom, journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. While living for years among the nation's princes and paupers, its clerics and progressives, Lacey endeavored to find out how the consequences of the 1970s oil boom produced a society at war with itself. Filled with stories that trace a path through the Persian Gulf War and the events of 9/11 to the oilmarket convulsions of today, Inside the Kingdom gives us a modern history of the Saudis in their own words, revealing a people attempting to reconcile life under religious law with the demands of a rapidly changing world. ...a penetrating look at a country no one can afford to ignore." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 23 Oct 09

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the October 23rd issue include:


Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman. Scribner. ESSAYS. EW's slant: "...comes off practically as a shut-in (albeit one with a top-notch DVD collection) ...despite being stuck a bit too much in his own head, Klosterman's essays are still both witty and clever." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Chuck Klosterman has chronicled rock music, film, and sports for almost fifteen years. He's covered extreme metal, extreme nostalgia, disposable art, disposable heroes, life on the road, life through the television, urban uncertainty and small-town weirdness. Through a variety of mediums and with a multitude of motives, he's written about everything he can think of (and a lot that he's forgotten). The world keeps accelerating, but the pop ideas keep coming. In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny." -books.simonandschuster.com.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen. Henry Holt. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...hilarious collection of musings on Janzen's childhood, marriage, and eccentric family.". Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (27 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At first, the worst week of Janzen's life - she gets into a debilitating car wreck right after her husband leaves her for a guy he met on the Internet and saddles her with a mortgage she can't afford - seems to come out of nowhere, but the disaster's long buildup becomes clearer as she opens herself up. Her 15-year relationship with Nick had always been punctuated by manic outbursts and verbally abusive behavior, so recognizing her co-dependent role in their marriage becomes an important part of Janzen's recovery (even as she tweaks the 12 steps just a bit). The healing is further assisted by her decision to move back in with her Mennonite parents, prompting her to look at her childhood religion with fresh, twinkling eyes." - Publishers Weekly.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (21 Oct 2009)

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 e-book selections for this week include Mary Hunter Austin's paean to the high desert regions of Southern California, two Philip K. Dick short stories (one fantasy and the other science fiction), an adventure story set in 1930s Palestine, and a collection of biographical sketches published in 1918 recounting the lives of 28 famous Americans including Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell, Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain.

The Land of Little Rain, by Mary Hunter Austin. NONFICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .PRC for Kindle. Price: FREE.
"Mary Hunter Austin was born on September 9, 1868 in Carlinville, Illinois (the fourth of six children) to George and Susannah (Graham) Hunter. She graduated from Blackburn College in 1888. For 17 years she made a special study of Indian life in the Mojave Desert, and her publications set forth the intimate knowledge she thus acquired. She was a prolific novelist, poet, critic, and playwright, as well as an early feminist and defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights. She is best known for her tribute to the deserts of the American Southwest, The Land of Little Rain." - MobileRead.

Beyond the Door, by Philip K. Dick. First published in Fantastic Universe (January 1954). FANTASY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .PRC for Kindle. Price: FREE.
The original blurb: "Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead - that it might possibly love and hate just as easily as a real animal of flesh and blood? Philip Dick used that idea for this brief fantasy tale. We’re sure that after reading it you’ll give cuckoo clocks more respect."

The Defenders, by Philip K. Dick. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .PRC for Kindle. Price: FREE.
First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1953. No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war - perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves!



Affair in Araby, by Talbot Mundy. ADVENTURE/PULP FICTION. First published in 1933 as The King in Check. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.AZW). Price: FREE.
"A highly exciting adventure story featuring James Schuyler Grim, better known as Jimgrim. Jimgrim is an American secret service agent employed by the British and stationed in Jerusalem. With him are his faithful sikh shadow, an American and an ex-soldier of the Australian forces, all eager for a fight of any kind. This opportunity soon presents itself, as the ambitions of the French in Syria arouse the enmity of King Feisal of the Arabs. For his aid in WWI, the Allies promised Feisal the kingship of Syria, Palestine and Trans-Jordania. This promise they have not kept, however, and the French are out to discredit or kill the Arab chieftain. To further their ends, an order is forged, ostensibly from Feisal to his Arab adherents, which calls for a massacre of the Jews in Jerusalem." - Amazon.

Modern Americans: A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades, by Grace Arlington Owen and Chester Milton Sanford. BIOGRAPHY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.AZW). Price: FREE.
Include: Calvin Coolidge, Thomas A. Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt, John Pershing, William Howard Taft, Luther Burbank, Clara Barton, George W. Goethals, James Whitcomb Riley, Helen Keller, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Robert E. Peary, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Ford, Ben B. Lindsey, Frances Willard, Jane Addams, John Mitchell, Maude Ballington Booth, Andrew Carnegie , Anna Shaw, Ernest Thompson Seton, John Wanamaker, Woodrow Wilson, Mark Twain and Warren G. Harding.


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Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (19 Oct 09)

Follow the talk shows? Here's a selection of forthcoming Kindle books by authors scheduled for interviews on TV and radio programs. Books are arranged in chronological order by the date of the scheduled interview.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (19 OCT 09):


When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, by Gail Collins. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Picking up where her previous successful, and highly lauded book, America's Women, left off, Gail Collins recounts the sea change women have experienced since 1960. A comprehensive mix of oral history and Collins's keen research, this is the definitive book about five crucial decades of progress, told with the down-to-earth, amusing, and agenda-free tone this beloved New York Times columnist is known for. The interviews with women who have lived through these transformative years include an advertising executive in the 60s who was not allowed to attend board meetings that took place in the all-male dining room; and an airline stewardess who remembered being required to bend over to light her passengers' cigars on the men-only 'Executive Flight' from New York to Chicago." - Amazon.

ON THE CBS EARLY SHOW (20 OCT 09):


What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle edition $15.39. Kindle price alert: The Kindle edition of this book costs more than the $15.11 hardcover. What's that about? Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard - but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century? In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point; Blink; and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period. ...yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary." - Amazon.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (23 OCT 09):


29 Gifts, by Cami Walker. Da Capo Press. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At age thirty-five, Cami Walker was burdened by a battle with multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological condition that made it difficult for her to walk, work, or enjoy her life. Seeking a remedy for her depression after being hospitalized, she received an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman: Give to others for 29 days. 29 Gifts is the insightful story of the author's life change as she embraces and reflects on the naturally reciprocal process of giving and receiving. Many of Walker's gifts were simple - a phone call, spare change, a Kleenex. Yet the acts were transformative. By Day 29, not only had Walker's health and happiness improved, but she had created a worldwide giving movement. The book also includes personal essays from others whose lives changed for the better by giving..." - Amazon.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (27 OCT 09):


My Life Outside the Ring, by Hulk Hogan. Thomas Dunne Books. Kindle edition $14.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Whether it was in the ring during his decades-long wrestling career, or in his home during his popular reality show, Hogan has spent most of his adult life in front of the cameras. But for this memoir, Hogan hoped to 'open up about everything in his life,' and it's hard to argue that he didn't succeed. From his days as a high school outcast in Florida to his ascension as perhaps the most popular wrestler of all time - 'it was like the Beatles or something,' he writes - Hogan pulls no punches along the way. The first half of the work is fascinating, as he chronicles his first exposure to wrestling, which ended in a broken leg, along with his openness about steroid use and other drugs. Once his wrestling career ends, however, the book devolves into rather uncomfortable reading..." - Publishers Weekly.


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They Moved My Bowl and More Doggy Humor for the Kindle

If you love dogs and enjoy a good laugh, what's not to like about these recent doggy humor books?


They Moved My Bowl: Dog Cartoons by New Yorker Cartoonist Charles Barsotti. Little, Brown & Company. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. Optimized for Kindle DX.
"Barsotti's distinctive round pups, rendered in just a few simple lines, have been delighting The New Yorker readers for three decades and are instantly-recognizable for their depiction of canines in human roles. The juxtaposition of their simple world, consisting only of food, play, and the goings-on of their owners, with-the utterly human tasks of going to therapy, talking-business, or seeing a lawyer, is both adorable and hilarious. ...an irresistible blend of-biting humor and affectionate observation..." - Amazon.

Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit, by Bark Editors. Crown. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...stories, essays, and artwork that highlight the hilarity of dog behavior and the comical interactions between dog people and their four-legged friends. From playful puppies who wreak havoc in the home to dogs with a whole array of comic shticks and tricks, Howl celebrates the verve and the laughs pets offer their people. It includes laugh-out-loud reflections (and confessions), rib-tickling tales, and whimsical vignettes from well-known writers such as: Dave Barry, Margaret Cho, Al Franken, Kinky Friedman, Pam Houston, Haven Kimmel, Neal Pollack and many more." - from hardcover edition.

The Dangerous Book for Dogs: A Parody by Rex and Sparky, by Janet Ginsburg. Villard. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (19 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled. Optimized for Kindle DX.
"This gentle parody of the bestselling Dangerous Book for Boys - identical in look and tone to its source material - offers an often funny, surprisingly insightful take on dog behavior that's sure to resonate with the Spot set. With the 'assistance' of their human companions, canine authors Rex and Sparky relate practical and authoritative information on topics simple (baths, fleas, bones, poop, 'things you can chase') and complex: the rules of fetch (it's not officially over until a player earns 17,572 points), tips on crotch sniffing (under the heading 'How to Make Your Owner Look Like an Idiot') and a critical guide to frequently ingested items...this goofy, gleeful guide to the dog life will tickle anyone with a soft spot for canines." - Publishers Weekly.

How to Raise a Jewish Dog, by Rabbis of Boca Raton Theological Seminary. Little, Brown & Company. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (26 reviews). Kindle edition $9.35. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Questions to Ask a Breeder: 1. What kind of job is this, growing dogs? 2. Are these dogs nice? I mean of course they are. But if not, is this refundable? 3. Is this a stable business? Do you make a decent living? 4. Does the insurance kill you or is it okay? 5. Dogs are animals ? does this mean you qualify for some kind of Federal ranch subsidies? 6. What do I say to people who want to know how I can spend $1500 and up on a dog when there are so many dogs to be rescued from the pound? The (make-believe) Rabbis of the (fictional) Boca Raton Theological Seminary have developed the essential dog training program for raising a Jewish dog..." - Amazon.

Bedtime Stories for Dogs, by Leigh Anne Jasheway. Andrews McMeel Publishing. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $6.37. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Here's a book that will make dog owners sit up and beg for more..., a hilarious volume for pampered pets and their human parents. From tales like The Three Little Pugs to Snow White and the Seven Chihuahuas. The tales are written just the way dogs like things - they're short and simple, they have happy endings, they usually involve food, and they frequently refer to things that smell really awful. Each one of these stories was proofed (and woofed) by the author's two wiener dogs: 'If they didn't give a story two paws up and two tails wagging, it was back to the drawing board,' she says..." - Amazon.


moar funny pictures

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 16 Oct 09

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the October 16th issue include:


The Christmas Cookie Club, by Ann Pearlman. Atria. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...annual holiday coffee klatch as expository jump-off for cozy midlife chick lit..." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Every year on the first Monday of December, Marnie and her twelve closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Everyone has to bring a dish, a bottle of wine, and their stories... Each woman, each friend has a story to tell, and they are all interwoven, just as their lives are... As you read about Marnie and her friends, their struggles and triumphs, what makes them laugh and what has made them cry, you'll see yourself and some of the ingredients of your own story." - Amazon.

Nine Dragons, by Michael Connelly. Little, Brown and Company. THRILLER. EW's slant: Reads like it was "...scribbled during a red-eye from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, the two cities where the slapdash action unfolds." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (30 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life. Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store's owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li's family that he'll find the killer. The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation - not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li's life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S. And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch's life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he's lost..." - Amazon.

Dracula The Un-Dead, by Dacre Stoker with Ian Holt. Dutton. NOVEL. EW's slant: "More than 100 years after Bram Stoker first published Dracula, the vampire is poised to emerge from his coffin." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (17 reviews). Kindle edition $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...written by his direct descendant and a Dracula historian, Dracula The Un-Dead is a bone-chilling sequel based on Bram Stoker’s own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads excised from the original edition. [It] begins in 1912, twenty-five years after Dracula crumbled into dust. Van Helsing’s protégé, Dr. Jack Seward, is now a disgraced morphine addict obsessed with stamping out evil across Europe. Meanwhile, an unknowing Quincey Harker, the grown son of Jonathan and Mina, leaves law school for the London stage, only to stumble upon the troubled production of 'Dracula,' directed and produced by Bram Stoker himself. The play plunges Quincey into the world of his parents’ terrible secrets, but before he can confront them he experiences evil in a way he had never imagined..." - us.penguingroup.com.
$9.99 or less alternative: The original Dracula, by Bram Stoker is free in the Amazon Bookstore.

Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem. Doubleday. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Thick with paranoia, pot smoke and pop culture references..." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $15.37. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off residuals earned as a child star on a beloved sitcom called Martyr & Pesty. Chase owes his current social cachet to an ongoing tragedy much covered in the tabloids: His teenage sweetheart and fiancée, Janice Trumbull, is trapped by a layer of low-orbit mines on the International Space Station, from which she sends him rapturous and heartbreaking love letters. Like Janice, Chase is adrift, she in Earth's stratosphere, he in a vague routine punctuated by Upper East Side dinner parties. Into Chase's cloistered city enters Perkus Tooth, a wall-eyed free-range pop critic whose soaring conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning. Perkus's countercultural savvy and voracious paranoia draw Chase into another Manhattan, where questions of what is real, what is fake, and who is complicit take on a life-shattering urgency..." - from the hardcover edition.
$9.99 or less alternative: Lethem's earlier novel The Fortress of Solitude.

Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, by Chesley B. Sullenberger with Jeffrey Zaslow. HarperCollins. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "The first two-thirds are classic memoir, about family, education, and the Air Force; only the last 100 pages deal with the Hudson River landing..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $14.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this inspirational autobiography, Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger, the airline pilot whose emergency landing on the Hudson River earned the world's admiration, tells his life story and talks about the essential qualities that he believes have been so vital to his success. In January 2009, the world witnessed one of the most remarkable emergency landings in history when Captain Sullenberger brought a crippled US Airways flight onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all of the passengers and crew aboard. The successful outcome was the result of effective teamwork, Sully's dedication to airline safety, his belief that a pilot's judgment must go hand-in-hand with - and can never be replaced by - technology, and forty years of careful practice and training. From his earliest memories of learning to fly as a teenager in a crop duster's single-engine plane in the skies above rural Texas to his years in the United States Air Force at the controls of a powerful F-4 Phantom, Sully describes the experiences that have helped make him a better leader, particularly the importance of taking responsibility for everyone in his care. And he talks about what he believes is at the heart of America's 'can do' spirit: the very human drive to prepare for the unexpected and to meet it with optimism and courage..." - www.harpercollins.com.
$9.99 or less alternative: Another inspiring memoir, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson.

History Thru the Lens of Fiction: New Historical Novels for the KIndle (13 Oct 09)

Blending historical fact with fiction, a novel set in other times and places can transport you into the past more convincingly than a dry historical treatise - and entertain you in the bargain. What I look for in historical fiction are books by authors who, after reading the histories and doing the research, create stories based in the past that include characters I want to know better and a plot that keeps me turning pages - books like Peter Ackroyd's The Clerkenwell TalesBernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdomand Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.

Now you can spend less time searching and more time reading as I watch for new historical fiction in the Kindle Storeso you don't have to. New on the historical fiction shelves:

Invasion, by Julian Stockwin. McBooks Press. Book ten of the Kydd Sea Adventures. If you're new to this historical action adventure series set before and during the Napoleonic Wars, you might wish to start with Kydd, the book that first introduced Thomas Kydd. TIME FRAME: Late 18th century England. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In 1793 twenty-year-old Thomas Kydd earns his living as a wig-maker in England, only dimly aware of the war breaking out across Europe. But then he is seized by a Royal Navy press-gang and forced to be part of the crew of the 98-gun man-o’-war Duke William. Aboard ship he meets the mysterious Nicholas Renzi, a man with a past who is destined to become Kydd’s greatest friend through many dangers and adventures. For Kydd soon finds that he is a born sailor and a natural leader; he has no wish to return to his old life on land. And as Renzi knows only too well, times are changing: for the first time, a man like Kydd has the chance to rise all the way to the top." - www.mcbooks.com/
In Invasion, "Napoleon’s forces are poised to invade Britain, and Commander Thomas Kydd’s ship is at the forefront of the fleet defending the English coast. His honour restored after temporary disgrace in the Channel Islands, and reunited with his ship Teazer, Kydd seizes the chance to fight for his country. Then Kydd is abruptly withdrawn from the fleet and sent back to Dover on a secret mission to guard a mysterious American inventor. Having worked his way up from press-ganged seaman to captain of his own ship, Kydd is furious to find he will miss his opportunity to prove himself in battle. And Kydd’s baffled superiors are equally angry to lose Kydd and his ship at such a dangerous time. Yet Kydd’s role in the approaching war may be the most crucial part he has ever played." - www.julianstockwin.com.

A Separate Country by Robert Hicks. Grand Central Publishing. TIME FRAME: Post Civil War New Orleans. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (45 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army - and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle..." - Amazon.

The Source by James A. Michener. Random House. First published in 1965, this James Michener classic is now available in a Kindle edition. TIME FRAME: Israel from ancient times to the founding of the modern state. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (148 reviews). Kindle edition $7.19. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In his signature style of grand storytelling, James Michener sweeps us back through time to the Holy Land, thousands of years ago. By exploring the lives and discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in and around an ancient city during critical periods of its existence, and traces the profound history of the Jews, including that of the early Hebrews and their persecution, the impact of Christianity on the Jewish world, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition. Michener weaves his epic tale of love, strength, and faith until at last he arrives at the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East. The Source is not only a compelling history of the Holy Land and its people but a richly written saga that encompasses the development of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world." - book cover.

The Queen's Mistake by Diane Haeger. NAL. TIME FRAME: 16th century England. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When the young and beautiful Catherine Howard becomes the fifth wife of the fifty-year-old King Henry VIII, she seems to be on top of the world. Yet her reign is destined to be brief and heartbreaking, as she is forced to do battle with enemies far more powerful and calculating than she could have ever anticipated in a court where one wrong move could mean her undoing." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch (11 Oct 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:

FANTASY

Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong. Bantam. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Being the world’s only female werewolf has its advantages, such as having her pick of the Otherworld’s most desirable males. And Elena Michaels couldn’t have picked a more dangerously sexy and undyingly loyal mate than Clayton Danvers. Now their bond will be put to the ultimate test as they follow a bloody trail of gruesome slayings deep into Alaska’s frozen wilderness." - Amazon.

A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris. Ace. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
By the author of the Southern Vampire Novels, a collection of all the Sookie Stackhouse stories ever written, including Fairy Dust, One Word Answer, Dracula Night, Lucky and Giftwrap. Sookie fans may also be interested in the "boxed" set of the entire Sookie Stackhouse 8 book series, now available in a Kindle edition. HBO viewers know Sookie as the plucky Louisiana cocktail waitress brought to life by Anna Paquin in the HBO series True Blood.

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews. Ace. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between the world of the Broken (where people drive cars, shop at Wal-Mart, and magic is a fairy tale) and the Weird (where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny). Only Edgers like Rose can easily travel from one world to the next, but they never truly belong in either. Rose thought if she practiced her magic, she could build a better life for herself. But things didn’t turn out how she planned, and now she works a minimum wage, off the books job in the Broken just to survive. Then Declan Camarine, a blueblood noble straight out of the deepest part of the Weird, comes into her life, determined to have her (and her power). But when a terrible danger invades the Edge from the Weird, a flood of creatures hungry for magic..." - www.ilona-andrews.com.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins. Kindle edition $14.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The wizards at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University are renowned for many things - wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime - but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. And so when Lord Ventinari, the city's benevolent tyrant, strongly suggests to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team composed of faculty, students, and staff, the wizards of UU find themselves in a quandary. To begin with, they have to figure out just what it is that makes this sport - soccer with a bit of rugby thrown in-so popular with Ankh-Morporkians of all ages and social strata. Then they have to learn how to play it. Oh, and on top of that, they must win a football match without using magic." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: If you are heavy into Discworld, you're going to covet this latest title in the series. If you're new to Pratchett's comedic fantasy world, you might start with the reasonably-priced The Colour of Magic. For extensive background info on the series, see the Discworld entry in Wikipedia.

Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill. NAL. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Ten months after vampires revealed their existence to the mortals of Chicago, they're enjoying a celebrity status usually reserved for the Hollywood elite. But should people learn about the Raves - mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle - the citizens will start sharpening their stakes. So now it's up to the new vampire Merit to reconnect with her upper class family and act as liaison between humans and bloodsuckers, and keep the more unsavory aspects of the vampire lifestyle out of the media. But someone doesn't want peace between them - someone with an ancient grudge..." - Amazon.

Soulless by Gail Carriger. Orbit. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Soulless is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she is being rudely attacked by a vampire to whom she has not been properly introduced! Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently... - www.gailcarriger.com.

Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel by Harry Connolly. Del Rey. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Ray Lilly is living on borrowed time. He’s the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him - or let someone else do the job. Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise’s next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone. Not only does he have to stop a sorcerer who’s sacrificing dozens of innocent lives in exchange for supernatural power, he must find - and destroy - the source of that inhuman magic." - Amazon.

Born of Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon. St. Martiin's. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In the Ichidian Universe, The League and their ruthless assassins rule all. Expertly trained and highly valued, the League Assassins are the backbone of the government. But not even the League is immune to corruption... Command Assassin Nykyrian Quikiades once turned his back on the League - and has been hunted by them ever since. Though many have tried, none can kill him or stop him from completing his current mission: to protect Kiara Zamir, a woman whose father's political alliance has made her a target. As her world becomes even deadlier, Kiara must entrust her life to the same kind of beast who once killed her mother and left her for dead. Old enemies and new threaten them both and the only way they can survive is to overcome their suspicions and learn to trust in the very ones who treaten them the most: each other." - Amazon.

Dawnbreaker by Jocelynn Drake. Book three in the Dark Days series. HarperCollins. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Those of her race fear Mira for the lethal fire she bends to her will - a power unique among nightwalkers, both a gift and a curse. The naturi despise Mira for what she is - as they prepare the final sacrifice that will destroy the barriers between the worlds. And once the naturi are unchained, blood, chaos, and horror will reign supreme on Earth. Mira can trust only Danaus, the more-than-mortal vampire slayer, though he is sworn to destroy her kind. And now, as the day approaches when titanic forces will duel under cover of darkness, destiny draws them toward an apocalyptic confrontation at Machu Picchu." - Amazon.

MYSTERIES/THRILLERS

Rough Country by John Sandford. Putnam. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Virgil's always been known for having a somewhat active, er, social life, but he's probably not going to be getting too many opportunities for that during his new case. While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, he gets a call from Lucas Davenport to investigate a murder at a nearby resort, where a woman has been shot while kayaking. The resort is for women only, a place to relax, get fit, recover from plastic surgery, commune with nature, and while it didn't start out to be a place mostly for those with Sapphic inclinations, that's pretty much what it is today. Which makes things all the more complicated for Virgil, because as he begins investigating, he finds a web of connections between the people at the resort, the victim, and some local women, notably a talented country singer. The more he digs, the more he discovers the arrows of suspicion that point in many directions, encompassing a multitude of motivations: jealousy, blackmail, greed, anger, fear. Then he finds that this is not the first murder..." - Amazon.

The Professional by Robert B. Parker. Putnam. Kindle edition $12.60. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower - and now he's blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower cease and desist, so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment goes from blackmail to murder..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: School Days, an earlier Spencer mystery.

Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman. Ballantine. Kindle edition $13.10. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In the half-built skeleton of a monstrously vulgar mansion in one of L.A.’s toniest neighborhoods, a watchman stumbles on the bodies of a young couple - murdered in flagrante and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Though he’s cracked some of the city’s worst slayings, veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is still shocked at the grisly sight: a twisted crime that only Milo’s killer instincts - and psychologist Alex Delaware’s keen insights - can hope to solve. While the female victim’s identity remains a question mark, her companion is ID’d as eco-friendly architect Desmond Backer, who disdains the sort of grandiose superstructure he’s found dead in. And the late Mr. Backer, it’s revealed was also notorious for his power to seduce women. The rare exception is his ex-boss, Helga Gemein, who’s as indifferent to Desmond’s death as she apparently was to his advances. Though Milo and Alex place her on their short list of suspects, the deeper they dig for clues the longer the list grows..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Self-Defense, also featuring Kellerman's psychotherapist and amateur sleuth Alex Delaware.


ROMANCE

Feel the Heat by Cindy Gerard. Book four in the Black Ops, Inc. series that began with Show No Mercy. Pocket. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bold, blonde Defense Intelligence officer B. J. Chase isn't exactly thrilled when she's summoned from personal leave to investigate an alarming national security breach - until the suspicious death of a government official blows her covert mission sky-high. Gorgeous Black Ops bad boy Raphael Mendoza always feared his family's dark history would haunt him. But he never expected it might hold the key to dismantling a rogue weapons system. Now with cool B. J. Chase posing as his hot babe fiancée, he returns to his uncle in Colombia to convince him he can be trusted with the family's dirtiest business secrets." -books.simonandschuster.com.

Make Her Pay by Roxanne St Claire. Book eight in the Bullet Catcher series. Pocket. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bullet Catcher and former Navy SEAL Constantine Xenakis has infiltrated a dive ship to discover who's plundering priceless gems from a legendary sunken Spanish galleon. When he catches Lizzie Dare red-handed in the locked treasure room, her story of a stolen ancestral legacy convinces him to work with the sexy thief instead of turning her in - and not just because he wants to find the real culprit..." - Amazon.

Caleb by Sarah McCarty. Berkley. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Allie always desired mysterious, sexy rancher Caleb Johnson, but he never seemed to notice her. Until the night she's attacked by a vicious animal, and rescued by a shapeshifting vampire that she almost seems to recognize: the baritone growl, the mesmerizing eyes, the inexplicable animal attraction. That's because her savior is Caleb, and now he has no choice but to bring Allie into the shadows with him - to protect her from a rival werewolf pack, and to finally reveal his true feelings for the woman he's been afraid to love." - Amazon.

Sweet Seduction by Maya Banks. Berkley. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Salon owner Julie Stanford wanted Nathan Tucker ever since she gave him his first massage. Getting paid to feel every inch of his body, stripped, oiled, and spread out in front of her? Stuff dreams are made of. But the sexy guy was oblivious to the signals she was sending - until she finished off his final rub-down with something extra. In fact, the best extra he ever had. Unfortunately, he came around too late. Now Julie's moving on... It's all fun and games - until someone falls in love." - publisher.

Covet by J. R. Ward. Signet. Kindle edition $4.97. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Redemption isn't a word Jim Heron knows much about - his specialty is revenge, and to him, sin is all relative. But everything changes when he becomes a fallen angel and is charge with saving the souls of seven people from the seven deadly sins. And failure is not an option. Vin DiPietro long ago sold his soul to his business, and he's good with that-until fate intervenes in the form of a tough-talking, Harley-riding, self-professed savior. But then he meets a woman who will make him question his destiny, his sanity, and his heart-and he has to work with a fallen angel to win her over and redeem his own soul." - Amazon.

SCIENCE FICTION

Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick. Vintage. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Dr. Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is enmeshed in an unwinnable war. His wife is lethally addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time - and is hell-bent on making Eric suffer along with her. And Sweetscent's newest patient is not only the most important man on the embattled planet Earth but quite possibly the sickest..." - Amazon.

Doubleblind by Ann Aquirre. Ace. Book three in The Jax series which began with Grimspace. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Sirantha Jax isn’t known for diplomatic finesse. As a 'Jumper' who navigates ships through grimspace, she’s used to kicking ass first and taking names later - much later. Not exactly the obvious choice to sell the Conglomerate to the Ithtorians, a people whose opinions of humans are as hard as their exoskeletons. And Ithiss-Tor council meetings aren’t the only place where Ambassador Jax needs to maneuver carefully. Her lover, March, is frozen in permanent 'kill' mode, and his hair-trigger threatens to sabotage the talks - not to mention their relationship. But Jax won’t give up on the man or the mission. With the Outskirts beleaguered by raiders, pirates, and the flesh-eating Morgut, an alliance with Ithiss-Tor may be humanity’s only hope. Which has Jax wondering why a notorious troublemaker like her was given the job…" - www.annaguirre.com.

The Essential H. G. Wells Collection by H. G. Wells. Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
An omnibus collection of 38 books and story collections including The War of the Worlds, The Island of Doctor Moreau and other works of science fiction as well as other works by the prolific Wells.

Star Trek: Voyager: Unworthy by Kirsten Beyer. Star Trek. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Freed with a thought, the greatest menace to humanity, the Borg, are gone, absorbed into the Caeliar gestalt. But are they? Can this deadly menace that has hovered over humanity for decades truly be gone? Might some shadow of the Caeliar remain? The Federation decides that they have to know, and Starfleet is ordered to find out..." - Amazon.

Vigilante by Laura E. Reeve. Book two in the Major Ariane Kedros series which began with Peacekeeper. Roc. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Amidst an uneasy peace between the Autonomists and the Terrans, Major Ariane Kedros and her partner,Matthew Journey, have discovered alien ruins on a remote planet - ruins that bear evidence to an ancient and highly advanced technology. But their discovery has drawn the interest of high stakes players from every corner of the universe - including that of the rogue leader of a fringe Terran sect. Ari must find a way to stop him, before they all become ancient history..." - www.fantasticfiction.co.uk.

At Empire's Edge by William Dietz. Ace. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In a far-distant future, the Uman Empire has spread to the stars and beyond, conquering and colonizing worlds, ruling with a benevolent - but iron - fist. The Pax Umana reigns, and all is well. But on one planet, the remnants of a violent, shape-shifting race called the Sagathis are confined, kept captive by xeno-cops, who have been bio-engineered to be able to see through their guises. Still, sometimes one manages to escape. Zak Cato is a xeno-cop. He's returning a fugitive Sagathi when things go horribly wrong. Cato - the only survivor after the rest of his men are slaughtered - must now figure out who betrayed them and bring the alien in, whatever the cost. - Amazon.


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WESTERNS

Utah Outlaws by Jon Sharpe. (The Trailsman, 336). Signet. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Fargo takes a job to protect a stagecoach - only to end up face-down in the dirt. When he comes to, a man is dead, the money is stolen, and an entire town blames him. Fargo knows that someone set him up for a fall. Now, he has to find out who's making him a scapegoat before they heap any more shame on his name." - Amazon.

Bounty Hunter by Ralph Compton. Signet. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bounty Hunter John Tone was good at his job. Some would say ruthless. But when a nefarious criminal from the Barbary Coast makes him an offer he can't refuse, Tone himself becomes the hunted one. As the bounty hunter steels himself for a showdown, he may be loading the six chambers of his Colt for the last time." - Amazon.

The Last Gunfighter: Sudden Fury by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone. Pinnacle. Kindle edition $3.83. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It kills like an animal. Growling Clawing. Ripping. The loggers call it 'The Terror of the Redwoods.' A local timber baron has put a bounty on the hide of this man-beast, and the woods are teeming with so many trigger-happy dolts and half-cocked drunkards that someone's bound to get hurt - and bad. Frank Morgan doesn't believe in such creatures and decides to get to the bottom of this tall tale. But when he meets the timber baron's beautiful daughter, all bets are off. Something is out there. Someone's set a trap. And Morgan just stuck his Bigfoot right into it." - Amazon.

Longarm and the Lone Star Trackdown by Tabor Evans. (Longarm Giant, 28). Jove. Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Amidst a rushing flood, an armed French dandy has kidnapped Longarm's lady-friend, an heiress, for ransom. Now Longarm will have to keep his head above water if he wants to save their lives." - Amazon.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (09 Oct 2009)

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 e-book selections for this week include science fiction by H. G. Wells and August Derleth, the first of Josephine Tey's novels starring the popular Inspector Alan Grant,
a contemporary thriller about a covert agent who is murdered and awakes seemingly inhabiting the body of his assassin, the eerily timely tale by Arthur Conan Doyle of thirteen tourists on a Nile excursion, and the illustrated fairy stories of the Brothers Grimm.

The Sleeper Awakes, by H. G. Wells. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Mobi/PRC (no conversion necessary for Kindle). Price: FREE. Also available on Amazon for $0.99.
"A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated in his name is being used to maintain a hierarchal society in which most are poor, and more than a third of all people are enslaved. Oppressed and uneducated, the masses cling desperately to one dream – that the sleeper will awake, and lead them all to freedom." - Amazon.
MobileRead note: This is a revised version of the book originally published under the title When the Sleeper Wakes. Wells was very unhappy with the original version of the book and, as described in a preface to this version, 12 years after its initial publication, re-released it in this revised form.

McIlvaine's Star, by August Derleth. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: Manybooks. Format: Kindle. First published in If Worlds of Science Fiction, July 1952.
Old Thaddeus McIlvaine discovered a dark star and took it for his own. Thus he inherited a dark destiny - or did he?

The Man in the Queue, by Josephine Tey. GENRE. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Mobi/PRC (no conversion necessary for Kindle). Price: FREE.
The first of the author's novels starring the popular Inspector Alan Grant traces the mysterious slaying of a man waiting to see a London musical, whose neighbors in line insist they saw nothing.

On the Heels of Evil, by D. E. Daum. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: AZW (Kindle). Price: $2.99.
"...covert agent, Kelly Rogers,...was dead, practically cut in half by an assassin's bomb, but awoke in the hospital as Saleem Rhamsy. Yes, through some inexplicable reason, he now occupies the body of Rhamsy - his double-crossing Arab interpreter. Kelly, who is by all appearances Saleem Rhamsy, is now in the pre-eminent position to monitor the upcoming plans for terrorist events planned by the most active world wide terrorist organizations and as a bonus inherits Rhamsy's former beauty queen wife, Mariam. Working for a secret unit of the CIA, Kelly and his superior, the indomitable Jane DeJong and later his wife, go on to fight not only radical Muslim terrorists, but a troublesome group of Neo-Nazis, who have sponsored many of the terrorist activities, including a nuclear bomb planted in a major American city." - Amazon.

The Tragedy of the Korosko, by Arthur Conan Doyle. ADVENTURE NOVEL. Download site: Manybooks. Format: Kindle (AZW). Price: FREE.
"Thirteen tourists, representing mixed nationalities and several religious creeds, find themselves engaged in examining ruins on the Nile when they are captured by dervishes. Blood is shed while they are hurried across the deserts; then the Arabs are captured by the camel corps, and there are many adventures before the surviving Europeans are rescued. The chief interest lies in the comparison of the actions of a soldier, a lawyer, a French gentleman, an American traveller, and others when exposed to the same dangers. Incidentally many Arab customs are described." - Manybooks.

Grimm's Fairy Stories (Illustrated), by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. FAIRY TALES. Download site: MobileRead. Format: PRC for Kindle. Price: FREE.
An illustrated selection of twenty-five tales from the collection of the Brothers Grimm. Contributor note: the file is big because of the pictures.


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The Kindle Goes International: Newspapers in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish

Updated 23 Oct 09

Simultaneous with the introduction of a fourth Kindle - the Kindle International Wireless - to their lineup of electronic readers, Amazon announces the availability of 10 new Kindle newspapers in English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Here's a run-down for our new international Kindlers:

SPANISH

El Mundo. Daily via free wireless delivery for $14.99 a month.
"EL MUNDO se ha consolidado en tan sólo dos décadas como el segundo periódico español por difusión y audiencia. Fiel a su proyecto intelectual, es el único diario que ha logrado un éxito de esta magnitud en tan poco tiempo en todo el continente europeo. EL MUNDO es hoy uno de los diarios más influyentes en la sociedad española; capaz de marcar la agenda política y de convertirse en referencia informativa de manera sistemática. El periódico que dirige Pedro J. Ramírez cuenta con columnistas de la talla de Raúl Rivero, Arcadi Espada, David Gistau, Fernando Sánchez Dragó y Carmen Rigalt, entre otros. La edición Kindle de EL MUNDO contiene los artículos de la edición impresa, pero no incluye todas las imágenes ni las tablas. Los ejemplares estarán disponibles en su Kindle a partir de las 6:00 de la mañana (hora local de Madrid)." - Amazon.



El Universal. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"Es el periódico líder de México y uno de los más prestigiados en el mundo de habla hispana. Fundado hace casi un siglo, El Universal es una de las organizaciones de medios de comunicación más reconocida, dedicada a proporcionar información exacta y veraz. Esta publicación ofrece una amplia variedad de temas, que van desde la política, gobierno, metropolitano, negocios, deportes, entretenimiento, estilo de vida, moda, automóviles, gastronomía y arte. La lista inigualable de columnistas y editorialistas otorgan un análisis amplio de las cuestiones de interés nacional e internacional. La edición de Kindle de El Universal contiene artículos publicados en la edición impresa, pero no incluyen algunas imágenes y tablas. Texto-a-Voz (Text-to-Speech) está diseñado para texto en idioma Inglés. La función de Texto-a-Voz con otros idiomas puede dar lugar a una pronunciación incorrecta. Para su conveniencia, el contenido se envía automáticamente en forma inalámbrica a su Kindle, todas las mañanas a las 6:15 AM hora del centro de México." - Amazon.

El País: El periódico global en Español. Daily via free wireless delivery for $14.99 a month.
"La edición Kindle de El País contiene los artículos de la edición impresa aunque no contiene todas las imágenes y tablas. El servicio de lectura de texto es sólo para textos en inglés, el uso de esta aplicación en otros idiomas podría tener problemas de pronunciación. Para su comodidad, el diario será entregado automáticamente vía wifi a su kindle, comenzando a las 7:30 AM hora local de Madrid." - Amazon.

Cinco Días. Daily via free wireless delivery for $14.99 a month.
"El diario Cinco Días, decano de la prensa económica en España, cuenta con más de 30 años de historia. Siempre a la vanguardia de la información económica y en constante evolución, el periódico es referente en el mundo empresarial con más de 83.000 lectores. A lo largo de sus múltiples secciones, el periódico analiza a diario la actualidad empresarial y económica, incorporando reportajes y los datos financieros más significativos de los diferentes mercados.La edición Kindle de Cinco Días contiene los artículos de la edición impresa aunque no contiene todas las imágenes y tablas. El servicio de lectura de texto es sólo para textos en inglés, el uso de esta aplicación en otros idiomas podría tener problemas de pronunciación. Para su comodidad, el diario será entregado automáticamente vía wifi a su kindle, comenzando a las 7.30 am (Hora local de Madrid)." - Amazon.


As. Daily via free wireless delivery for $14.99 a month.
"AS es el diario de información deportiva de mayor crecimiento en los últimos años. Con una difusión media de más de 220.000 ejemplares diarios, AS se consolida como el periódico de mayor calidad en el sector. Referente principal de la prensa deportiva, destaca por sus reportajes exclusivos y su completa cobertura informativa local, nacional e internacional de todas las competiciones deportivas... Las mejores firmas periodísticas deportivas, su diseño atractivo y su lenguaje fresco y de fácil lectura le diferencian de sus principales competidores. La edición Kindle de AS contiene los artículos de la edición impresa aunque no contiene todas las imágenes y tablas. El servicio de lectura de texto es sólo para textos en inglés, el uso de esta aplicación en otros idiomas podría tener problemas de pronunciación. Para su comodidad, el diario será entregado automáticamente vía wifi a su kindle, comenzando a las 7:45 hora local de Madrid." - Amazon.

ENGLISH

The Daily Telegraph. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"Established in 1855, The Daily Telegraph is the UK’s biggest selling quality newspaper offering home and international news coverage, a stand-alone business section which is highly respected in the city, and a compact daily sport section, full of world-class opinion. Known for its outstanding line-up of distinguished journalists and columnists, who lend the paper its distinctive voice and personality. Delivering lively and challenging comment with wit, insight and rigour, The Daily Telegraph boasts such unique contributors such as London Mayor Boris Johnson and has received many awards including Best Newspaper Sport Coverage from the Sports Industry Awards. The Kindle Edition of The Daily Telegraph contains articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images and tables. For your convenience, issues are automatically delivered wirelessly to your Kindle starting at 715 AM London local time." - Amazon.

The Mainichi Daily News. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"The Mainichi Daily News is the online English edition of Japan’s highly respected and trusted Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, which has a history of 137 years and a daily circulation of 4 million copies for its morning edition, and 1.5 million for its evening edition. The Mainichi was the first of Japan’s major newspapers to produce an English edition, starting in 1922. The online English edition’s popular content includes Mainichi Shimbun editorials and opinion articles, news, features, haiku in English, and photo specials. The Mainichi has an extensive news-gathering network with more than 360 domestic outlets and 26 overseas bureaus, and has won numerous prestigious journalism awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and a record 23 Japan Newspaper Publisher and Editors Association Awards - the Pulitzer Prize of Japan. The Kindle Edition of Mainichi contains most articles found in the web edition. For your convenience, issues are automatically delivered wirelessly to your Kindle starting at 9:45 PM Tokyo local time." - Amazon.

The International Herald Tribune - Asia Edition. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"The International Herald Tribune - Asia Edition collects and distributes world news, information, entertainment and opinion of the highest journalistic integrity each day from its regional newsroom in Hong Kong. Its balanced perspective addresses all areas of human interest and is trusted and enjoyed by people in all corners of the globe. The Kindle Edition of The International Herald Tribune - Asia Edition contains articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images and tables." - Amazon.

ITALIAN



La Stampa. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"Dai più importanti eventi mondiali alle cronache nazionali quotidiane, fino alle ultime notizie regionali; La Stampa raggiunge più di 310.000 lettori con un'informazione a 360°. L'obiettivo che muove La Stampa dal 1867 è offrire un'ampia scelta di notize quotate, con un'autentica profondità di informazione, riguardanti cambiamenti ed evoluzioni del mondo e dell'Italia in uno stile unico e sempre accattivante. Non solo le ultime notizie riguardanti eventi economici o politici ma anche cultura, scienza, viaggi, salute, stile, cucina, sport, spettacolo e opinioni scritte da firme prestigiose, permettono a La Stampa di essere menzionata come uno dei migliori quotidiani in Italia. L'edizione Kindle contiene la maggior parte degli articoli dell'edizione cartacea ma non contiene tutte le immagini. Il Text-to-Speech funziona con testi in lingua inglese. Usare il text-to-speech con altre lingue potrebbe dare luogo a una pronuncia impropria. Per la sua comodità, i numeri vengono automaticamente consegnati sul Kindle a partire dalle 7:45 ora italiana." - Amazon.

PORTUGUESE


O Globo. Daily via free wireless delivery for $9.99 a month.
"O Globo é o principal jornal diário do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, com a maior circulação nacional aos domingos e no Rio durante a semana. Uma referência em Política, Negócios e notícias locais, O Globo tem uma coleção incomparável de colunistas no país, incluindo Miriam Leitão, Ricardo Noblat, Ancelmo Gois e Patrícia Kogut. Além das notícias do dia, a publicação abrange conteúdo relativo a atividades e interesses diversos dos leitores: viagens, arte, moda, tecnologia, esportes e entretenimento. A edição de O Globo no Kindle contém artigos encontrados na edição impressa, mas não inclui todas as imagens e tabelas. Text-to-Speech é destinado ao texto no idioma Inglês apenas. A utilização deste recurso com outras línguas pode resultar em pronúncia imprópria. Para sua comodidade, as edições são entregues automaticamente no seu Kindle a partir de 5:00 horário local do Rio de Janeiro via wireless." - Amazon.