Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (29 Jun 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 ABC'S THE VIEW (21 JUN 2010):
No Wonder My Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-Up Dad, by Jay Mohr. Simon & Schuster. Print Length: 288 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Jay Mohr is one of the funniest people in comedy today. Now, in this down and dirty tale of modern fatherhood, Mohr shares his stories as a first-time parent. No Wonder My Parents Drank reveals the details behind Mohr’s humiliating test-tube conception attempts and then recounts the trauma of not only having to keep this child alive, but having to spend time alone with him! He waxes poetic about dirty diapers; spins theories on spanking; and mulls over the more hidden advantages of parenthood, like carpool lane access, carte blanche to use the ladies restroom, and an alibi for missing family dinners. Mohr describes, in painfully funny detail, the bizarre situations that all parents inevitably face but can never prepare for..." - Amazon.

ON COMEDY CENTRAL'S THE DAILY SHOW (23 JUN 2010):
The White House Doctor: My Patients Were Presidents, by Connie Mariano. Thomas Dunne Books. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Dr. Connie Mariano served 9 years at the White House under Presidents George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush. She participated in world headline-making news events and traveled all over the world. She cared for visiting dignitaries and was charged with caring for all the members of the First Family. From flirting with King Juan Carlos of Spain to spending the night on the Queen of England's yacht, Dr. Mariano glimpsed a glittering and powerful celebrity that few ever see...a fascinating look into what goes on behind closed doors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." - Amazon.

ON THE CBS LATE SHOW (29 JUN 2010):
The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter. Simon & Schuster. Print Length: 480 p. Kindle edition $12.99. 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. 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 NPR'S THE DIANE REHM SHOW (29 JUN 2010):
Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, by Bruce Henderson. Harper Collins. Print Length:320 p. Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In February 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over 'neutral' Laos in territory controlled by Pathet Lao guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars. After his capture, the German-born Dengler proved to be no ordinary prisoner. Already a legend in the navy for his unique escape skills, which he had demonstrated during survival training in the California desert, he found himself caught in a desperate situation, imprisoned by the enemy and by the jungle itself. Dengler's heroic impulse was to free not only himself but also other POWs -American, Thai, and Chinese - some of whom had been held for years. Bruce Henderson served with Dengler aboard USS Ranger. In this gripping book, he tells the complete story for the first time, drawing on personal interviews with the intrepid pilot, his squadron mates, and his friends and family, as well as military archival materials - some never before made public - and letters and journals. Henderson's riveting account demonstrates why Dengler's story of unending optimism, innate courage, loyalty, and survival against overwhelming odds remains for his fellow flyers and shipmates the best and brightest memory of their generation's war." - Amazon.
Dengler was masterfully portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2006 film Rescue Dawn.

ON FOXES' GLENN BECK SHOW (29 JUN 2010):
Foreign Influence, by Brad Thor. Atria. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Navy SEAL turned covert operative Scot Harvath is called to action once again in Brad Thor's hottest political thriller yet.
Buried within the black ops budget of the Department of Defense, a new spy agency has been created. Unfettered by the oversight of self-serving politicians, it reports only to a secret panel of insiders. Its job is to target America's enemies - both foreign and domestic - under a charter of three simple words: Find, Fix, and Finish. Recruited as a field operative, Scot Harvath has just returned from his first assignment abroad when a bombing in Rome kills a group of American college students. The evidence points to a dangerous colleague from Harvath's past, and Harvath is tasked with leveraging his relationship to lure the man out of hiding and destroy him. Simultaneously, a young woman is struck by a taxi in a hit-and-run in Chicago, and city police soon abandon their fruitless investigation. But when the family's attorney digs deeper, he uncovers a shocking connection to the Rome bombing and the perpetrators' plans for America..." - books.simonandschuster.com/

ON COMEDY CENTRAL'S THE COLBERT REPORT (30 JUN 2010):
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr. W. W. Norton & Company. Print Length: 276 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Is Google making us stupid? When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet's intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the Net is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch: New in Fantasy & Mystery Fiction (27 June 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

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede. Scholastic. Print length: 352 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Eff Rothmer is the twin sister of a seventh son of a seventh son, growing up on the edge of the 'safe' settled area of the U.S. in the 1850s (though history has not gone quite the way it did in our world - the Civil War, for instance, happened in 1832, and Lewis and Clark never came back...) This is the first book of a fantasy trilogy about settling the West in a world where magic works and the New World was not settled until modern magic (of Columbus' day) made it possible to fend off the dangerous wildlife (which includes both imaginary beasts like steam dragons and spectral bears, and real-life post-ice-age creatures like wooly mammoths)." - www.pcwrede.com.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. Roc. Print length: 592 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Historical fantasist Kay delivers an exquisitely detailed vision of Kitan, a land much like Tang Dynasty China. Shen Tai's father died leading troops in battle, so he spends his mourning year burying the bones of soldiers on both sides, laying their ghosts to rest. He attracts the attention of Cheng-wan, a princess of his people sent to wed one of the enemy. As her gifts make Shen Tai wealthy, an assassin kills his best friend. Shen Tai hires a bodyguard, Wei Song, to keep him alive while he figures out what to do with his riches and who wants him dead...the complex intrigues of poets, prostitutes, ministers, and soldiers evolve into a fascinating, sometimes bloody, and entirely believable tale." - Publishers Weekly.

Blood Song by Cat Adams. Tor. Print length: 368 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a Prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed. Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an Abomination - something that should not exist - and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead. With the help of a few loyal friends - a sexy mage, a powerful werewolf, and a psychic cop - Celia does her best to stay alive." - Amazon.

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris. Ace. Print length: 320 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is book eleven in the Southern Vampire series that began with Dead Until Dark.
"After enduring torture and the loss of loved ones during the brief but deadly Faery War, Sookie Stackhouse is hurt and she's angry. Just about the only bright spot in her life is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman. But he's under scrutiny by the new Vampire King because of their relationship. And as the political implications of the Shifters coming out are beginning to be felt, Sookie's connection to the Shreveport pack draws her into the debate. Worst of all, though the door to Faery has been closed, there are still some Fae on the human side-and one of them is angry at Sookie." - Amazon.

From Hell With Love by Simon R. Green. Roc. Print length: 368 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is book four in Green's Secret Histories series that began with The Man with the Golden Torc.
"It's no walk in the park for a Drood, a member of the family that has protected humanity from the things that go bump in the night for centuries. They aren't much liked by the creatures they kill, by ungrateful humans, or even by one another. Now their Matriarch is dead, and it's up to Eddie Drood, acting head of the family, to figure out whodunit. Unpopular opinion is divided: it was either Eddie's best girl, Molly. Or Eddie himself. And Eddie knows he didn't do it." - Amazon.

MYSTERY

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich. St. Martin's Press. Print length: 320 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Stephanie Plum, half-Italian, half-Hungarian, a shrewd mixture of smarts and dumb luck, works for her cousin Vinny as a bail bondswoman in Trenton, New Jersey. Vinny, however, is in deep fecal matter, owing too much money to the very scary guys who have kidnapped him. Stephanie, office manager Connie, and Lula, plus-sized and focused (if not on the job at hand), manage to spring Vinny (more than once) and find a lot of money to pay what he owes. Along the way, they facilitate a cow stampede and an alligator escape; are assisted by a bunch of Hobbit con-goers; and find their office going up quite thoroughly in flames... - GraceAnne A. DeCandido for Booklist.

The Rule of Nine by Steve Martini. Harper Collins. Print length: 400 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
The Old Weatherman dreams of a plan that could be his swan song, an attack to drive a stake through the heart of the right-wing establishment and bury it for good. Now he's found the money, the ideal weapon, and the professional who knows how to use it. And he has set his sights on the perfect target at the very seat of the United States government, in the heart of downtown Washington. It will be a strike heard round the world. San Diego defense attorney Paul Madriani is still reeling from the trauma of a near nuclear explosion he helped avert at the naval base in Coronado. Threatened by federal authorities to keep quiet about the close call in California, Madriani is now faced with a new problem in the steely-eyed and alluring Joselyn Cole, a weapons control expert, who believes he has to go public with what he knows if they have any hope of stopping a similar event in the future. But Madriani has been linked to the murder of a Washington, D.C., political staffer, and authorities believe a shadowy figure called Liquida - a hired assassin known as 'the Mexicutioner' - may be responsible..." - Amazon.

Broken by Karin Slaughter. Delacorte Press. Print length: 400 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"When Dr. Sara Linton returns home to Grant County, Ga., for Thanksgiving, she hopes to steer clear of the police, especially Det. Lena Adams, whom she blames for the murder of her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. Yet when college student Allison Spooner is found dead in a lake and a local boy, Tommy Braham, is arrested for the murder, Sara reluctantly agrees to consult. The investigation soon spirals out of control after Tommy dies in custody. When Sara calls in Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent from Atlanta to take over the case, the local police greet Will's arrival with suspicion. Will must weigh Sara's personal vendetta against Detective Adams with the facts of the case, which grow more confusing the deeper he digs into the small county's secrets." - Publishers Weekly.


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A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly (25 Jun 2010)

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the June 25th issue include:

One Day, by David Nicholls. Vintage. Print length: 448 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...light but surprisingly deep romance...a nuanced love story disguised as a beach read." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (16 reviews). Kindle edition $8.97. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the next day, after college graduation, they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. As the years go by, Dex and Em begin to lead separate lives - lives very different from the people they once dreamed they'd become. And yet, unable to let go of that special something that grabbed onto them that first night, an extraordinary relationship develops between the two. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day - July 15th - of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself." - Amazon.

The Nobodies Album, by Carolyn Parkhurst. Doubleday. Print length: 320 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a low-key, introspective murder-mystery...pinhole glimpse into the mind of a fascinating woman..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $12.84. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Bestselling novelist Octavia Frost has just completed her latest book - a revolutionary novel in which she has rewritten the last chapters of all her previous books, removing clues about her personal life concealed within, especially a horrific tragedy that befell her family years ago. On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, Octavia reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: The Dogs of Babel, Parkhurst's debut novel.

So Cold the River, by Michael Koryta. Little, Brown and Company. Print length: 528 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "...swigs from the fount of Stephen King..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (31 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Filmmaker Eric Shaw had a knack for getting the exact right shot - an unexplained tug that unerringly put him on the right path - until his temper killed his Hollywood career. He gets a shot at redemption when a wealthy young woman commissions a video tribute for her father-in-law, a dying millionaire named Campbell Bradford. A man with a shady past, a town with a rich history, and an antique bottle of water claiming to 'cure all ills' lead Shaw to small town West Baden, where things quickly go sideways. Shaw finds himself at odds with Bradford's only surviving family, a bitter and violent great-grandson named Josiah, and that once familiar tug of Shaw's becomes something darker and more dangerous." - Daphne Durham.
$9.99 or less alternative: Envy the Night, a first-rate mystery that George Pelecanos called "Koryta's best work to date.".

Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross. Knopf. Print length: 352 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: " one of the most hyped novels of the summer - and for the life of me, I'm not sure why." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (31 reviews). Kindle edition $14.27. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Ross's inspired debut explores the proximity of violence and love and begins with the death of Alice Pepin, whose lifelong struggle with depression, insecurity, and obesity comes to an abrupt end at her kitchen table when she is found dead with a peanut lodged in her throat. She has suffered suicide by anaphylactic shock - or so claims her husband, David, a quiet computer game programmer obsessed with M.C. Escher, Hitchcock, and working and re-working a draft of his unpublished novel, a violent possible masterpiece. Gradually, the two detectives on the case begin to see disturbing parallels between their own marital dramas and the Pepins' cruel rotations of brinkmanship and adoration... a unique book - stark and sublime, creepy and fearless - that readers into the darker end of the literary spectrum won't want to miss." - Publishers Weekly.
$9.99 or less alternative: Abandoned, by Cody Mcfadyen, another thriller about crimes against spouses.

The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman. Dial Press. Print length: 288 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "The hot first novel that wowed Brad Pitt." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (105 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it - and themselves - afloat. Fifty years and many changes have ensued since the paper was founded by an enigmatic millionaire, and now, amid the stained carpeting and dingy office furniture, the staff’s personal dramas seem far more important than the daily headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editor in chief, is smarting from a betrayal in her open marriage; Arthur, the lazy obituary writer, is transformed by a personal tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial officer, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unexpected way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to desperate lengths for his next byline, while the new Cairo stringer is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsize ego. And in the shadows is the isolated young publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound, Schopenhauer, than to the fate of his family’s quirky newspaper." - Amazon.

Language Matters: New Kindle Books for Word Nerds

If, like me, you find the history of words a source of unending fascination and enjoy reading about language and languages, here are a few recent Kindle books for your consideration:

A Little Book of Language, by David Crystal. Yale University Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...exhilarating romp through the mysteries and vagaries of language, from how infants acquire language to how many words the average adult knows (40,000) and slang (Linguists love collecting slang. It's a bit like collecting stamps)... Crystal smoothly boils down his vast knowledge about the peculiarities of spelling, grammar, and diction, and the influence of new kinds of linguistic style (computer language, texting) on language development. This is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the subject." - Publishers Weekly.
David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor, and one of the world’s preeminent language specialists.

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, by Mignon Fogarty. Holt. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (56 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing covers the grammar rules and word-choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers. From 'between vs. among' and 'although vs. while' to comma splices and misplaced modifiers, Mignon offers memory tricks and clear explanations that will help readers recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Chock-full of tips on style, business writing, and effective e-mailing..." - Amazon.

Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language, by Robert McCrum. W. W. Norton & Company. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"McCrum..., associate editor of Britain's Observer, surveys the latter-day apotheosis of English as the international language, observing Chinese English-language boot camps, Bangalore call centers, and the takeover of Britain's Man Booker prize by non-British novelists. But most of the book is a historical pageant of the English-speaking peoples as they assimilated, conquered, or enslaved foreigners and expropriated words and dialects under the leadership of statesmen/wordsmiths from King Alfred to Churchill and literary geniuses like Shakespeare and Twain. McCrum makes a pragmatic, happenstance case for the international popularity of English: the British Empire and American hegemony spread it around the planet, making it the obvious choice for a globalizing world's lingua franca..." - Publishers Weekly.

There's a Word for It: The Explosion of the American Language Since 1900, by Sol Steinmetz. Harmony. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"From the turn of the twentieth century to today, our language has grown from around 90,000 new words to some 500,000 - at least, that’s today’s best guesstimate (1936). What accounts for this quantum leap (1924)? In There’s a Word for It, language expert Sol Steinmetz takes us on a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (1949) joyride (1908) through our nation’s cultural history, as seen through the neato (1951) words and terms we’ve invented to describe it all. From the quaintly genteel days of the 1900s (when we first heard words such as nickelodeon, escalator, and, believe it or not, Ms.) through the Roaring Twenties (the time of flappers, jalopies, and bootleg booze) to the postwar ’50s (the years of rock ’n’ roll, beatniks, and blast-offs) and into the new millennium (with its blogs, Google, and Obamamania), this feast for word lovers is a boffo (1934) celebration of linguistic esoterica (1929)." - Amazon.

It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. - Franklin P. Jones

Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words, by Phil Cousineau. Viva Editions. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Who knew that the great country of Canada is named for a mistake? How about 'bedswerver,' the best Elizabethan insult to hurl at a cheating boyfriend? By exploring the delightful back stories of the 250 words in Wordcatcher, readers are lured by language and entangled in etymologies. Author Phil Cousineau takes us on a tour into the obscure territory of word origins with great erudition and endearing curiosity. The English poet W. H. Auden was once asked to teach a poetry class, and when 200 students applied to study with him, he only had room for 20 of them. When asked how he chose his students, he said he picked the ones who actually loved words. So too, with this book - it takes a special wordcatcher to create a treasure chest of remarkable words and their origins, and any word lover will relish the stories that Cousineau has discovered." - Amazon.


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Kindle E-Books on the Cheap (21 Jun 10)

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 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 young adult fiction, a classic detective story by Josephine Tey, science fiction from Philip K. Dick, Stephen Marlowe and Noel Loomis, a Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery, adventure from John Buchan and a collection of humorous essays from the public library trenches.

Winter's Passage, by Julie Kagawa. YOUNG ADULT FICTION. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
A free novella in Kagawa's Iron Fey series, following The Iron King. The second novel in the series, The Iron Daughter, is slated for release in August 2010. If you enjoy well-written young adult fiction with characters you care about, request a sample of The Iron King and perhaps, like me, you will want to add it to your Kindle library.
"Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl ... until she discovered that she is really a faery princess. After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash. But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck - Meghan's best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon - who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey." - Amazon.

The Franchise Affair, by Josephine Tey. CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .prc for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"A young girl claims to have been kidnapped and forced to work as a domestic servant in an isolated house belonging to two women. Can this story be true? (It may have been inspired by the 18th century true-life story of Elizabeth Canning, who also claimed to have been abducted in order to explain an absence from home.)" - Patricia for MobileRead.

You Too Can Be A Millionaire, by Noel Loomis. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Manybooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.00.
"Mark Renner looked anxiously backward as he ran up the street to the place where the faded gold lettering on one window said 'Jewelry.' That would be a good place to hide, he thought. Most of the plate-glass windows and doors along the street were broken out as in fact they were everywhere, and had been for twenty years - but one of the jewelry windows and the door, protected by iron grating, were still whole and would help to conceal him..."
First published in IF Worlds of Science Fiction, November 1952.

Think Yourself to Death, by Stephen Marlowe. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"If you've never read a Johnny Mayhem story before, you are in for a treat. Johnny, who wears different bodies the way ordinary people wear clothes, is one of the most fascinating series characters in science fiction." - Feedbooks.
First published in Amazing Stories, March 1957.

Piper in the Woods, by Philip K. Dick. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Earth maintained an important garrison on Asteroid Y-3. Now suddenly it was imperiled with a biological impossibility - men becoming plants!" - ManyBooks.

Long Live the King!, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. MYSTERY/ROMANCE. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"...a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In this story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and excitement of her past successes into a story that will be hailed as the most interesting of all her stories." - ManyBooks.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan. ADVENTURE. Download site: FeedBooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Hanney, an expatriated Scot, returns from a long stay in South Africa to his flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by an American who appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, and claims to be in fear for his life. Hannay lets the American hide in his flat, and returns later to find that another man has been found shot dead in the same building, apparently a suicide. Four days later Hannay finds the American stabbed to death..." - FeedBooks.

Dispatches from a Public Librarian, by Scott Douglas. HUMOROUS ESSAYS. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"For some five years I have worked for a smallish public library nestled cozily between Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm in Orange County, California. This is where most of the observations in this dispatch will take place, although sometimes I do go to other libraries (some even far, far away), and I'll include those observations as they come..."


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A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 18 Jun 2010

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the June 18th issue include:


These Children Who Come at You with Knives, and Other Fairy Tales, by Jim Knipfel. Simon & Schuster. Print length: 256 p. SHORT STORIES. EW's slant: "...taps directly into the twisted vein of creepiness that made Grimm so grim. Only Knipfel's funny. Really funny." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...this wickedly dark satire on the notion of happily ever after turns the traditional fairy tale on its head. Among the array of lonely losers wallowing in discontent, the enterprising reader of this volume may meet a talking chicken who learns the world has little patience for intelligence, a foul-mouthed gnome set on world domination, and a magical snowman wrestling with the horror of being alive." - Amazon.

Imperial Bedrooms, by Bret Easton Ellis. Knopf. Print length: 192 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...the author uses the thriller framework to infuse nerve-rending unease into this look at Tinseltown mores." Amazon customer rating: 3 stars (39 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This novel is a sequel of sorts to Less Than Zero.
"Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he’s soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, an influential manager who’s still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame, fortune and power. Then there’s Clay’s childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past. But Clay’s own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens completely out of control, he has no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal." - Amazon.

How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley. Riverhead. Print length: 288 p. ESSAYS. EW's slant: "...more of her singular optimism and wit...self-deprecating humor is her weapon of choice..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In her first collection of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake (2008), Crosley revealed herself as the kind of writer with whom readers could be friends. You could exchange travel stories or compare descriptions of the odor of a NYC taxicab, and you could probably make her laugh, too. In Crosley's new book, she maintains her humor but inflects it with a sense of melancholy. In the manner of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, Crosley tells us about European vacation disasters, the inexhaustible nuances of life in New York, and playing the role of bridesmaid ... in Alaska. Smart, clever, and frank, Crosley's stories are as intimate, and embarrassingly eccentric, as the thoughts we keep to ourselves." - Annie Bostrom for Booklist.

Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Mary Mcdonagh Murphy. Harper Collins. Print length: 240 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "Harper Lee's fabled novel To Kill a Mockingbird is about to turn 50, and Scout, Atticus, & Boo is a heck of a birthday bash." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"To mark the fiftieth anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mary McDonagh Murphy reviews its history and examines how the novel has left its mark on a broad range of novelists, historians, journalists, and artists. In compelling interviews, Anna Quindlen, Tom Brokaw, Oprah Winfrey, James Patterson, James McBride, Scott Turow, Wally Lamb, Andrew Young, Richard Russo, Adriana Trigiani, Rick Bragg, Jon Meacham, Allan Gurganus, Diane McWhorter, Lee Smith, Rosanne Cash, and others reflect on when they first read the novel, what it means to them - then and now - and how it has affected their lives and careers. Harper Lee has not given an interview since 1964, but Murphy's reporting, research, and rare interviews with the author's sister and friends stitch together a brief history of how the novel, as well as the acclaimed 1962 movie, came to be. " - Amazon.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, by Anthony Bourdain. Harper Collins. Print length: 304 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (16 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food. Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain - but never pulls his punches - on the modern gastronomical revolution, as only he can. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef who has radicalized the fine-dining landscape; the revered Alice Waters, whom he treats with unapologetic frankness; the Top Chef winners and losers; and many more. And always he returns to the question 'Why cook?' " - Amazon.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (17 Jun 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 NBC'S TODAY SHOW (14 JUN 2010):
Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir, by Pat Benatar. Harper Collins. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For more than thirty years, Pat Benatar has been one of the most iconic women in rock music, with songs like 'Heartbreaker,' 'Hit Me with Your Best Shot,' and 'Love Is a Battlefield' becoming anthems for multiple generations of fans. Now, in this intimate and uncompromising memoir, one of the bestselling female rock artists of all time shares the story of her extraordinary career, telling the truth about her life, her struggles, and how she won things - her way. From her early days in the New York club scene of the 1970s to headlining sold-out arena tours, Benatar offers a fascinating account of a life spent behind the microphone. As the first female artist ever to be played on MTV, she speaks candidly about the realities of breaking into the boys' club of rock and roll at a time when people everywhere still believed a woman's only place in popular music was as a girlfriend, a groupie, or a sex symbol.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (15 JUN 2010):
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger. Harper Collins. Print Length: 512 p. Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For the first time, Vanity Fair contributing editor Sam Kashner and acclaimed biographer Nancy Schoenberger tell the complete story of this larger-than-life couple, showing how their romance and two marriages commanded the attention of the world. Also for the first time, in exclusive access given to the authors, Elizabeth Taylor herself gives never-revealed details and firsthand accounts of her life with Burton. Drawing upon brand-new information and interviews - and on Burton's private, passionate, and heartbreaking letters to Taylor - Furious Love sheds new light on the movies, the sex, the scandal, the fame, the brawls, the booze, the bitter separations, and, of course, the fabled jewels. It offers an intimate glimpse into Elizabeth and Richard's privileged world and their elite circle of friends, among them Princess Grace, Montgomery Clift, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine, Marlon Brando, Rex Harrison, Mike Nichols, Laurence Olivier, Robert Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, NoËl Coward, John Huston, Ava Gardner, the Rothschilds, Maria Callas, and Aristotle Onassis." - Amazon.

ON MSNBC's MORNING JOE (15 JUN 2010):
The War Lovers, by Evan Thomas. Little, Brown and Company. Print Length: 432 p. 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.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (15 JUN 2010):
uncharted terriTORI, by Tori Spelling. Gallery. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"... the New York Times bestselling author of sTORI Telling and Mommywood is back with more hilarious, heartwarming, and candid stories of juggling work, marriage, motherhood, and reality television cameras. Tori comes clean about doing her time on jury duty, stalking herself on Twitter, discovering her former 90210 castmates’ I Hate Tori club, contracting swine flu, and contacting Farrah Fawcett from the dead. Like many mothers, she struggles to find balance (Stars, they’re just like us!) - only most women don’t have to battle it out with paparazzi at the grocery store. She talks openly about the darker side of life in the spotlight: media scrutiny over her weight and her marriage to Dean McDermott, her controversial relationship with Dean’s ex-wife, and her unfolding reconciliation with her mother." - Amazon.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (16 JUN 2010):
A Baby at Last!: The Couple's Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant - from Cutting-Edge Treatments to Commonsense Wisdom , by Zev Rosenwaks, Marc Goldstein, and Mark L. Fuerst. Fireside. Print Length: 272 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The trailblazing fertility program at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center has pioneered many of the procedures that are now standard practices in fertility centers around the world. If you can’t get to New York for a consultation with Dr. Rosenwaks and Dr. Goldstein, A Baby At Last! puts the doctors’ expertise down on paper, offering all the information you need on the latest fertility treatments in order to make informed decisions...everything from the latest technologies to the emotional hurdles associated with infertility." - Amazon.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Good Reads in Recent Non-fiction for the Kindle (Part 2)

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. - Tracy Kidder.

Nonfiction encompasses a wealth of reading possibilities - history, essays, memoirs, scientific research, travel guides, cookbooks - essentially everything that is based on fact, real events and real people. Recent nonfiction titles for the Kindle that you might have missed:

The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind, by Barbara Strauch. Viking. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (15 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"For many years, scientists thought that the human brain simply decayed over time and its dying cells led to memory slips, fuzzy logic, negative thinking, and even depression. But new research from neuroscien-tists and psychologists suggests that, in fact, the brain reorganizes, improves in important functions, and even helps us adopt a more optimistic outlook in middle age. Growth of white matter and brain connectors allow us to recognize patterns faster, make better judgments, and find unique solutions to problems. Scientists call these traits cognitive expertise and they reach their highest levels in middle age. In her impeccably researched book, science writer Barbara Strauch explores the latest findings that demonstrate, through the use of technology such as brain scans, that the middle-aged brain is more flexible and more capable than previously thought... By detailing exactly the normal, healthy brain functions over time, Strauch also explains how its optimal processes can be maintained." - Amazon.

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, by Tom Bissell. Pantheon. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (24 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming - but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions..." - from the hardcover edition.

Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate, by Ken Kaiser, with David Fisher. Thomas Dunne Books. Print Length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (16 reviews). Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...a hilarious look into life behind the plates by the man who was voted the most colorful umpire in the American League in a 1986 Sporting News poll. After 36 years as a professional umpire, with 23 seasons spent in the major leagues, Kaiser has seen just about everything there is to see in baseball, and he recounts it all-from his early hustling days in the minor leagues, surviving by trading stolen league baseballs for food and gas, to his final days risking (and losing) his six-figure income in the unsuccessful senior umpires' dispute with MLB in 1999, when he was persuaded to resign as a negotiating tactic... But the book's main strength is that Kaiser...presents in a lively and energetic style at least one great story (and sometimes more) per page..." - Publishers Weekly.

Mysterious Writers: The Many Facets of Mystery Writing, compiled and edited by Jean Henry Mead. Poisoned Pen Press. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $6.95. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Mystery novels are published in a number of subgenres to satisfy the tastes of every reader. Not only do we have the traditional mystery - also known as the cozy - there are historicals, suspense and thriller novels, crime, police procedurals, private eyes and senior sleuths (also known as 'geezer lit'). Then there are medical thrillers, romantic suspense as well as science fiction mysteries and the niche novels that cover endless subjects. The mystery writers interviewed here have written articles about various aspects of publishing, including writing techniques, marketing, promotional advice and their opinions on the current state of the publishing industry." - Amazon.

Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales, by Kari Cornell. Voyageur Press. Print Length: 224 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...brings to life the unique and universal experiences of knitters from a variety of backgrounds. This exceptional collection combines lighthearted essays with more philosophical pieces from authors and experts such as Meg Swansen, Perri Klass, Lily Chin, Teva Durham, Lela Nargi, Susan Gordon Lydon, Suzyn Jackson, Amy Singer, Greta Cunningham, Laura Billings, Kay Dorn, Betty Christiansen, and Jennifer Hansen, who put down their needles long enough to share their thoughts and musings about the popular pastime... Join one writer as she shares a poignant Sunday afternoon in March shearing sheep with her father; travel to Sant ’Arsenio, Italy, where women gather on their door steps to knit, crochet, embroider, and chat; laugh at one woman’s memories of learning to knit in an uncomfortable classroom chair beside a World War II vet named Max; and smile at the essays that delve into the psyche of the knitter." - Amazon.

Good Reads in Recent Non-fiction for the Kindle (Part I)

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. - Tracy Kidder.

Nonfiction encompasses a wealth of reading possibilities - history, essays, memoirs, scientific research, travel guides, cookbooks - essentially everything that is based on fact, real events and real people. Recent nonfiction titles for the Kindle that you might have missed:


To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies, and the Art of Extreme Tourism, by Chuck Thompson. Holt. Print Length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (15 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
The guru of extreme tourism sets out to face his worst fears in Africa, India, Mexico City, and - most terrifying of all - at Disney World. In the widely-acclaimed Smile When You’re Lying, Chuck Thompson laid bare the travel industry’s dirtiest secrets. Now he’s out to discover if some of the world’s most ill-reputed destinations live up to their bad raps, while confronting a few of his own travel anxieties in the process. Whether he’s traveling across the Congo with a former bodyguard from notorious dictator Joseph Mobutu’s retinue or diving into the heart of India’s monsoon season, To Hellholes and Back delivers Thompson’s trademark combination of hilarious stories and wildly provocative opinions..." - Amazon.

Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures, by Robert K. Wittman, with John Shiffman. Crown. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary. He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid. In this page-turning memoir, Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities: The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king. The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement. The headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow. The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments..." - Amazon.

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths, by Pat Brown, with Bob Andelman. Hyperion. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (37 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In 1990, a young woman was strangled on a jogging path near the home of Pat Brown and her family. Brown suspected the young man who was renting a room in her house, and quickly uncovered strong evidence that pointed to him - but the police dismissed her as merely a housewife with an overactive imagination. It would be six years before her former boarder would be brought in for questioning, but the night Brown took action to solve the murder was the beginning of her life's work. Brown is now one of the nation's few female criminal profilers - a sleuth who assists police departments and victims' families by analyzing both physical and behavioral evidence to make the most scientific determination possible about who committed a crime. Brown has analyzed many dozens of seemingly hopeless cases and brought new investigative avenues to light. In The Profiler, Brown opens her case files to take readers behind the scenes of bizarre sex crimes, domestic murders, and mysterious deaths, going face-to-face with killers, rapists, and brutalized victims." - Amazon.

Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson. Grove Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's a form of megalomania, of course, one famous card collector once said of his hobby - and, as Jamieson explains, there are plenty of people willing to cash in on collectors' obsessions; the secondary market for baseball cards may be as much as a half-billion dollars annually. It used to be even stronger: Jamieson got interested in the history of baseball cards when he rediscovered his own adolescent stash only to find that its value had plummeted in the mid-1990s. His loss is our gain as he tracks the evolution of the card from its first appearance in cigarette packs in the late 19th century through the introduction of bubble gum and up to the present. The historical narrative is livened by several interviews, including conversations with the two men who launched Topps (for decades the first name in cards) and a collector who's dealt in million-dollar cards... It's a fun read, but it also shows just how much serious work went into sustaining this one corner of pop culture ephemera." - Publishers Weekly.

Science vs Religion: What Scientists Really Think, by Elaine Howard Ecklund. Oxford University Press. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $15.37. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"That the longstanding antagonism between science and religion is irreconcilable has been taken for granted. And in the wake of recent controversies over teaching intelligent design and the ethics of stem-cell research, the divide seems as unbridgeable as ever. In Science vs. Religion, Elaine Howard Ecklund investigates this unexamined assumption in the first systematic study of what scientists actually think and feel about religion. In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls 'spiritual entrepreneurs,' seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion. The book centers around vivid portraits of 10 representative men and women working in the natural and social sciences at top American research universities. Ecklund's respondents run the gamut from Margaret, a chemist who teaches a Sunday-school class, to Arik, a physicist who chose not to believe in God well before he decided to become a scientist..." - Amazon.

Turn Left At The Trojan Horse: A Would-Be Hero's Odyssey, by Brad Herzog. Citadel. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.60. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"A modern-day Odysseus in Kerouac clothing, Brad Herzog plunges into a solo cross-country search for insight. With middle age bearing down on him, he takes stock: How has he measured up to his own youthful aspirations? In contemporary America, what is a life well lived? What is a heroic life? From the foothills of Washington's Mount Olympus, through the forgotten corners of America, and finally to his college reunion in Ithaca, New York, Brad shares his personal odyssey. Stopping in classically named towns, he meets everyday heroes, including a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Troy, Oregon; a modern-day hobo in Iliad, Montana; and a bomb-squad soldier in Sparta, Wisconsin. These encounters and Brad's effortlessly infused musings make for an exciting, one-of-a-kind ride." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch: Romance & Western Fiction (11 Jun 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 romance and western fiction include:

ROMANCE

Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts. Berkley. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is the third novel in Roberts's Bride Quartet series, following Vision In White and Bed of Roses.
"Wedding baker Laurel McBane is surrounded by romance working at Vows wedding planning company with her best friends Parker, Emma, and Mac. But she's too low-key to appreciate all the luxuries that their clients seem to long for. What she does appreciate is a strong, intelligent man, a man just like Parker's older brother Delaney, on whom she's had a mega-crush since childhood." - Amazon.

The Irish Warrior by Kris Kennedy. Zebra Books. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"As his men are slaughtered around him, legendary Irish warrior Finian O'Melaghlin is held captive by the despised English Lord Rardove. Struggling to break free, Finian finds aid from an unlikely source: the beautiful Senna de Valery, who is also trying to escape Rardove's bloodthirsty grasp. Risking both their lives, Senna releases Finian from his shackles so they can both flee, but their plight has just begun... Seeking safe refuge, Finian and Senna have only each other to depend on for survival. Neither can deny their immediate attraction, but indulging their desires will put them both in grave danger. Finian vows to protect the woman who saved his life, but he soon learns she is a pawn in a much larger battle..." - Amazon.

Lover Mine by J. R. Ward. NAL. Print Length: 656 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is the eighth novel in Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series. All eight books - starting with Dark Lover - are available for Kindle readers.
"John Matthew has come a long way since he was found living among humans, his vampire nature unknown to himself and to those around him. After he was taken in by the Brotherhood, no one could guess what his true history was- or his true identity. Indeed, the fallen Brother Darius has returned, but with a different face and a very different destiny. As a vicious personal vendetta takes John into the heart of the war, he will need to call up on both who he is now and who he once was in order to face off against evil incarnate. Xhex, a symphath assassin, has long steeled herself against the attraction between her and John Matthew. Having already lost one lover to madness, she will not allow the male of worth to fall prey to the darkness of her twisted life. When fate intervenes, however, the two discover that love, like destiny, is inevitable between soul mates." - www.jrward.com.

One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare. Ballantine Books. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Book one in Dare's new Stud Club trilogy.
"A handsome and reclusive horse breeder, Spencer Dumarque, the fourth Duke of Morland, is a member of the exclusive Stud Club, an organization so select it has only ten members - yet membership is attainable to anyone with luck. And Spencer has plenty of it, along with an obsession with a prize horse, a dark secret, and, now, a reputation as the dashing 'Duke of Midnight.' Each evening he selects one lady for a breathtaking midnight waltz. But none of the women catch his interest, and nobody ever bests the duke - until Lady Amelia d’Orsay tries her luck." - tessadare.com.

WESTERNS

Other Men's Horses by Elmer Kelton. Forge Books. Print Length: 272 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. Reader alert: The paperback edition of this book is available for $6.99.
"Veteran Kelton once again shows why he is considered to be one of the giants of the western genre. Andy Pickard, a young Texas Ranger, is assigned the job of bringing in Donley Bannister, a horse trader accused of murder. He tracks Bannister down pretty quickly, but he is thrown for a loop when Bannister, instead of turning tail and running when Andy is jumped by some thugs, actually saves Andy’s life (and then disappears again). What follows is a story told mostly in shades somewhere between black and white." - Davie Pitt for Booklist.

Longarm and Shotgun Sally by Tabor Evans. (Longarm, 378). Penguin Publishing. Print Length: 192 p. Kindle edition $4.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
After convincing her not to blast him to kingdom come, Longarm joins forces with Shotgun Sallie to hunt down the shooters who mortally wounded her sister.

Mankiller, Colorado by William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone. (Sidewinders, 4). Pinnacle Books. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Bo Creel and Scratch Morton have a lot of experience with the law: they've been breaking it most of their lives. But now the drifters are down to their last dime, and they accept the best job they can get in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien. Their tin stars are mighty pretty. And they start to take their new job seriously - until they're standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's cowering citizens - with the killers outnumbering the cowerers." - Amazon.

Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster. Print Length: 463 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Dead Man's Walk - a prequel to the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove - is one of eleven titles from a backlist of McMurtry novels added to the Kindle Bookstore this month. It was originally published in 1995.
"We meet Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae when they're novice Texas Rangers not yet 20 years old. They are part of a pack of Rangers bound for new frontiers in the Wild West. Traveling with the team is Mathilda, a heavyset whore who provides both comfort and wisdom. When the group gets word that the town of Santa Fe - full of gold and silver and prosperity - is primed to be captured, they head out for a long, dangerous, and ill-fated journey. They are terrorized along the way by the fearsome Comanche chief Buffalo Hump, who is known for viciously torturing those he captures. Their biggest challenge, though, is nature itself, as they must cross Jornada del Muerto, or Dead Man's Walk. Although foolish, filthy, and ornery, these men are endearing, with a simple but insightful worldview..." - Mary Frances Wilkens for Booklist.

Kindle Genre Watch: Science Fiction (9 Jun 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 science fiction include:

SCIENCE FICTION

The Lost Fleet: Victorious by Jack Campbell. Ace. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is the sixth and last book in series that began with The Lost Fleet: Dauntless. All six books are available in Kindle editions.
"As war continues to rage between the Alliance and Syndicate Worlds, Captain "Black Jack" Geary is promoted to admiral-even though the ruling council fears he may stage a military coup. His new rank gives him the authority to negotiate with the Syndics, who have suffered tremendous losses and may finally be willing to end the war. But an even greater alien threat lurks on the far side of the Syndic occupied space." - Amazon.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Book one in the Ender's Game series. Tor. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $5.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead were both awarded the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. Both are newly available for Kindle readers.
"In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut - young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Is Ender the general Earth needs?... This futuristic tale involves aliens, political discourse on the Internet, sophisticated computer games, and an orbiting battle station. Yet the reason it rings true for so many is that it is first and foremost a tale of humanity; a tale of a boy struggling to grow up into someone he can respect while living in an environment stripped of choices." - Amazon.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. Book two in the Ender's Game series. Tor. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War. Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth." - Amazon.

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Book three in the Ender's Game series. Tor. Print Length: 608 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to immolate the rebellious planet of Lusitania, home to the alien race of pequeninos, and home to Ender Wiggin and his family. Concealed on Lusitania is the only remaining Hive Queen, who holds a secret that may save or destroy humanity throughout the galaxy. Familiar characters from the previous novels continue to grapple with religious conflicts and family squabbles while inventing faster-than-light travel and miraculous virus treatments. Throw into the mix an entire planet of mad geniuses and a self-aware computer who wants to be a martyr, and it's hard to guess who will topple the first domino." - Amazon.

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card. Tor. Print Length: 480 p. Kindle edition $5.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
This is a "parallel novel" to Ender's Game, recounting many of the same events from the point of view of a second character.
"...Children are being tested, the best and the brightest being placed into a school where they will be trained for the eminent and final fight to the death between humanity and the insectlike 'Buggers.' Shadow shifts from Ender to Bean as the protagonist and presents the events from Bean's perspective, with his own unique viewpoints. Complex three-dimensional characters, a strong story line, and vivid writing all combine to make this an exceptional work. Card revisits the themes of man's inhumanity to man, child exploitation, and the ends justifying the means. While Shadow stands alone, the two books work well together because the overlap builds on both of them, making them a rich and meaningful reading experience." - John Lawson for Library Journal.

The Machinery of Light by David J. Williams. Spectra. Print Length: 432 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is the last book in Williams' Autumn Rain trilogy. The first two books are The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies.
"September 26, 2110. 10:22 GMT. Following the assassination of the American president, the generals who have seized power initiate World War Three, launching a surprise attack against the Eurasian Coalition’s forces throughout the Earth-Moon system. Across the orbits, tens of thousands of particle beams and lasers blast away at one another. The goal: crush the other side’s weaponry, paving the way for nuclear bombardment of the cities. As inferno becomes Armageddon, the rogue commando unit Autumn Rain embarks on one last run. Matthew Sinclair, an imprisoned spymaster, plots his escape. And his former protégé Claire Haskell, capable of hacking into both nets and minds, is realizing that all her powers may merely be playing into Sinclair’s plans. For even as Claire evades the soldiers of East and West amid carnage in the lunar tunnels, the surviving members of the Rain converge upon the Moon, one step ahead of the Eurasian fleets..." - Amazon.

Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer. Tor. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
First published in 1999 and now available for Kindle readers.
"In April 2009, Lloyd and Theo, two scientists at the European Organization for Particle Physics (CERN), run an experiment that accidentally transports the world's consciousness 20 years into the future. When humanity reawakens a moment later, chaos rules. Vehicles whose drivers passed out plow into one another; people fall or maim themselves. But that's just the beginning. After the horror is sorted out, each character tries desperately to ensure or avoid his or her future. Trapped by his guilt for causing so much destruction and driven by a need to rationalize, Lloyd tries to prove that free will is a myth. Theo discovers that he will be murdered and begins to hunt down his killer..." - Publishers Weekly.

Kraken by China Mieville. Del Rey. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux - better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air. As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens - human and otherwise - are adept in magic and murder." - Amazon.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (7 Jun 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 NPR'S MORNING EDITION (08 JUN 2010):
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, by David Kirkpatrick. Simon & Schuster. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
In little more than half a decade, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects - even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran. Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next..." - Amazon.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (08 Jun 2010):
The Passage, by Justin Cronin. Ballantine Books. Print length: 784 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In this apocalyptic epic that begins in a gloomy near-future, gasoline is $13 a gallon; New Orleans has become an uninhabitable, toxic swamp after a series of devastating hurricanes; the U.S. is steadily losing the war on terror; and the future of humanity hinges on the actions of a young girl. Six-year-old Amy Harper Bellafonte, abandoned to the care of Memphis nuns by her prostitute mother, and her protector, disillusioned FBI agent Brad Wolgast, are at the epicenter of a battle to preserve the human species after a government military experiment to create a 'super-soldier' goes awry..." - Michael Gannon for Booklist.

ON COMEDY CENTRAL'S THE DAILY SHOW (08 JUN 2010):
Hitch-22: A Memoir, by Christopher Hitchens. Twelve. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide. In other words, Christopher Hitchens contains multitudes. He sees all sides of an argument. And he believes the personal is political. This is the story of his life, lived large." - Publisher.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (08 JUN 2010):
Blindsided: Surviving a Grizzly Attack and Still Loving the Great Bear, by Jim Cole. St. Martin's Press. Print Length: 304 p. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Jim Cole has spent years tramping into the depths of places like Alaska, Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in search of grizzlies, seeing these magnificent, powerful and reclusive animals at their most unguarded - foraging, fishing, caring for cubs, or simply lying in the backcountry sunshine. At times, he’s been surrounded by dozens of bears deep in the wilderness, yet has never felt threatened by these incredible and misunderstood creatures. Even after being mauled by a grizzly in 1993, Jim eagerly trekked annually into the bears’ habitat, armed only with bear spray, his camera, and his knowledge of how to stay safe. But nothing could have prepared him for May 23, 200, when he was attacked in Yellowstone by a mother grizzly who felt that his presence threatened her cub. Blindsided is a gripping, detailed account of that fateful day - how Jim survived an assault by one of the most unstoppable predators on earth and managed to carry himself to safety despite his gruesome injuries. It’s also the story of how he recovered with the help and support of friends, family and a dedicated medical team, but perhaps most importantly, the book is a love story between and man and animal..." - Publisher.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (09 JUN 2010):
Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas, & Found Happiness, by Dominique Browning. Atlas & Co. Print Length: Kindle edition $14.08. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For over a decade, Dominique Browning was editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s House & Garden. One Monday morning in November 2007, the magazine folded and she was told she had four days to pack up her office. Overnight, her driven, purpose-filled days vanished. With her children leaving home, and a long relationship ending, the structure of her days disappeared. She fell into a panic of loss - but found humor despite everything, discovering a deeper joy than any she had ever known. It was a life she had not sought, but one that offered pleasures and surprises she didn’t know she lacked. Slow Love is about wearing your pajamas to the farmer’s market, packing up a beloved home and downsizing to a more rural setting, making time to play the piano and go kayaking, picking up the Bible, reinventing yourself, and not cutting corners when it comes to love, muffins or gardening..." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 4-11 June 10

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the June 4-11 special double issue include:


The Passage, by Justin Cronin. Ballantine Books. Print length: 784 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...heavy-weight in more ways than one...moved Stephen King to rave like a proud uncle..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In this apocalyptic epic that begins in a gloomy near-future, gasoline is $13 a gallon; New Orleans has become an uninhabitable, toxic swamp after a series of devastating hurricanes; the U.S. is steadily losing the war on terror; and the future of humanity hinges on the actions of a young girl. Six-year-old Amy Harper Bellafonte, abandoned to the care of Memphis nuns by her prostitute mother, and her protector, disillusioned FBI agent Brad Wolgast, are at the epicenter of a battle to preserve the human species after a government military experiment to create a 'super-soldier' goes awry..." - Michael Gannon for Booklist.

Anthropology of an American Girl, by Hilary Thayer Hamann. Spiegal & Grau. Revised edition. Print length: 624 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...600-page coming-of-age opus...semiautobiographical story of a teenager's emotional and sexual awakening in 1970s Long Island..." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (27 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Self-published in 2003, Hilary Thayer Hamann’s Anthropology of an American Girl touched a nerve among readers, who identified with the sexual and intellectual awakening of its heroine, a young woman on the brink of adulthood. A moving depiction of the transformative power of first love, Hamann’s first novel follows Eveline Auerbach from her high school years in East Hampton, New York, in the 1970s through her early adulthood in the moneyed, high-pressured Manhattan of the 1980s. Centering on Evie’s fragile relationship with her family and her thwarted love affair with Harrison Rourke, a professional boxer, the novel is both a love story and an exploration of the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world." - Amazon.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, by Philip Pullman. Canongate. Print length: 256 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a challenging deconstruction of the Gospels..." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (29). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions. In Pullman-s own words, "The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories..." - Amazon.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender. Doubleday. Print length: 304 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...never fully coalesces, but it still lingers long after, like the hum of a half-forgotten melody." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $13.65. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Eating the cake her mother has prepared for her ninth birthday, Rose Edelstein discovers she has a gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the food she prepares. Soon, every bite Rose takes is filled with feelings - not just her mother’s but those of other people as well - and what might have been a gift becomes a burden and then, perhaps, a curse. Because this is a novel rooted in family, Rose will learn that she is not the only Edelstein with a peculiar gift or burden..." - Michael Cart for Booklist.
$9.99 or less alternative: Willful Creatures, a collection of Bender's short stories first published in 2005.

Welcome to Utopia: Notes from a Small Town, by Karen Valby. Spiegel & Grau. Print length: 256 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In the twenty-first century, it’s difficult to imagine any element of American life that remains untouched by popular culture, let alone an entire community existing outside the empire of pop. But Karen Valby discovered the tiny town of Utopia tucked away in the Texas Hill Country. There are no movie theaters for sixty miles in any direction, no book or music stores. But cable television and the Internet have recently thrown wide the doors of Utopia. Valby follows the lives of four Utopians - Ralph, the retired owner of the general store; Kathy, the waitress who waits in terror for three of her boys to return from war; Colter, the son of a cowboy with the soul of a hipster; and Kelli, an aspiring rock star and one of the only black people in town - as they reckon, on an intensely human scale, with war and race, class and culture, and the way time’s passage can change the ground beneath our feet..." - from the hardcover edition.

CELEBRITY AUTHOR ALERT:

I Know I Am, But What Are You?, by Samantha Bee. Gallery. Print length: 256 p. ESSAYS. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Candid, outspoken, laugh-out-loud funny essays from Samantha Bee, the Most Senior Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart...thoroughly hilarious, unabashedly frank collection of personal essays. Whether detailing the creepiness that ensues when strangers assume that your mom is your lesbian lover, or recalling her girlhood crush on Jesus (who looked like Kris Kristofferson and sang like Kenny Loggins), Samantha turns the spotlight on her own imperfect yet highly entertaining life as relentlessly as she skewers hapless interview subjects on The Daily Show..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern's account of the trials of moving back home to live with seventy-three-year-old dad who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair."

Lips Unsealed: A Memoir, by Belinda Carlisle. Crown. Print length: 288 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The Go-Go's lead singer who went on to a solo career recounts a remarkable early Cinderella story that morphs into a frank, though at times self-indulgent, story of drug abuse and failure. Hailing from a working-class section of Los Angeles, the eldest daughter of divorced parents, Carlisle struggled early on with shame over her mother's depression and her step-father's drinking problem; teased for her chubbiness, she sought escape from a difficult home and found it in the mid-'70s' burgeoning L.A. punk scene... Alongside dizzying stardom came the requisite drug-and-alcohol frenzy, and much of this memoir is a chronicle of one party after another and a list of celebrity who's who. Carlisle writes candidly, and her chronic fear of being exposed as a fake is heartfelt and winning." - Publishers Weekly.

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND KINDLE EDITIONS:

Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon. Ballantine Books. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (132 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways... Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can’t stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal... A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy Lattimore sneaks away from the small town of Pompey, Ohio, with her charismatic former history teacher... My whole life is a lie, thinks Ryan Schuyler, who has recently learned some shocking news. In response, he walks off the Northwestern University campus, hops on a bus, and breaks loose from his existence, which suddenly seems abstract and tenuous... an unforgettable novel in which pasts are invented and reinvented and the future is both seductively uncharted and perilously unmoored." - Amazon.

Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan. Vintage. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (76 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech:
"...tender story of friendship, a witty take on liberal arts colleges, and a fascinating portrait of the first generation of women who have all the opportunities in the world, but no clear idea about what to choose. Assigned to the same dorm their first year at Smith College, Celia, Bree, Sally, and April couldn't have less in common. Celia, a lapsed Catholic, arrives with her grandmother's rosary beads in hand and a bottle of vodka in her suitcase; beautiful Bree pines for the fiancé she left behind in Savannah; Sally, pristinely dressed in Lilly Pulitzer, is reeling from the loss of her mother; and April, a radical, redheaded feminist wearing a 'Riot: Don't Diet' T-shirt, wants a room transfer immediately." - Amazon.

I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World, by Jag Bhalla. National Geographic. Print length: 272 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $7.96. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"I’m not hanging noodles on your ears. In Moscow, this curious, engagingly colorful assertion is common parlance, but unless you’re Russian your reaction is probably "Say what?" The same idea in English is equally odd: "I’m not pulling your leg." Both mean: Believe me. As author Jag Bhalla demonstrates, these amusing, often hilarious phrases provide a unique perspective on how different cultures perceive and describe the world. Organized by theme - food, love, romance, and many more - they embody cultural traditions and attitudes, capture linguistic nuance, and shed fascinating light on "the whole ball of wax."
If you’re already fluent in 10 languages, you probably won’t need this book, but you’ll 'get a kick out of it' anyhow; for the rest of us, it’s a must..." - Amazon.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home, by Rhoda Janzen. Henry Holt & Co.. Print length: 256 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (100 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.

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers. Vintage. Print length: 368 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (124 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. Then, on September 6th, police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his home. Told with eloquence and compassion, Zeitoun is a riveting account of one family’s unthinkable struggle with forces beyond wind and water." - Amazon.