Soldiers Remember: Memorial Day Reading for the Kindle:

And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave. - Joseph Drake.

Memorial Day is celebrated in the United States on the last Monday of May. When I was growing up, it was called Decoration Day, a day to decorate the graves of those who died in military service. Although it was first enacted to honor the fallen in the American Civil War, it was expanded after World War I to include all armed conflicts.

To make reading a part of your Memorial Day activities, consider these memoirs of soldiers writing of their personal experiences - from Civil War times to conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865, by Leander Stillwell. Quality Classics. First published in 1917 by the Press of the Eric Record. This is an OCR edition with typos. Print Length: 289 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Excerpt: "I was born September 16, 1843, on a farm, in Otter Creek precinct, Jersey County, Illinois. I was living with my parents, in the little old log house where I was born, when the Civil war began. The Confederates fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and thus commenced the war. On April 15, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 men, to aid in putting down the existing rebellion. Illinois promptly furnished her quota, and in addition, thousands of men were turned away, for the reason that the complement of the State was complete, and there was no room for them. The soldiers under this call were mustered in for three months' service only, for the government then seemed to be of the opinion that the troubles would be over by the end of that time. But on May 3, 1861, Mr. Lincoln issued another call for volunteers, the number specified being a little over 42,000, and their term of service was fixed at three years, unless sooner discharged. The same call provided for a substantial increase in the regular army and navy. I did not enlist under either of these calls. As above stated, the belief then was almost universal throughout the North that the 'war' would amount to nothing much but a summer frolic, and would be over by the 4th of July..."
Please note that this book is also available as a free download at ManyBooks.

Co. Aytch: A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War, by Sam R. Watkins. Touchstone. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (65 reviews). Kindle edition: 10.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Early in May 1861, twenty-one-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, to fight for the Confederacy. Of the 120 original recruits in his company, Watkins was one of only seven to survive every one of its battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later...he wrote this remarkable account of 'Co. Aytch' - its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865. Co. Aytch is the work of a natural storyteller who balances the horror of war with an irrepressible sense of humor and a sharp eye for the lighter side of battle. Among Civil War memoirs, it is considered a classic..." - Amazon.

Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine, by Elton Mackin. Presidio Press. Print Length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating.: 4 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Edited from a combination of written records and tape recordings, this is the plain but powerful tale of a World War I marine. Beginning as a raw recruit who joined his regiment during the battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918, Mackin volunteered for the highly dangerous duty of runner. He survived all the subsequent major marine actions of the war right up to the armistice and received several decorations for his service. In unadorned but vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I battlefields to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran..." Booklist.

Yank: Memoir of a World War II Soldier (1941-1945) - From the Desert War of North Africa to the Allied Invasion of E , by Ted Ellsworth. De Capo. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Ted Ellsworth was a young Dartmouth grad in 1941. In the years before the U.S. joined the Second World War effort, American men who wished to fight against Hitler were granted permission from President Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress to join the British army. In normal circumstance, fighting for another nation's army would be an automatic forfeiture of U.S. citizenship (as noted on U.S. passports). Yank begins with goodbyes to Ellworth's young wife and family. It covers his crossing to Britain, initial stay in London, assignment to a North African tank regiment and the campaign there, participation in the invasion of Italy and the second wave of D-Day, accounts of fierce battles, being taken prisoner by the Germans and shipped to a POW camp, the camp deprivations, liberation by the Russians, and finally, the year Ellsworth spent wandering eastern Europe with no dog-tags, after the war had ended, trying to reach a city from which he could ship back home..." - Amazon.

Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends, by William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, Edward "Babe" Heffron and Robyn Post. Berkley. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (84 reviews). Kindle edition: $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Journalist Post, on assignment for Philadelphia magazine, met in 2001 with WWII vets Guarnere and Heffron to discuss their service and their portrayal in the soon-to-be-aired HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (based on the book by Stephen E. Ambrose). In this new book, Post has compiled the transcripts of her interviews to provide a personal history of the 101st Airborne Division's Easy Company, as well as the soldiers' own stories of growing up and growing old. Switching off between the two within chapters, Post allows Guarnere and Heffron to share narration duties as they recount their South Philly childhoods, their induction into Easy Company (Guarnere was there for the company's formation; Heffron joined after D-Day) and their work in it, from the disastrous Operation Market Garden to the frozen hell of Bastogne. The men also discuss their post-war lives, and those of their comrades; 60 years after meeting, these two men still call each other nearly every day, and their bond provides the volume its large heart." - Publishers Weekly.

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E. B. Sledge. Presidio Press. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (295 reviews). Kindle edition: $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...a stirring, personal account of the vitality and bravery of the Marines in the battles at Peleliu and Okinawa. Born in Mobile, Alabama in 1923 and raised on riding, hunting, fishing, and a respect for history and legendary heroes such as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene Bondurant Sledge (later called 'Sledgehammer' by his Marine Corps buddies) joined the Marines the year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and from 1943 to 1946 endured the events recorded in this book...Sledge enlisted out of patriotism, idealism, and youthful courage, but once he landed on the beach at Peleliu, it was purely a struggle for survival. Based on the notes he kept on slips of paper tucked secretly away in his New Testament, he simply and directly recalls those long months, mincing no words and sparing no pain. The reality of battle meant unbearable heat, deafening gunfire, unimaginable brutality and cruelty, the stench of death, and, above all, constant fear. Sledge still has nightmares about 'the bloody, muddy month of May on Okinawa.' But, as he also tellingly reveals, the bonds of friendship formed then will never be severed..." - Amazon.


see more Funny Graphs

Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds, by Robin Olds, with Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus. St. Martin's Press. Print Length: 416 p. Amazon customer rating. 5 stars (26 reviews). Kindle edition: $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Robin Olds was a larger-than-life hero with a towering personality. A graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army, Olds was one of the toughest college football players at the time. In WWII, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22 - and an ace with 12 aerial victories. But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn’t a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace." - Amazon.
"This volume could not be more appropriately titled, because triple-ace Olds wanted to be a fighter pilot from when he was an air-corps brat just five years old. His daughter and an air-force colleague have assembled a mass of material he left behind at his death in 2007 into a gripping narrative that covers childhood, West Point, WWII, peacetime, and Vietnam as well as his long retirement." - Roland Green for Booklist.

Scrappy: Memoir of a U.S. Fighter Pilot in Korea and Vietnam, by Howard C. "Scrappy" Johnson and Ian A. O'Connor. McFarland. Print Length: 280 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (12 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"From World War II to high above the Earth to Vietnam, this memoir tells the story of fighter pilot Howard C. 'Scrappy' Johnson. Beginning with his early years in Knoxville, Tennessee, the book follows Johnson through his career at the University of Louisville and his enlistment as an Air Force cadet at the onset of World War II. After World War II, Johnson served a tour of duty in the skies over Korea and in 1958 broke the world's altitude record by over 14,000 feet, soaring at 91,249 feet in his F-104A Starfighter...Written with panache, this work records the bigger-than-life adventures of one of America's finest." - Amazon.

The Battle for Pusan: A Memoir, by Addison Terry. Presidio Press. Print Length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition: $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The rapid-fire success of the North Korean Army’s (NKA) invasion of South Korea, launched on June 25, 1950, and supported by Russia’s vaunted T-34 tanks, stunned the world. By August 1, the entire South had fallen, save for the port city of Pusan. As the enemy prepared to deliver the coup de grâce, only one obstacle remained: Lt. Addison Terry’s unit, the famous Wolfhounds of the 27th Regimental Combat Team. Used as a 'fire brigade' to shore up imperiled American defenses, these intrepid soldiers were in the thick of it, stopping the NKA’s threat of a breakthrough at every turn. Against all odds, the Wolfhounds stood firm, racking up two Presidential Unit Citations within weeks. Terry’s account, written while recovering from injuries he suffered during the battle, captures the war in all its grit, sacrifice, and courage." - Amazon.

100 Missions North: A Fighter Pilot's Story of the Vietnam War, by Ken Bell. Potomac Books. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (19 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bell, a retired Air Force brigadier general, offers an engrossing account of his missions against heavily defended targets in North Vietnam at the controls of an F-105 fighter-bomber. His powers of description are outstanding: air-combat buffs will thrill to his knuckle-whitening recall of the 1966-1967 action as he searches for ways to confuse the defenses (MiG fighters, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft fire) and deliver bombs at night in bad weather. Bell also recounts his between-missions experiences, which include his abduction by a band of Thai thugs and various R&R adventures. His is the first air-combat memoir from the Vietnam War to describe the intense and unpredictable social life of Air Force pilots on a Southeast Asian base..." - Publishers Weekly.

The Highway War: A Marine Company Commander in Iraq, by Major Seth W. B. Folsom. Potomac Books. Print Length: 424 p. Amazon customer rating. 5 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...compelling Iraq War memoir of then-Capt. Seth Folsom, commanding officer of Delta Company, First Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps. Mounted in eight-wheeled LAVs (light armored vehicles), this unit of 130 Marines and sailors was one of the first into Iraq in March 2003. It fought on the front lines for the war’s entire offensive phase, from the Kuwaiti border through Baghdad to Tikrit. Folsom’s thoughtful account focuses on his maturation as a combat leader - and as a human being enduring the austere conditions of combat and coming to terms with loss of life on both sides. Moreover, The Highway War is the story of a junior officer’s relationships with his company’s young Marines, for whose lives he was responsible, and with his superior officers. Folsom covers numerous unusual military actions and conveys truthfully the pace, stress, excitement, mistakes, and confusion of modern ground warfare." - Amazon.

Once a Marine: An Iraq War Tank Commander's Inspirational Memoir of Combat, Courage, and Recovery, by Mike Steere. Savas Beatie. Print Length: 312 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (44 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.
April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background...
April 6, 2004: The tanker fights heroically in the battle for Fallujah and suffers grievous head wounds that leave him legally blind and partially deaf. The USMC awards him with a Silver Star for his valor and combat innovation.
April 18, 2004: 'Gunny Pop' comes home to face the toughest fight of his life - a battle to remain the man and Marine he was. This is the central drama of Nick's inspiring memoir." - www.casematepublishing.com.


see more dog and puppy pictures

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap (29 May 2010)

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. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Frugal e-book selections for this week include a first novel that combines elements of mystery and fantasy, science fiction by Murray Leinster and Robert Andrew Arthur, two works by George Orwell (best known as the author of 1984) , an illustrated edition of Martín Fierro, the epic poem of Argentine gaucho life (for Kindle readers proficient in Spanish); and - in the "classics you might have missed" department - Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities with the original illustrations by Phiz.

Murder at Avedon Hill, by P. G. Holyfield. MYSTERY/FANTASY. Download site: Amazon. Price: $2.39.
"Welcome to the land of Caern, where the gods - the Children of Az - can choose to be born into the world as mortals to directly affect events ... and often do. And where the conflict between religious faith and arcane magic has reached a breaking point. Gretta Platt, Housemistress of Avedon Manor, has been murdered. Only a handful of people live in Avedon Hill, and most are suspects. Arames Kragen, retired Aarronic Advisor and scholar of prophecy, must gain access to Avedon Hill's mountain pass. But Lord Avedon is not in a giving mood... To earn his passage, Arames Kragen must discover who killed Gretta Platt. He must also uncover the truth about a town that seems to have more secrets than inhabitants." - Amazon.

The Ambulance Made Two Trips, by Murray Leinster. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: ManyBooks. Price: Free.
A science fiction short story first published in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1960.
If you should set a thief to catch a thief, what does it take to stop a racketeer...?

Ring Once for Death, by Robert Andrew Arthur. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: ManyBooks. Price: Free.
Originally published in Amazing Stories, March 1954.
The power of the old gods was certainly nothing for Mark and Edith - a modern, twentieth-century couple - to worry about. After all - everybody dies!

Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell. NOVEL. Download site: MobileRead. Price: Free.
"The recounting of a hard-up Englishman’s adventures while experiencing poverty; first as a plongeur in a restaurant in Paris, and then subsequently as a tramp in and around London. Wikipedia calls it a semiautobiographical novel, but it reads like a non-fictional memoir, with critical commentary added. Edited, with italics, accents, and footnotes provided." - Strether in the MobileRead Forum.

Collected Essays, by George Orwell. ESSAYS. Download site: MobileRead. Price: Free.
"These essays, covering a broad range of topics mostly in the areas of politics and literature, were written in the period 1931-1949. The essays on literature and language are all interesting and I’ve found that even though written in a earlier time, the political essays are full of insights and add perspective to our own political climate." - Strether in the MobileRead Forum.

Martín Fierro, by José Hernández. POETRY. Download site: MobileRead. Price: Free.
"Martín Fierro is an epic poem, published in two parts... It tells the story, mainly in first person, of Martín Fierro, a gaucho (South-American 'cowboy'), how he was drafted to defend the border and abused by the authorities, then he deserts and becomes an outlaw. It is written in the style of the Argentine rural ballads, and by its content it is clear that it is supposed to be sung. Martín Fierro is one of the touchstones of Argentine literature, and a motive of pride for the country." - Jellby in the MobileRead Forum.

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. NOVEL. Download site: MobileRead. Price: Free.
Fully illustrated with the original black and white illustrations by Phiz.
"A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With 200 million copies sold, it is the most printed original English book, and among the most famous works of fiction. It depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette." - Wikipedia.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly (28 May 10)

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the May 28th issue include:


The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson. Knopf. Print length: 576 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "...a satisfying finale to Larsson's entertainingly suspenseful trilogy." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (124 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Book three of a trilogy, following The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.
"Lisbeth Salander - the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels - lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back." - from the hardcover edition.

The Pregnant Widow, by Martin Amis. Knopf. Print length: 400 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "... Amis still routinely stuns with the intelligence of his phrase-making..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"It was the summer of 1970, the start of a new era of sexual freedom and female ascendancy. Keith, an English college student, is staying in a castle in Italy with friends. His unnervingly frank girlfriend glumly wishes she were beautiful, like the bodacious Scheherazade, who, in spite of her promising name, is dull as dust yet causes near-riots in town and pitches Keith into confusion. His hapless attempts to secretly court Scheherazade propel Amis’ sly variation on classic love stories. This farcical tale of a summer of lust, in which the women have all the power but don’t know what to do with it, is interwoven with glimpses of Keith in his fifties, a thrice-married, acerbic literary critic appalled by the grim alchemy of age and the crassness of the digital era..." - Donna Seaman for Booklist.
$9.99 or less alternative: Love in Idleness, by Amanda Craig.

The Marrowbone Marble Company, by Glenn Taylor. HarperCollins. Print length: 368 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "In this version of regional America, the heroes keep on with quiet courage and the villains all but twirl their mustaches." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The title is a mouthful, but seems just right given the satisfying and substantive story of a man determined to create his own utopia in the hardscrabble and racially-divided West Virginia of the post-war years. Loyal Ledford, a poor-as-dirt orphan, works the furnaces of the local glass factory, yet he plots his escape by joining the Marines. He soon finds himself in another purgatory - Guadalcanal - in the last years of WWII. With a wounded body and mind, Ledford returns home, determined to start a family and live on his own terms. On old family land, he rediscovers kin and builds a marble factory from the ground up with the help of two part-Indian cousins, an idealistic white preacher, and an African-American family. Within the novel's historic context, the small Marrowbone community, comprised of unique and open-minded souls is, like the marbles it produces, a perfect microcosm within a very imperfect world." - Lauren Nemroff.
$9.99 or less alternative: Taylor's first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Cakewalk: A Memoir, by Kate Moses. Dial Press. Print length: 368 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "A rich, filling memoir that's served without a tinge of bitterness." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, Kate Moses was surrounded by sugar: Twinkies in the basement freezer, honey on the fried chicken, Baby Ruth bars in her father’s sock drawer. But sweetness of the more intangible variety was harder to come by. Her parents were disastrously mismatched, far too preoccupied with their mutual misery to notice its effects on their kids...Kate looked for comfort in the imaginary worlds of books and found refuge in the kitchen, where she taught herself to bake and entered the one realm where she was able to wield control. Telling her own story with the same lyricism, compassion, and eye for lush detail she brings to her fiction, coupled with the candor and humor she is known for in her personal essays, Kate Moses leavens each tale of her coming-of-age in Cakewalk with a recipe from her lifetime of confectionary obsession." - Amazon.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (25 May 2010)

Media interviews are a popular way for writers to introduce new books they hope will catch the viewer's eye and open their pocketbooks. 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 OPRAH (24 MAY 2010):


Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $8.10. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence. First, pleasure: savoring Italy's buffet of delights - the world's best pizza, free-flowing wine and dashing conversation partners - Gilbert consumes la dolce vita as spiritual succor. 'I came to Italy pinched and thin,' she writes, but soon fills out in waist and soul. Then, prayer and ascetic rigor: seeking communion with the divine at a sacred ashram in India, Gilbert emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Finally, a balancing act in Bali, where Gilbert tries for equipoise 'betwixt and between' realms, studies with a merry medicine man and plunges into a charged love affair. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year's cultural and emotional tapestry - conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor - as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression." - Publishers Weekly.

ON CBS'S EARLY SHOW (24 MAY 2010):

How to Never Look Fat Again: Over 1,000 Ways to Dress Thinner - Without Dieting!, by Charla Krupp. Springboard Press. Print Length: 264 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...if you've ever put on a piece of clothing and asked 'Does this make me look fat?', finally, here is the book that will answer your question. You'll never get dressed the same way again once you discover: smart, easy ways to hide arm flap, a big bust, a muffin top, back fat, Buddha belly, a big booty, wide hips, thunder thighs, and heavy calves, which fabrics, colors, and styles make women look fat, absolutely the best shades, shapes, and brilliant buys to make the pounds invisible, clever solutions for special fashion situations, which products, fashions, and services you shouldn't waste your money on and the top ten tips that will make you look thinner by tonight." - http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/

Charla Krupp has done more than 100 style segments on The Today Show. She was beauty director of Glamour and editor of In Style. Currently, Charla writes a monthly fashion column for More Magazine called Fashion For Grownups.


ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (25 MAY 2010):

The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey - In Her Own Words, by Danielle Staub. Gallery. Print Length: 236 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"When she signed on to appear in a reality TV show, Danielle had no idea what she was getting herself into. Hoping for a new lease on life after her recent divorce, the single mother of two became the target of vicious gossip, heated arguments, and endless controversy. When her housewife costars confronted her with the true crime book written about her ex-husband, the you-know-what hit the fan. Danielle knew she could no longer keep her checkered past a secret - and she had to set the record straight. This is the real Danielle Staub, in her own words, as you’ve never seen her before. The child of an unmarried Italian teenager, Danielle was born in Pennsylvania (under the name Beverly Merrill) after her mother was pressured by her well-to-do family to leave Italy and not return until after she’d put her baby up for adoption. After years of sexual abuse, she fled to Miami, where she became a model, living the kind of lifestyle she could only dream of as a child. She partied like a rock star and with them as well, but ended up marrying a deceitful man who held dangerous secrets of his own. Soon Danielle was caught up in a tangled web of lies, drugs, and abuse that landed her in the hospital more than once. How she survived—leaving her husband, changing her name, and finally giving birth to two lovely daughters - is one shocking story..." - Amazon.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (27 MAY 2010):

Eat & Beat Diabetes with Picture Perfect Weight Loss, by Howard Shapiro and Frankliin Becker. Harlequin Nonfiction. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Ask any doctor or nutritionist who treats patients with diabetes: the first focus for controlling the disease is a healthy eating plan. But typical diabetic eating plans have been all about what you can't eat...But now a typical day in the life of a diabetic might start with a smoked salmon-and-dill omelet, continue to a lunch of three-bean chili, salsa and guacamole, and finish with a dinner of grilled shrimp and shaved fennel, topped off by a dessert of chocolate terrine. It's a kind of eating that virtually guarantees not just control of the disease and a satisfying of the appetite, but an emphasis on specific nutrients that actually target diabetes, beating back its potential side effects and maintaining the healthy weight that is key to controlling the disease. In Eat & Beat Diabetes with Picture Perfect Weight Loss, Dr. Howard Shapiro uses the same visual method of food comparisons that made his bestselling weight-loss books so popular and easy to use. Now he has teamed with top chef Franklin Becker, a diabetic himself, and together they reveal the secrets to a diet that can actually help you prevent and beat diabetes - without depriving yourself of delicious food." - www.eharlequin.com.

Exploring the Fascinating World of Crossword Puzzles on your Kindle

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution. - Stephen Sondheim

Solving crossword puzzles on the Kindle is a less than ideal experience, although there are a number of crossword puzzle books now available in Kindle editions. Personally, I enjoy solving crossword puzzles using the traditional paper and pencil method. Or - if you are fortunate enough to own an iPad - you might want to check out Stand Alone's superlative Crosswords, which has become my app of choice since purchasing my 'Pad.

Here's a short list of Kindle books for those readers who wish to expand their crossword puzzling solving skills, learn more about the history of the crossword puzzle and the cruciverbalists who construct them, or just enjoy reading about words.

Four-Letter Words, And Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider, by Michelle Arnot. Perigee, 2008. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Veteran crossword-puzzle creator and editor Arnot uses four-letter words, the staple of the puzzle composer and solver, as a jumping-off point for a journey through the world of crosswords. The book is full of little-known (to most of us, anyway) nuggets of information: the first crossword puzzle appeared in a New York newspaper on Christmas Day 1913; there are strict rules for composing a puzzle (no more than one-sixth of the spaces can be black, for example); future publishing giant Simon & Schuster’s very first book was a collection of crossword puzzles. The author also charts the evolution of the crossword puzzle, showing how certain words have been standbys since the beginning (they’re called 'repeaters,' because they turn up in puzzles all the time), but their clues have changed over time - Omar, for example, is a proper-name repeater whose clue has evolved from World War II general (Bradley) to television actor (Epps). The book is like a crash course in crossword puzzles and should appeal equally to veteran solvers and novices. - David Pitt for Booklist.

From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords, by Dean Olsher. Simon and Schuster, 2009. Print Length: 192 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"It is often repeated that more than 50 million Americans do crossword puzzles on a regular basis. Skeptical of that claim, Dean Olsher does his own research and finds that the number is nearly dead-on... Olsher looks into the origins and traditions of this popular pastime, which made its debut in a New York newspaper in 1913. Or did it? Along the way, he takes readers inside the making of a crossword. He also revives the quest of musical-theater legend and puzzle constructor Stephen Sondheim to find an American audience for a British crossword style that demands a love of verbal playfulness over knowledge of arcane trivia." - Amazon.
"If Dean Olsher wrote a book on the history of plumbing supplies, I would snap it up. He whips the subject in a blender of love, curiosity, elation, mystery, humor, and obsession (plenty of that). Plus, you learn a lot of odd and interesting facts about crossword puzzles - and human beings." - Maira Kalman, author of The Principles of Uncertainty

Gridlock: Crossword Puzzles and the Mad Geniuses Who Create Them, by Matt Gafney. Running Press, 2006. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (12 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Tens of millions of Americans solve crossword puzzles regularly, but few know a thing about their genesis. Who writes crosswords, how - and for God's sake, why? Matt Gaffney is one of two dozen people who earns a living as a cruciverbalist, and in Gridlock he provides an insider’s look at the people who put that puzzle in your paper every day. With verve and gusto, Gaffney traces his own starving-artist struggle to find paying puzzle gigs, including marketing hip crosswords to the Gen-X market. He then moves on to topics like the effect of computers on crossword writing, including a man vs. machine battle he stages to see who writes better crosswords; the ever-evolving crossword puzzle book market, where a top-selling series now has books shaped like a toilet seat; and a trip to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, where the 'Cru' (collective slang noun meaning 'the crossword puzzle writing community') hangs out in person once a year..." - Amazon.

Cruciverbalism, by Stanley Newman and Mark Lasswell. HarperCollins, 2009. Print Length: 160 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (22 reviews) Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Crossword puzzle fans will eat up this entertaining stew of history, arcana and personalities in this memoir–cum–instruction manual by longtime Newsday crossword editor Newman and Wall Street Journal deputy books editor Lasswell. And woven into the mix is a great lesson in how to engineer a midlife career switch. Newman, an advocate of 'new wave' crosswords, gleefully describes his 'war' with 'pedantic' Eugene Maleska, the New York Times crossword editor from 1977 to 1993, a David-vs.-Goliath tale. But Newman doesn't neglect the nuts and bolts about difficulty levels (contrary to popular belief, Sunday isn't the hardest puzzle of the week: it's about midweek-level, but bigger), the types of clues used by constructors and the most effective ways to approach puzzle solving (start with an easy clue and try to fill in that entire section before moving on). Newman touts the health benefits of puzzling, citing studies that show it can help ward off Alzheimer's and senile dementia. He also provides some interesting trivia..." - Publishers Weekly.

CROSSWORD PUZZLES IN MYSTERY FICTION:


Two Down, by Nero Blanc. Berkley, 2001. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Up, down, or across ... S.O.S. spells the same thing - danger! When a famous Hollywood actress and her friend set sail off the coast of Nantucket - and never return - everyone assumes they were victims of an accident. But when their dinghy suspiciously washes up in a cove where the tide can't reach, it sounds more like foul play. P.I. Rosco Polycrates and his paramour/crossword editor Belle Graham are sharpening their pencils and their minds to solve this case. When Belle discovers anonymous puzzles with clues left on her doorstep, it looks like they're off to a good start, and it will take all their sleuthing skills to fill in the missing blanks." - www.crosswordmysteries.com.

Death on the Diagonal, by Nero Blanc. Berkley Prime Crime, 2007. Print Length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $6.29. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"When crossword editor Belle Graham arrives at the Evening Crier, the latest gossip is about the devastating fire at the Collins family stables. It's tempting to think it's a torch job. The Collinses made their fortune in bootlegged Prohibition whisky before morphing into a legitimate multimillion dollar corporation. Now Newcastle high society, they're living the lives of the rich and shameless, feuding amongst themselves as the family's aging patriarch marries younger and younger women. Belle's P.I. hubby, Rosco, is investigating the fire for the insurance company. The blaze is being blamed on the barn manager, a hard drinker who was sober enough to rescue the horses before falling debris - or something else - knocked him into a coma. And as Rosco searches for a needle in a haystack of clues, Belle is guessing that someone in the quarrelsome Collins clan already knows the answers." - www.crosswordmysteries.com.

You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled, by Parnell Hall. Bantam. Print Length: 349 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"When Benny Southstreet, a small-time hustler with a big-time gift for constructing crosswords, accuses Cora of stealing one of his creations, it’s clearly a case of mistaken identity - until Cora’s own attorney files a plagiarism suit against her. To add to the enigma, when Benny is found dead, the police charge Cora with his murder! At the heart of the matter is the not-so-little white lie Cora has been living for years: assuming the grandmotherly public face of her publicity-shy niece Sherry, who designs crossword puzzles and publishes them under Cora’s name - aka the Puzzle Lady. It turns out that Sherry’s and Benny’s cruciverbalist paths had recently crossed, resulting in the current incriminating conundrum. As if Sherry’s wedding engagement jitters and a nasty battle over missing antique chairs weren’t enough to deal with, now Cora has to solve the ultimate mystery: how to keep the secret of her identity without losing her life..." - Amazon.

With This Puzzle, I Thee Kill, by Parnell Hall. Bantam., 2007. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Crime, cryptograms, and killer conundrums abound for the Puzzle Lady... It looks like wedding bells again for the much-married Cora Felton when distinguished widower Raymond Harstein III moves into town and makes a play for the Puzzle Lady. That is, it does until the mail brings puzzling cryptograms, which, when deciphered, warn Cora off the match. Or do they? As the puzzles keep coming, a killer’s game must be played in earnest, and it’s up to the Puzzle Lady to solve the riddle - if anyone is going to live to make it to the altar!" - from the hardcover edition.

And finally, a word of caution: Stanley Newman and Daniel Stark's Million Word Crossword Dictionary - an excellent buy in the paperback edition - cannot be used as a "lookup" dictionary on the Kindle. Please check out the sample before purchasing the Kindle edition.

Do I rue a life wasted doing crosswords? Yes, but I do know the three-letter-word for regret. - Robert Brault.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Kindle Genre Watch: Sci-Fi, Romance and Western Fiction (21 May 10)

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in sci-fi, romance and western fiction include:

SCIENCE FICTION

The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin. Tor Books. Print Length: 480 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares... Now the incredible has happened: a billionaire businessman from our time, frozen in secret in the early twenty-first century, is discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin Cord is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. Justin survived because he is tough and smart. He cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud. People will be arguing about this novel and this world for decades." - Amazon.
The sequel to this novel - The Unincorporated War - is also available in a Kindle edition.

Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov. Tor Books. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. A re-issue of an Asimov classic.
"One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he's a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil - so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty. Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two. This is young Isaac Asimov's first novel, full of wonders and ideas, the book that launched the novels of the Galactic Empire, culminating in the Foundation series." - Amazon.

The Revelation Project by John Worth. CreateSpace. Print Length: 300 p. Kindle edition $2.87. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Employed as a research technician for the US government working on Bible codes, Mya makes a remarkable discovery that is destined to change the world. Embedded within the text of the Torah, she discovers a computer code written thousands of years ago. On the surface, the computer code reveals the existence of a benevolent master race known as the Iam that nurtured early man to ensure his survival. However, as she delves deeper into the computer program, she unlocks the fantastic secrets of this encrypted code, known as 'The Prophecies,' and discovers the terrifying truth about the Iam and their ultimate plan for humanity. Follow Mya and her small band of comrades as they engage in a fierce struggle and mortal combat in a race against time to save humanity." - Amazon.

The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove. Solaris. Print Length: 688 p. Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The Olympians appeared a decade ago, living incarnations of the Ancient Greek gods on a mission to bring permanent order and stability to the world. Resistance has proved futile, and now humankind is under the jackboot of divine oppression. Until former London police officer Sam Akehurst receives an invitation too tempting to turn down: the chance to join a small band of guerrilla rebels armed with high-tech weapons and battlesuits. Calling themselves the Titans, they square off against the Olympians and their ferocious mythological monsters in a war of attrition which some will not survive." - Amazon.

Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell. Ridan Publishing. Print Length: 282 p. Kindle edition $4.95. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When his mother dies in a flitter crash, eighteen-year-old Ishmael Horatio Wang must find a job with the planet company or leave the system - and NerisCo isn't hiring. With credits running low, and prospects limited, he has just one hope...to enlist for two years with a deep space commercial freighter. Ishmael, who only rarely visited the Neris Orbital, and has never been off-planet alone before, finds himself part of an eclectic crew sailing a deep space leviathan between the stars." - www.ridanpublishing.com.

Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy. HarperCollins. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The best cypherteck in the galaxy, Edie can reinvent planets with little more than a thought. Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, her mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she's not entirely sure it's a bad thing ...until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn - a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn's side, he dies. If she doesn't cooperate, the pirates will kill them both. But Edie's abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she'll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure… a world called Scarabaeus." - saracreasy.com.

ROMANCE

A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh. Delacorte Press. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Her name is Hannah Reid. Born a commoner, she has been Duchess of Dunbarton ever since she was nineteen years old, the wife of an elderly duke to whom she has been rumored to be consistently and flagrantly unfaithful. Now the old duke is dead and, more womanly and beautiful than ever at thirty, Hannah has her freedom at last. And she knows just what she wants to do with it. To the shock of a conventional friend, she announces her intention to take a lover - and not just any lover, but the most dangerous and delicious man in all of upper-class England: Constantine Huxtable. ...once these two passionate and scandalous figures find each other, they discover that it isn’t so easy to extricate oneself from the fires of desire - without getting singed. For the duchess and the dark lord each have startling secrets to reveal..." - from the hardcover edition.
This is the fifth and final book of the Huxtable quintet which tells the stories of three sisters, Margaret, the eldest (At Last Comes Love), Vanessa in the middle (First Comes Marriage), Katherine, the youngest (Then Comes Seduction), their young brother, Stephen (Seducing an Angel), and their second cousin Constantine (A Secret Affair).

Summer on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. Mira. Print Length: 400 p. Kindle edition $5.76. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.


"...account of lives intersecting at the series-hinging yarn store, A Good Yarn. Upbeat cancer survivor Lydia and her pragmatic sister, Margaret, start a Knit to Quit group in their Blossom Street yarn store, hoping to bring in customers for weekly self-help sessions. Casey, the 12-year-old girl Lydia takes in while waiting for an infant of her own to adopt, helps out in the shop when she's not sulking in her room or causing trouble for Lydia's family. Local baker Alix wants a baby as much as Lydia does, but she and her husband agree she needs to quit smoking first. Then there's super-stressed chocolate magnate, Hutch, who takes the knitting class after his doctor suggests it. Hutch hits it off with Phoebe, who is trying to quit obsessing about a broken engagement. Rounding out the crowd, bookstore owner Ann Marie must deal with her adopted daughter Ellen's biological father, a recovering addict, re-entering their lives." - Publishers Weekly.

Risk No Secrets by Cindy Gerard. Simon and Schuster. Print Length: 400 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Twelve years of chasing bad guys didn’t erase beautiful Sophie Baylor from Wyatt Savage’s memory. If he had another chance, he’d never let her leave. So when she tracks him down from El Salvador and begs for help, he doesn’t ask questions - he just goes. Sophie is grateful her daughter survived a kidnapping attempt, but she won’t forgive herself until the girl who was mistakenly abducted is safe. Wyatt is the only man brave enough to take on the mysterious terrorists behind the crime - and the one irresistible man she wishes she had never let go. Sophie knows Central America’s steamy jungles and sticky politics better than anyone. Yet she refuses to hide in fear. Then she becomes the enemy’s number one target. Wyatt lost her once, and he won’t lose her again - even if he has to fight, kill, or die to save her." - Amazon.

WESTERNS

The Family Jensen by William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone. Pinnacle Books. Print Length: 484 p. Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...a sprawling Western saga that brings together for the first time the three generations of legendary frontiersmen, the Jensens, in a bloody battle for freedom, justice, and the fate of a nation. Trapped in a remote cabin, surrounded by ruthless gunmen, Matt Jensen and his adoptive father Smoke Jensen join forces with their old friend, Preacher, in the greatest fight of their lives. A ruthless cattle baron has waged an all-out war against the peaceful native tribesmen who have become Preacher's friends. In a bloodthirsty bid for land, power, and wealth, the baron's drafted an army of professional killers to destroy the homesteaders - among them the Jensens are the only men brave enough to stand in his way. Now, Matt, Smoke and Preacher face their ultimate and most deadly challenge..." - Amazon.

Texas Sunrise: Two Novels of the Texas Republic by Elmer Kelton. Forge Books. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...really two novels, both concerning the Texas revolution against Mexico as witnessed by two young brothers, Joshua and Thomas Buckalew. In the first book, Massacre at Goliad, the Buckalews' dream of adventure and free land is dispelled by the harsh reality of the West: hard work, Indians, bandits and the simmering cultural, racial and political animosity between Americans and Mexicans. When violence finally breaks out, the boys miss the slaughter at the Alamo only to be caught up in the massacre of Texan prisoners at Goliad. Only one brother survives, going on to avenge Goliad at the Battle of San Jacinto. In After the Bugles, the surviving brother returns home to rebuild his ranch and his life, but must contend with cheating opportunists, murderous outlaws and deadly Comanche attacks, as well as growing Texan racism against his Mexican friends and neighbors. As with all of Kelton's westerns, characters are colorful and well drawn, the action is fast and bloody, and the plotting carefully thought out, making this another supercharged yarn." - Publishers Weekly.

Rocky Mountain Revenge by Jon Sharpe. (The Trailsman, 342.) Signet. Print Length: 176 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Skye Fargo is helping to broker a deal between a wealthy rancher and the Nez Perce to breed the tribe's Appaloosa horses - only to find himself in unwelcome territory." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 21 May 2010

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the May 21st issue include:

61 Hours by Lee Child. Book 14 in the Jack Reacher series. Delacorte Press. Print length: 400 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "Here's a real-life mystery: Why is Jack Reacher not yet a household name or an iconic movie character like Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt?'." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Sixty-one hours. Not a minute to spare. A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces. If she’s going to live long enough to testify, she’ll need help. Because a killer is coming to Bolton, a coldly proficient assassin who never misses. Reacher’s original plan was to keep on moving. But the next 61 hours will change everything. The secrets are deadlier and his enemies are stronger than he could have guessed - but so is the woman whose life he’ll risk his own to save." -www.randomhouse.com.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent. Scribner. Print length: 480 p. HISTORY. EW's slant: "...born storyteller...prodigiously researched narrative...flies like fiction." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (23 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrent’s dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever. Last Call is peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety: Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and bootlegger Sam Bronfman, Pierre S. du Pont and H. L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and the incredible - if long-forgotten - federal official Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who throughout the twenties was the most powerful woman in the country. Perhaps most surprising of all is Okrent’s account of Joseph P. Kennedy’s legendary, and long-misunderstood, role in the liquor business..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City, by Michael A. Lerner.

The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898, by Evan Thomas. Little, Brown & Company. Print Length: 432 p. EW's slant: "...finely crafted book about the Gilded Age, when America's desire for empire building fueled the Spanish-American War." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (35 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"America acquired an empire in a fit of neurosis, according to this shrewd, caustic psychological interpretation of the Spanish-American War... The book focuses on three leading war-mongers - Teddy Roosevelt, his crony, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, whose fanciful New York Journal coverage of the Cuban insurrection and the sinking of the USS Maine fanned war hysteria. Ashamed of their fathers' failure to fight in the Civil War, according to Thomas, these righteous sons trumped up a pointless conflict with Spain as a test of manhood, conflating the personal with the national. To Thomas they represent an American ruling elite imbued with notions of Anglo-Saxon supremacy over alien races and lower orders, but anxious about its own monied softness. As foils, Thomas offers Thomas Brackett Reed, the antiwar speaker of the House, and philosopher William James, who advanced an ethic of moral courage against the Rooseveltian cult of physical aggression. Thomas's thesis is bold and will undoubtedly be controversial, but his protagonists make for rich psychological portraiture..." - Publishers Weekly.
Evan Thomas has been the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek since 1991.

War, by Sebastian Junger. Twelve. Print Length: 320 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: " ...harrowing and hard-to-put-down..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 (30 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Over the course of a year, Junger... embedded himself with Second Platoon, Battle Company, operating out of the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan, an inhospitable terrain inhabited by people inhospitable to American forces, where some of the heaviest combat has been fought. Junger took five trips to the valley in 2007 and 2008 to follow Second Platoon through much of their 15-month deployment. He experiences combat firsthand; witnesses firefights, ambushes, and casualties; and survives an IED that blew up the Humvee he was riding in. Second Platoon, considered 'the best-trained and ...worst-disciplined,' is known for their brawling as much as for their bravery. Junger examines the mind-set of the soldiers who exist on 'the tip of the spear,' the nearly superhuman traits they embody, the challenges they face when they engage with the enemy and interact with locals, the boredom between battles, and the difficulties they have when they return to civilian life. For these young men, war, although costly, is an opportunity to truly live life to its fullest (and carry and fire weapons); the thrill of war by far trumps fear and sorrow and the drudgeries of civilian life." - Ben Segedin for Booklist.
Junger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, also wrote The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (17 May 10)

Media interviews are a popular way for writers to introduce new books they hope will catch the viewer's eye and open their pocketbooks. 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 (11 MAY 2010) and
ON COMEDY CENTRAL'S THE DAILY SHOW (11 MAY 2010):

Oh My Dog: How to Choose, Train, Groom, Nurture, Feed and Care for Your New Best Friend, by Beth Ostrosky Stern and Kristina Grish. Gallery. Print Length: 512 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Stern, North Shore Animal League America spokesperson and Long Island Bulldog Rescue member (and wife of radio personality Howard Stern), has written a comprehensive guide to dog ownership. Every aspect of companion animal care is covered, beginning with selecting a purebred puppy from a breeder or an older dog from a shelter and concluding with end-of-life considerations. Training, behavior, grooming, bonding, health maintenance, and nutrition are explained in minute detail. Stern's chatty tone and language can be easily understood by inexperienced owners. " - Florence Scarinci for Library Journal.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (14 May 2010):

The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter. Simon & Schuster. Print Length: 480 p. Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Alter...uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama’s difficult debut. What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called 'a Rubik’s Cube in his brain'? These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office.
...In Alter’s telling, the real Obama is an authentic, demanding, unsentimental, and sometimes overconfident leader. He adapted to the presidency with ease and put more 'points on the board' than he is given credit for, but neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public. We see the famously calm president cursing leaks, playfully trash-talking his advisors, and joking about even the most taboo subjects, still intent on redeeming more of his promise as the problems mount." - Amazon.
Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (17 May 2010):

Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope, by Dan & Susie Van Ryan and Newell, Colleen & Whitney Cerak, with Mark Tabb. Howard Books. Print Length: 288 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Five lives were lost in a tragic accident involving a Taylor University van, and one young woman, severely injured and comatose, was rushed to the hospital. Families, faculty, students, and communities grieved their losses and joined in prayer and hope as the one young woman, Laura Van Ryn, fought for her life in a hospital bed. The national news spread the story, and people everywhere shared the grief and the hope. Five weeks passed for the Cerak family. Believing they had buried their daughter [Whitney], the Ceraks clung to their faith...Five weeks passed for the Van Ryns. Keeping a constant bedside vigil over their precious daughter Laura, they sat and prayed and hoped. They rejoiced at each tiny advance toward recovery. They celebrated each sign of Laura's healing. And then the shock! 'Okay, Laura, I would like you to write your name for me,' the occupational therapist said. W-H-I-T-N-E-Y." - books.simonandshuster.com.

ON OPRAH (17 MAY 2010): and
ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (19 MAY 2010):

Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home, by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling. HarperCollins. Print Length: 336 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"On March 17, 2009, Laura Ling and her colleague Euna Lee were working on a documentary about North Korean defectors who were fleeing the desperate conditions in their homeland. While filming on the Chinese-North Korean border, they were chased down by North Korean soldiers who violently apprehended them. Laura and Euna were charged with trespassing and 'hostile acts,' and imprisoned by Kim Jong Il's notoriously secretive Communist state. Kept totally apart, they endured months of interrogations and eventually a trial before North Korea's highest court. They were the first Americans ever to be sentenced to twelve years of hard labor in a prison camp in North Korea. When news of the arrest reached Laura's sister, journalist Lisa Ling, she immediately began a campaign to get her sister released, one that led her from the State Department to the higher echelons of the media world and eventually to the White House. Told in the sisters' alternating voices, Somewhere Inside is a timely, inspiring, and page-turning tale of survival set against the canvas of international politics that goes beyond the headlines to reveal the impact on lives engulfed by forces beyond their control. But it is also a window into the unique bond these two sisters have always shared, a bond that sustained them throughout the most horrifying ordeal of their lives." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch: New in Fantasy & Mystery Fiction (15 May 2010)

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in fantasy and mystery fiction include:

FANTASY

HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar. Apex Publications. Print length: 156 p. Kindle edition $4.00. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Popular short fiction writer Lavie Tidhar gathers some of his best work in one collection. Stories that are infused with centuries of tradition and painted with Hebrew mythology. We meet the Tzaddik as he faces off against a vengeful angel intent on sending the Fallen to hell. The shapeshifting Rat fights lycanthropic Nazis. The Rabbi takes us on a thoughtful and amusing journey into the possibilities of a Jewish state in the heart of Africa. Finally, all three protagonists appear in an old-fashioned caper story..." - Amazon.

The Destiny of the Sword by Dave Duncan. Book three of The Seventh Sword trilogy following The Reluctant Swordsman and The Coming of Wisdom. E-Reads. Print length: 368 p. Kindle edition $3.21. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Wally Smith, having died on Earth, finds himself reincarnated as a swordsman in another world and entrusted by the presiding goddess with a mission that has no appeal for him at all. Goddesses can be very persuasive... This series is still my most popular work. I often wonder if that is because the first version of it was written solely for my own amusement, before I ever considered trying to get it published." - the author at www.daveduncan.com.

Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman. Luna. Print length: 352 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Welcome to P.U.P.I.--Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations. A handpicked team trained to solve crimes the regular police can't touch - crimes of magic. My name's Bonnie Torres. Recent college grad, magic user and severely unemployed. Until I got a call out of nowhere to interview for a job I hadn't applied for. It smelled fishy, but the brutal truth was I needed the work - so off I went. Two days later I'm a PUPI - me and Nick, Sharon, Nifty and Pietr. Five twentysomethings, thrown into an entirely new career in forensic magic. The first job we get is a doozy: proving that the deaths of two Talents were murder, not suicide. Worse, there are high-profile people who want us to close up shop and go away. We're sniffing out things they'd rather keep buried..." - Amazon.

Frost Moon by Anthony Francis. BelleBooks. Book one of the SkinDancer series. Print length: 284 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In an alternate Atlanta where magic is practiced openly, where witches sip coffee at local cafes, shapeshifters party at urban clubs, vampires rule the southern night like gangsters, and mysterious creatures command dark caverns beneath the city, Dakota Frost's talents are coveted by all. She's the best magical tattooist in the southeast, a Skindancer, able to bring her amazing tats to life. When a serial killer begins stalking Atlanta's tattooed elite, the police and the Feds seek Dakota's help. Can she find the killer on the dark fringe of the city's Edgeworld? Among its powerful outcasts and tortured loners, what kind of enemies and allies will she attract? Will they see her as an invader, as a seducer, as an unexpected champion...or as delicious prey?" - Amazon.

Drummer Boy by Scott Nicholson. Haunted Computer Books. Print length: 360 p. Kindle edition $1.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"On a Blue Ridge Mountain peak, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as 'The Jangling Hole,' and the wind carries a whispered name... On the eve of a Civil War re-enactment, the town of Titusville prepares to host a mock battle. The weekend warriors who don their replica uniforms and clean their black-powder rifles aren’t aware they will soon engage in mortal combat. This is a war between the living and the dead, because a troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, are rising from their dark slumber, and their mission is far from over. And only one misfit kid stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…" - Amazon.

Immortalis Carpe Noctem by Katie Salidas. Rising Sign Books. Print length: 346 p. Kindle edition $4.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bleeding to death after brutal mugging on the campus of UNLV, twenty-five year old Alyssa, is rescued by the cold and aloof, vampire, Lysander. Taking pity on her, he shares the gift - and curse - of immortality. She awakens as a vampire and is soon devastated by harsh realities of her new way of life: the loss of her friends, her independence, and her humanity. As if having her humanity stripped away was not enough to make life interesting, Alyssa finds out her 'turning', did not go unnoticed by the rest of undead society. Old enemies; an ancient sect of vampire hunters, known as the Acta Sanctorum, as well as a powerful Vampire mistress, each set plans in motion to destroy both Alyssa and Lysander..." - Amazon.

Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier. Book one of The Griffin Mage series. Orbit. Print length: 400 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Little ever happens in the quiet villages of peaceful Feierabiand. The course of Kes' life seems set: she'll grow up to be an herb-woman and healer for the village of Minas Ford, never quite fitting in but always more or less accepted. And she's content with that path - or she thinks she is. Until the day the griffins come down from the mountains, bringing with them the fiery wind of their desert and a desperate need for a healer. But what the griffins need is a healer who is not quite human ... or a healer who can be made into something not quite human." - Amazon.

MYSTERY

Death of a Trophy Wife by Laura Levine. Book eight in the author's Jaine Austen mystery series. Kensington Books. Print length: 304 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.



"Without a job or a date in sight, Jaine is equally out of luck in finance and romance. So when her friend Lance offers to treat her to brunch at the Four Seasons, Jaine leaps at the chance like a fashionista at a pair of half-price Louboutins. They've barely made it through the menu when Lance spots his friend Bunny. Dressed like a million bucks - and probably worth twice that - Bunny is the new trophy wife of mattress maven Marvin Cooper. When Bunny generously offers Jaine a gig writing Marv's new advertising campaign, Jaine accepts the job, and an invitation to her upcoming soirée. But at the party Bunny cruelly rules the Cooper mansion with a fist full of martinis, abusing terrified staff and her browbeaten husband alike. It seems like this society girl could use a good kick in the assets. Indeed, before the evening is over, someone poisons the D-cup diva. The police arrest Lance, but Jaine knows his murderous urges end at her closet door. She sets out to clear his name and discovers a list of suspects longer than Bunny's credit card bill." - Amazon.

Fever Dream by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Grand Central Publishing. Print length: 416 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"At the old family manse in Louisiana, Special Agent Pendergast is putting to rest long-ignored possessions reminiscent of his wife Helen's tragic death, only to make a stunning-and dreadful-discovery. Helen had been mauled by an unusually large and vicious lion while they were big game hunting in Africa. But now, Pendergast learns that her rifle - her only protection from the beast - had been deliberately loaded with blanks. Who could have wanted Helen dead...and why? With Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta's assistance, Pendergast embarks on a quest to uncover the mystery of his wife's murder. It is a journey that sends him deep into her past where he learns much that Helen herself had wished to keep hidden." - www.prestonchild.com.
This is the tenth book in the Pendergast novels. For readers new to this series featuring eccentric FBI special agent and Louisiana native Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, the first volume, Relic, is also available in a Kindle edition.
Less expensive alternative:One of Preston and Child's most popular Pendergast thrillers: The Cabinet of Curiosities.

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. Mysterious Press. Print length: 272 p. Kindle edition $1.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
This is book one in Peters' Amelia Peabody series which now encompasses nineteen volumes, published between 1975 and 2010.
"Elizabeth Peters's unforgettable heroine Amelia Peabody makes her first appearance in this clever mystery. Amelia receives a rather large inheritance and decides to use it for travel. On her way through Rome to Egypt, she meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young woman abandoned by her lover and left with no means of support. Amelia promptly takes Evelyn under her wing, insisting that the young lady accompany her to Egypt, where Amelia plans to indulge her passion for Egyptology. When Evelyn becomes the target of an aborted kidnapping and the focus of a series of suspicious accidents and mysterious visitations, Amelia becomes convinced of a plot to harm her young friend. Like any self-respecting sleuth, Amelia sets out to discover who is behind it all." - Amazon.

Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin. HarperCollins. Kindle edition $0.00. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When private detective Dana Cutler is hired to follow college student Charlotte Walsh, she never imagines the trail will lead to the White House. But the morning after Walsh's clandestine meeting with Christopher Farrington, President of the United States, the pretty young coed is dead-the latest victim, apparently, of a fiend dubbed 'the D.C. Ripper.' A junior associate in an Oregon law firm, Brad Miller is stunned by the death row revelations of convicted serial killer Clarence Little. Though Little accepts responsibility for a string of gruesome murders, he swears he was framed for one of them: the death of a teenaged babysitter who worked for then-governor Farrington. Suddenly nowhere in America is safe for a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer..." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly (14 May 2010)

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the May 14th issue include:


The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer. Knopf. Print length: 624 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a story simultaneously epic and intimate." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...a grand love story set against the backdrop of Budapest and Paris, an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are ravaged by war, and the chronicle of one family’s struggle against the forces that threaten to annihilate it. Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life. Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe’s unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. At the end of Andras’s second summer in Paris, all of Europe erupts in a cataclysm of war. From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the lonely chill of Andras’s room on the rue des Écoles to the deep and enduring connection he discovers on the rue de Sévigné, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in forced labor camps and beyond, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a love tested by disaster, of brothers whose bonds cannot be broken, of a family shattered and remade in history’s darkest hour, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war." - Amazon.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, by Wes Moore. Spiegel & Grau. Print length: 288 p. Optimized for larger screens. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "...taken separately, the two stories would be unremarkable, but by intertwining them, Moore etches a broader picture of the pure gamble of inner-city life." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (21 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"A story about two young African-American men who share the same name and grew up on the same inner-city streets, but wound up in vastly different places. Author Wes Moore, a Rhodes Scholar, former Army officer and White House Fellow, works in investment banking. The other Wes Moore, a drug dealer, is imprisoned for life. Both are in their early 30s. Upon reading about the other Wes's 2000 conviction for armed robbery, the author wondered how the lives of two youths growing up in the same time (1990s) and place (Baltimore) could take such divergent paths. Drawing on conversations with the other Wes and interviews, the author creates an absorbing narrative that makes clear the critical roles that choices, family support and luck play in young people's lives." - Kirkus Reviews.

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre . Harmony. Print length: 320 p. HISTORY. EW's slant: "...true WWII tale that reads like something by Ian Fleming." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (23 reviews). Kindle edition $13.68. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated...to deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. Unveiling never-before-released material, Ben Macintyre brings the reader right into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles and spies, and the German Abwehr agents who suffered the 'twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanship.' He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley and Montagu and their near-impossible feats into a riveting adventure that not only saved thousands of lives but paved the way for a pivotal battle in Sicily and, ultimately, Allied success in the war." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love and Betrayal, a well-documented World War II tale of British double agent Eddie Chapman.

Spoken from the Heart, by Laura Bush. Scribner. Print length: 464 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...The intensely private former First Lady seems almost a shadowy spectator in her own memoir." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Born in the boom-and-bust oil town of Midland, Texas, Laura Welch grew up as an only child in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or infant death. She vividly evokes Midland's brash, rugged culture, her close relationship with her father, and the bonds of early friendships that sustain her to this day. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1968, in the thick of student rebellions across the country and at the dawn of the women's movement, she became an elementary school teacher, working in inner-city schools, then trained to be a librarian. At age thirty, she met George W. Bush, whom she had last passed in the hallway in seventh grade... With rare intimacy and candor, Laura Bush writes about her early married life as she was thrust into one of America's most prominent political families, as well as her deep longing for children and her husband's decision to give up drinking. In 2001, after one of the closest elections in American history, Laura Bush moved into the White House. Here she captures presidential life in the harrowing days and weeks after 9/11 [and] lifts the curtain on what really happens inside the White House, from presidential finances to the 175-year-old tradition of separate bedrooms for presidents and their wives to the antics of some White House guests and even a few members of Congress." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady, by Ronald Kessler.

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND KINDLE EDITIONS

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival, by Norman Ollestad. HarperCollins. Print length: 288 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (132 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In a spare, brisk prose, Ollestad tells the tragic story of the pivotal event of his life, an airplane crash into the side of a mountain that cost three lives, including his father's, in 1979. Only 11 years old at the time, he alone survived, using the athletic skills he learned in competitive downhill skiing, amid the twisted wreckage, the bodies and the bone-chilling cold of the blizzard atop the 8,600-foot mountain. Although the narrative core of the memoir remains the horrifying plane crackup into the San Gabriel Mountains, its warm, complex soul is conveyed by the loving relationship between the former FBI agent father and his son...during the golden childhood years spent in wild, freewheeling Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s." - Publishers Weekly.
$9.99 or less alternative: A Test of Will: One Man's Extraordinary Story of Survival, by Warren MacDonald.

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, by T. J. Stiles. Vintage. Print length: 736 p. BIOGRAPHY. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (50 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius 'Commodore' Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore’s personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York’s social elite. And he was a father who struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with contacting the dead." - Amazon.

Nobody Move, by Denis Johnson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Print length: 208 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (52 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"From the National Book Award–winning, bestselling author of Tree of Smoke comes a provocative thriller set in the American West. Nobody Move, which first appeared in the pages of Playboy, is the story of an assortment of lowlifes in Bakersfield, California, and their cat-and-mouse game over $2.3 million. Touched by echoes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett...at once an homage to and a variation on literary form. It salutes one of our most enduring and popular genres - the American crime novel - but with a grisly humor and outrageousness that are Denis Johnson’s own. Sexy, suspenseful, and above all entertaining..." - Amazon.