Kindle Reads: Bookmarks Magazine's Best Books of 2010 (Part 1)

In its November/December 2010 issue, Bookmarks looks back at fifty staff favorites from among the hundreds of books reviewed in the magazine in 2010.

Kindle readers will be pleased to learn that 48 of the 50 titles are available in Kindle editions. Here's a rundown of all forty-eight. Given the length of the list, I've divided the post into multiple consecutive parts.

LITERARY FICTION:

The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer. Knopf, 2010. Print Length: 624 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
A sweeping love story set against the background of Hitler-era France and Hungary, this novel has been compared to Dr. Zhivago. Andrew Ervin, in The New York Times Book Review called it "...a close look at the terrible ways that enormous historical events can affect individual lives... The strength of The Invisible Bridge lies in Orringer’s ability to make us care so deeply about the people of her all-too-real fictional world."

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010. Print Length: 592 p. Kindle edition $9.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Thirty years in the writing, Matterhorn tells the story of a platoon - led by rookie Lieutenant Waino Mellas - ordered to take an isolated hilltop near the Laotian border. Marlantes is himself a decorated Vietnam veteran who speaks with the voice of someone who has been there and many critics praised this book as the best novel to come out of the Vietnam conflict.

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. Harper Collins, 2010. Print Length: 528 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities. Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico - from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City - Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence. Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own..." - Amazon.
Kingsolver takes the reader back to the Mexico of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and to the United States of FDR and J. Edgar Hoover, intertwining history with the story of a young Mexican-America man torn between the two countries.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport, by Cathleen Schine. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Print Length: 304 p. Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...sisters Miranda, an impulsive but successful literary agent, and Annie, a pragmatic library director, quite unexpectedly find themselves the middle-aged products of a broken home. Dumped by her husband of nearly fifty years and then exiled from their elegant New York apartment by his mistress, Betty is forced to move to a small, run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. Joining her are Miranda and Annie, who dutifully comes along to keep an eye on her capricious mother and sister. As the sisters mingle with the suburban aristocracy, love starts to blossom for both of them, and they find themselves struggling with the dueling demands of reason and romance." - Amazon.
Of this novel of manners Booklist says it "...has captured the essence of Sense and Sensibility and dropped it into today’s Manhattan and Westport."

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. Henry Holt, 2010. Print Length: 560 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?" - Amazon.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Meticulously researched, eminently readable revisionist view of Thomas Cromwell's role in the intrigues of the court of Henry VIII.  Stephen Greenblatt, in The New York Review of Books, called it "...a startling achievement, a brilliant historical novel focused on the rise to power of a figure exceedingly unlikely, on the face of things, to arouse any sympathy at all."

Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Print Length: 304 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar’s blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror be so happy? Dubbed Miss Generosity by her classmates, Thassa’s joyful personality comes to the attention of the notorious geneticist and advocate for genomic enhancement, Thomas Kurton, whose research leads him to announce the genotype for happiness... What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and finally magical, Generosity celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence." - Amazon.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (28 Oct 2010)

Media interviews are a popular way for writers to introduce new books they hope will catch the viewer's eye and generate interest in their work. 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 CSPAN'S BOOK TV (24 OCT 2010):
Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, by Gary Noesner. Random House, 2010. Print Length: 240 p. Kindle edition $14.30 (Hardcover: $17.16). Text-to-Speech: Diabled.
"An enraged man abducts his estranged wife and child, holes up in a secluded mountain cabin, threatening to kill them both. A right wing survivalist amasses a cache of weapons and resists calls to surrender. A drug trafficker barricades himself and his family in a railroad car, and begins shooting. A cult leader in Waco, Texas faces the FBI in an armed stand-off that leaves many dead in a fiery blaze. A sniper, claiming to be God, terrorizes the DC metropolitan area. For most of us, these are events we hear about on the news. For Gary Noesner, head of the FBI’s groundbreaking Crisis Negotiation Unit, it was just another day on the job. In Stalling for Time, Noesner takes readers on a heart-pounding tour through many of the most famous hostage crises of the past thirty years." - Amazon.
Gary Noesner retired from the FBI in 2003 following a thirty-year career as an investigator, instructor, and negotiator. An FBI hostage negotiator for twenty-three years of his career, he spent ten years as the bureau's Chief Negotiator.

ON CBS'S SUNDAY MORNING (24 OCT 2010):
Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969, by David Eisenhower, with Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $18.48). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In this engaging and fascinating memoir, David Eisenhower - whose previous book about his grandfather, Eisenhower: At War 1943-1945, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - provides a uniquely intimate account of the final years of the former president and general, one of the giants of the twentieth century. As the tumultuous 1960s dawned, with assassinations, riots, and the deeply divisive war in Vietnam, plus a Republican nominee for president in 1964 whom Eisenhower considered unqualified, the former president tried to chart the correct course for himself, his party, and the country. Meanwhile, the past continued to pull on him as he wrote his memoirs, and publishers and broadcasters asked him to reminisce about his wartime experiences. With a grandson’s love and devotion but with a historian’s candor and insight, David Eisenhower has written a remarkable book about the final years of a great American whose stature continues to grow." - Amazon.

ON PBS'S CHARLIE ROSE SHOW (25 OCT 2010)
My Thoughts Be Bloody, by Nora Titone. Free Press, 2010. Print Length: 496 p. Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $19.80). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...Titone, a historical researcher, says almost nothing about John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, focusing instead on his backstory and (speculative) psychological motivation. The tale has vibrant leads, including Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, a famous tragedian and raging alcoholic, and his domineering brother Edwin, the biggest stage star of the Civil War era. Then there's John Wilkes himself, a narcissist and hilariously bad actor - Titone regales readers with scathing reviews - whose good looks and hammy onstage swordplay drew crowds. The author's sketchy theory of Lincoln's assassination puts it at the confluence of John's self-dramatizing vanity, romantic identification with the underdog South, and sibling rivalry; she presents the murder as a coup de théâtre that finally lets John upstage Edwin. Although overstuffed with digressions, Titone's account paints a colorful panorama of 19th-century theatrical life, with its endless drunken touring through frontier backwaters and showbiz pratfalls. Neither deep nor tragic, her John Wilkes is oddly convincing: the first of the grandiose hollow men in America's cast of assassins." - Publisher's Weekly.

ON NBC'S THE TODAY SHOW (25 OCT 2010):
The Elephant to Hollywood, by Michael Caine. Hodder, 2010. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover $18.48). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's been a long journey for Maurice Micklewhite - born with rickets in London's poverty-stricken Elephant & Castle - to the bright lights of Hollywood. With a glittering career spanning more than five decades and starring roles which have earned him two Oscars, a knighthood, and an iconic place in the Hollywood pantheon, the man now known to us as Michael Caine looks back over it all. Funny, warm, honest, Caine brings us his insider's view of Hollywood (where there's neither holly nor woods). He recalls the films, the legendary stars, the off-screen moments with a gift for story-telling only equalled by David Niven..." - Amazon.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (26 OCT 2010):
The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships, by Kelly Valen. Ballantine Books, 2010. Print Length: 208 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In The Twisted Sisterhood, Kelly Valen picks up where her arresting New York Times essay about a painful sorority encounter left off. She pulls back the curtain on female relationships, revealing the troubling findings from her unique survey of more than three thousand women from all walks of life. Demonstrating the paradox of how we both support and sabotage one another, Valen’s research shows that although the vast majority of women report having at least one girl-friendship they wouldn’t want to live without, well over half approach female camaraderie with wariness or flat-out distrust and admit that they are unable - or unwilling - to extend themselves to certain types of women. An overwhelming majority say they have endured serious, life-altering knocks from other females, and a solid 97 percent of those polled believe it is crucial that we improve the female culture in this country... Capturing the true attitudes of modern women, Valen gives voice to the lingering memories, ambivalence, and struggles so many of us are quietly experiencing and considers the net effect of our darker habits: an increasingly inhospitable and dysfunctional society of women. Valen also looks to the future, offering hope and practical ideas for how girls and their mothers, women, and 'sisters' can come together and improve their profoundly needed female connections." - from the hardcover edition.

ON ABC'S JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE (26 OCT 2010):
Sleepwalk with Me, And Other Painfully True Stories, by Mike Birbiglia. Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $10.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"This is my first book. It’s difficult to describe. It’s a comedic memoir, but I’m only 32 years old so I’d hate for you to think I’m 'wrapping it up,' so to speak. But I tell some personal stories. Some REALLY personal stories. Stories that I considered not publishing time and time again, especially when my father said, “Michael, you might want to stay away from the per­sonal stuff.” I said, “Dad, just read the dedication.” (Which I’m telling you to do too.) Some of the stories are about my childhood, some are about girls I made out with when I was thirteen, some are about my parents, and some are, of course, about my bouts with sleepwalking. Bring this book to bed. And sleepwalk with me." - Mike Birbiglia.

ON NPR'S THE DIANE REHM SHOW (27 OCT 2010):
Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer, by Gary Wills. Viking, 2010. Print Length: 208 p. Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $17.13). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For partisans of the Left and the Right, Wills, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and journalist (and currently professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University), has always been an elusive, even frustrating, figure, and this thoroughly enjoyable and informative memoir shows why. In his public career and personal relationships, he has consistently refused to be held hostage by political ideologies or even 'sacred' causes. Predictably, he has often been accused of betrayal by those who assumed he was one of them. But his insistence on remaining an outsider has allowed him to maintain contacts and friendships across the ideological spectrum. Wills writes frankly and often emotionally about deeply personal issues, including his devotion to his wife, his troubled relationship with his father, and his strong Catholic faith. The most absorbing portions of this book are his descriptions and impressions of presidents and other important political figures he has dealt with over five decades..." - Jay Freeman for Booklist.

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's 22/29 Oct 2010 Issue

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles reviewed in the September 22/29 double issue and available for the Kindle include:


Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, by Portia de Rossi. Atria, 2010. Print length: 272 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...at once shocking and instructional, especially for younger women who may be secretly suffering on their own." Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $15.59). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Portia de Rossi weighed only 82 pounds when she collapsed on the set of the Hollywood film in which she was playing her first leading role. This should have been the culmination of all her years of hard work—first as a child model in Australia, then as a cast member of one of the hottest shows on American television. On the outside she was thin and blond, glamorous and successful. On the inside, she was literally dying. In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to a life of health and honesty, falling in love with and eventually marrying Ellen DeGeneres, and emerging as an outspoken and articulate advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues. In this remarkable and beautifully written work, Portia shines a bright light on a dark subject." - Amazon.

Compass Rose, by John Casey. Knopf, 2010. Print length: 384 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...the characters shine so brightly that it's easy to forgive a little narrative excess." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $15.37 (Hardcover: $20.12). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In this sequel to the author’s National Book Award–winning Spartina (1989), Natural Resources warden Elsie Buttrick is forced to grapple with the fallout from her affair with Rhode Island fisherman Dick Pierce. As the novel opens, Elsie has just given birth to their daughter, Rose. Over the next 16 years, Elsie reins in her fierce love for the taciturn Dick, is grateful for his wife’s love and acceptance of Rose, must deal with the insular nature of a community well aware of her daughter’s illegitimate birth, and, finally, must convince her daughter that she is her biggest fan... With its emotionally intricate interior monologues and many complicated relationships among multiple characters, this is a novel best suited to those who have read Spartina... - Joanne Wilkinson for Booklist.

Travels in Siberia, by Ian Frazier. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Print length: 544 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "...the humor and genuine awe Frazier injects into his depictions are the stuff of a great vicarious vacation". Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $17.55). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind - from Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the czarina for copying her dresses; to the noble Decembrist revolutionaries of the 1820s; to the young men and women of the People’s Will movement whose fondest hope was to blow up the czar; to those who met still-ungraspable suffering and death in the Siberian camps during Soviet times. More than just a historical travelogue, Travels in Siberia is also an account of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union and a personal reflection on the all-around amazingness of Russia, a country that still somehow manages to be funny..." - Amazon.

Why Not Say What Happened?: A Memoir, by Ivana Lowell. Knopf, 2010. Print length: 304 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...Lowell's writing remains conversational and refreshingly free of self-pity." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $15.37 (Hardcover: $18.45). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Named after a line from a poem by Robert Lowell, her mother's third husband and an important stabilizing presence in her early life, this self-searching, poor-little-rich-girl story is, in ways, a search for a father. Alcoholism ran through Ivana Lowell's family, the descendants of the Guinness beer fortune; her fabulous grandmother, Maureen, married royalty, and cultivated 'talented snobs,' while her mother, novelist Lady Caroline Blackwood, who had grown up in northern Ireland, crossed into bohemia by first marrying Lucian Freud, then composer Israel Citkowitz. Moving between New York's Greenwich Village and London, her mother also had affairs with English screenwriter Ivan Moffat and New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers, so it was never clear who was the author's father. After her mother's marriage to Robert Lowell, the family lived in a rustic house in Kent; there, the author was sexually molested by a caretaker. Lowell embarked on her own destructive drinking while at various boarding schools, attended drama school, and ended up in New York... In alternate chapters she chronicles her extensive rehab over the years, her voice stripped of all vanity and self-pity, revealing a near palpable relief in baring the unlovely details." - Publishers Weekly.


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New in Nonfiction for the Kindle (24 Oct 2010)

"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:

Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation, by Martin Fletcher. Thomas Dunne Books, 2010. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars. Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $17.15). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"With its dense history of endless conflict and biblical events, Israel's coastline is by far the most interesting hundred miles in the world. As longtime chief of NBC’s Tel Aviv news bureau, Martin Fletcher is in a unique position to interpret Israel, and he brings it off in a spectacular and novel manner. Last year he strolled along the entire coast, from Lebanon to Gaza, observing facets of the country that are ignored in news reports, yet tell a different and truer story. Walking Israel is packed with hilarious moments, historical insights, emotional, true-life tales, and, above all, great storytelling." - Amazon.

No Ordinary Joes: The Extraordinary True Story of Four Submariners in War and Love and Life, by Larry Colton. Crown, 2010. Price Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $14.30 (Hardcover: $17.16). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"On April 23, 1943, the seventy-man crew of the USS Grenadier scrambled to save their submarine - and themselves - after a Japanese aerial torpedo sent it crashing to the ocean floor. Miraculously, the men were able to bring the sub back to the surface, only to be captured by the Japanese. No Ordinary Joes tells the harrowing story of four of the Grenadier’s crew: Bob Palmer of Medford, Oregon; Chuck Vervalin of Dundee, New York; Tim McCoy of Dallas, Texas; and Gordy Cox of Yakima, Washington. All were enlistees from families that struggled through the Great Depression. The lure of service and duty to country were not their primary motivations - they were more compelled by the promise of a job that provided 'three hots and a cot' and a steady paycheck. On the day they were captured, all four were still teenagers..." - from the hardcover edition.

The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages, by K. David Harrison. National Geographic, 2010. Print Length: Amazon customer rating: Kindle edition $14.85 (Hardcover: $17.82). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"“This wonderful book is really three wonderful books wrapped into one: a world travelogue of languages; a moving personal account of the last speakers of vanishing languages; and a revelation of the knowledge tied to each language. Perhaps you’re among the many people who think, ‘Wouldn’t we better off with just a few major languages? Let those thousands of little local languages disappear.’ After reading this book you’ll know why all those little local languages do matter, and what can be done to save them.” - Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy: A Complete Resource for Using the Web to Trace Your Family History, by Kimberly Powell. Adams Media, 2010. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"With millions of records now available online, those interested in their family history have a wealth of information, and misinformation, at their fingertips. In this book, author Kimberly Powell, the About.com Guide to Genealogy, helps both novice and experienced genealogists sort it all out. She shows you where to search and which key-words you'll need to create an accurate family tree from start to finish. With this book, you will learn how to create an online search strategy, use search engines and Soundex to find kin, reach out to others with peer-to-peer record swapping, discover useful records from around the world, and more. Packed with tips on free databases, search sites, and downloadable government records, you will have all you need to use the Web to dig out your family's true tale!" - Amazon.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson. Doubleday, 2010. Print Length: 512 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, and finds it crammed with 10,000 years of fascinating historical bric-a-brac. Each room becomes a starting point for a free-ranging discussion of rarely noticed but foundational aspects of social life. A visit to the kitchen prompts disquisitions on food adulteration and gluttony; a peek into the bedroom reveals nutty sex nostrums and the horrors of premodern surgery; in the study we find rats and locusts; a stop in the scullery illuminates the put-upon lives of servants. Bryson follows his inquisitiveness wherever it goes, from Darwinian evolution to the invention of the lawnmower, while savoring eccentric characters and untoward events.. In demonstrating how everything we take for granted, from comfortable furniture to smoke-free air, went from unimaginable luxury to humdrum routine, Bryson shows us how odd and improbable our own lives really are." - Publishers Weekly.

The English is Coming!, by Leslie Dunton-Downer. Touchstone, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"English has fast become the number one language for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, entertainment and environmentalism to socializing and beyond - virtually any human activity unfolding on a global scale. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English now outnumber natives three to one; and in China alone, more people use English than in the United States - a remarkable feat for a language that got its start as a mongrel tongue on an island fifteen hundred years ago. Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space. These mini-histories shed new light on everyday words: the strange turns of fate by which their meanings evolved and their new roles as the building blocks of the first language ever to forge a global community. Exploring such familiar terms as shampoo (from a Hindi word for scalp and body hygiene long practiced in India); robot (coined by Czech painter Josef Capek for his brother Karel’s 1921 play about man-made creatures); credit (rooted in a prehistoric phrase of sacred significance: 'to put heart into'); and dozens of others..." - Amazon.

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, by Peter Hessler. Harper Collins, 2010. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (189 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99 (Hardcover: $19.83). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China's Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local college. Along with fellow teacher Adam Meier, the two are the first foreigners to be in this part of the Sichuan province for 50 years. Expecting a calm couple of years, Hessler at first does not realize the social, cultural, and personal implications of being thrust into a such radically different society. In River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Hessler tells of his experience with the citizens of Fuling, the political and historical climate, and the feel of the city itself...Hessler's writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant - and just as often, funny. It's a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures... --Dana Van Nest for Amazon.

How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell. Other Press, 2010. Print Length: 400 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In a wide-ranging intellectual career, Michel de Montaigne found no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well. By casting her biography of the writer as 20 chapters, each focused on a different answer to the question How to live? Bakewell limns Montaigne’s ceaseless pursuit of this most elusive knowledge. Embedded in the 20 life-knowledge responses, readers will find essential facts - when and where Montaigne was born, how and whom he married, how he became mayor of Bordeaux, how he managed a public life in a time of lethal religious and political passions. But Bakewell keeps the focus on the inner evolution of the acute mind informing Montaigne’s charmingly digressive and tolerantly skeptical essays... Because Montaigne’s capacious mirror still captivates many, this insightful life study will win high praise from both scholars and general readers. - Bryce Christensen for Booklist.
The Complete Essays of Montaigne are available from the Amazon Kindle Bookstore in a variety of editions.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection (22 Oct 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.

E-book selections for this week include a thriller, a satire written in 1907 and eerily topical today, a collection of true detective stories, science fiction by Robert Sheckley and Noel Miller Loomis, speculative "webfiction" and - for chess buffs - a classic by world chess champion J. R. Capablanca.

The Abigail Affair, by Timothy Frost. Print length: 420 p. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $.0.99.

"Toby Robinson is 22 and broke. He lands a job as junior steward on a Russian billionaire's yacht in the Caribbean, and feels his luck is about to change. It is, but not in the way Toby hoped. On his first night aboard he is framed for a brutal murder. His attractive crewmate Julia seems to be the only one his side. But can he trust her? With his mobile phone confiscated, armed only with a winning smile and a flair for mixing cocktails, can Toby clear his name, stay alive - and foil the sinister international conspiracy that threatens to entangle him?" - Amazon.

Alice in Blunderland, by John Kendrick Bangs. SATIRE. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.mobi). Price: Free.
Excerpt: “Yes,” said the Hatter. “The March Hare and the White Knight and I. We’ve started a city... Everything in town belongs to the People - streetcars, gutters, pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canary birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, umbrellas, bakeries, cakeries, steakeries, shops - you can’t think of a thing that the city don’t own. No more private ownership of anything from a toothbrush to a yacht, and the result is we are all happy.”
“It sounds fine,” said Alice. “Though I think I should rather own my own toothbrush.”
“You naturally would, under the old system,” assented the Hatter. “Under a system of private ownership, owning your own teeth, you’d prefer to own your own toothbrush, but our Council has just passed a law making teeth public property. You see we found that some people had teeth and other people hadn’t, which is hardly a fair condition under a Republican form of Government. It gave one class of citizens a distinct advantage over other people and the Declaration of Independ­ence demands absolute equality for all. One man owning his own teeth could eat all the hickory nuts he wanted just because he had teeth to crack ’em with, while another man not having teeth had either to swallow ’em whole, which ruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn’t fair.”
“I see,” said Alice.

True Detective Stories from the Archives of the Pinkertons, by Cleveland Moffett. New York, G. W. Dillingham Co., 1897. MYSTERY/DETECTIVE. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.
Recounts the Northampton Bank Robbery, the Susquehanna Express Robbery, the Pollock Diamond Robbery, the Rock Island Express, the Destruction of the Renos and the American Exchange Bank Robbery.

Nine Men in Time, by Noel Miller Loomis. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free. First published in 1953 in Science Fiction Stories magazine.
"The idea of sending a man back in time to re-do a job he's botched, so that a deadline can still be met - added to the thought of duplicating a man so there'll be two doing the same work at the same time - adds up to a production-manager's dream. But any dream can suddenly shift into a nightmare..." - ManyBooks.

Ask a Foolish Question, by Robert Sheckley. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free. First published in 1953 in Science Fiction Stories magazine.
"It's well established now that the way you put a question often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the type of answer possible. So ... a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations." - ManyBooks.

Other Sides: 12 Webfiction Tales, by Ergofiction. SHORT STORIES/SPECULATIVE FICTION. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: Free.
"The advent of digital publishing has seen the rise of a new breed of writers: independent, experimental and unfettered by convention. This brand new anthology features a small sampling of these very writers, in a speculative fiction collection that will capture the imagination and dazzle the senses. The storytelling genius in this collection is most evidenced by its memorable characters: a young woman haunted by her ex-boyfriend’s sweater, time travelers with a suspicious interest in babies, a gender-changing alien desperate to heal a loved one… In these stories, fourteen independent authors display the imagination, insight and wonderful originality that characterizes the unique world of online fiction." - Feedbooks.

Chess Fundamentals, by José Raúl Capablanca. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, c1921. NONFICTION. Download site: Project Gutenberg. Format: Kindle. Price: Free.
One of the few books written by the great Cuban chess champion, Chess Fundamentals - despite the title - is not for beginning chess players but is rather a semi-introductory book designed for those serious about improving their chess game. It has been called "one of the jewels of chess literature".  Project Gutenberg offers both illustrated (with chessboard diagrams) and non-illustrated Kindle editions.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (20 Oct 2010)

Media interviews are a popular way for writers to introduce new books they hope will catch the viewer's eye and generate interest in their work. 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 FOX NEWS' HUCKABEE (17 OCT 2010):

Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny, by Marlo Thomas. Hyperion, 2010. Print Length: 400 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Thomas, star of the classic sitcom That Girl and daughter of comedy legend Danny Thomas, has taken an interesting approach to the usual Hollywood memoir. Chapters exploring her life as the daughter of comedy royalty, and her struggles to establish an independent identity for herself, alternate with profiles of contemporary comedians (Seinfeld, Leno, Stiller, Rock, Crystal, Rivers, Williams, Fey, Wright, and Colbert, among others). We see how her father inspired her, and we also see how he inspired the professionals who came after him... An engaging, highly informative memoir - definitely not the routine show-biz autobiography. - David Pitt for Booklist.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (19 OCT 2010):

Eighteen Acres, by Nicolle Wallace. Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 272 p. Kindle edition $11.99 (Hardcover: $15.00). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Eighteen Acres, a description used by political insiders when referring to the White House complex, follows the first female President of the United States, Charlotte Kramer, and her staff as they take on dangerous threats from abroad and within her very own cabinet. Charlotte Kramer, the 45th US President, Melanie Kingston, the White House chief of staff, and Dale Smith, a White House correspondent for one of the networks are all working tirelessly on Charlotte’s campaign for re-election. At the very moment when they should have been securing success, though, Kramer’s White House implodes under rumors of her husband’s infidelity and grave errors of judgment on the part of her closest national security advisor. In an upheaval that threatens not only the presidency, but the safety of the American people, Charlotte must fight to regain her footing and protect the the country she has given her life to serving." - Amazon.

ON MSNBC'S MORNING JOE (19 OCT 2010):

America Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell. Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $19.80). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"This massive book eschews the narrow, monographic approach to sociological study in favor of an older, more useful model: the sweeping chronicle of national change over time...the book explores in detail cultural developments - the boom of evangelicals in the 1970s and 1980s, largely concluded in the early 1990s; the rise of feminism in the pews; the liberalization of attitudes about premarital sex and homosexuality, especially among the youngest generations; and what may prove to be the most seismic shift of all: the dramatic increase of 'nones,' or people claiming no institutional religious affiliation. Putnam and Campbell (with their researcher, Garrett) have done the public a great service in not only producing their own mammoth survey of American religion but also drawing from many prior statistical studies, enabling readers to track mostly gradual change over time." - Publishers Weekly.

ON MSNBC'S COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMAN (21 OCT 2010):

Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout, by Bob Cavnar. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010. Print Length: 248 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The Deepwater Horizon blowout dominated the world's attention for months, yet Americans still lack an understanding of the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Disaster on the Horizon is the first comprehensive book on the causes of the disaster by expert Bob Cavnar. He delivers a hard-hitting portrait of industry and government woefully unprepared to respond. From inside the oil business - field hand to CEO - Cavnar witnessed the carelessness of the industry first hand when he was burned by a gas well fire in 1981." - Amazon.

ON NPR'S THE DIANE REHM SHOW SHOW (21 OCT 2010):

Shock of Gray, by Ted C. Fishman. Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $18.15). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The world’s population is rapidly aging—by the year 2030, one billion people will be sixty-five or older. As the ratio of the old to the young grows ever larger, global aging has gone critical: For the first time in history, the number of people over age fifty will be greater than those under age seventeen. Few of us under­stand the resulting massive effects on economies, jobs, and families. Everyone is touched by this issue - parents and children, rich and poor, retirees and workers - and now veteran jour­nalist Ted C. Fishman masterfully and movingly explains how our world is being altered in ways no one ever expected...With vivid and witty reporting from American cities and around the world, and through compelling interviews with families, employers, workers, economists, gerontologists, government officials, health-care professionals, corporate executives, and small business owners, Fishman reveals the astonishing and interconnected effects of global aging, and why nations, cultures, and crucial human relationships are changing in this timely, brilliant, and important read." - Amazon.

ON CSPAN'S BOOK TV (23 OCT 2010):

Madison and Jefferson, by Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein. Random House, 2010. Print Length: 848 p. Kindle edition $18.42 (Hardcover: $20.47). Text-to-Speech:. Disabled.

"...historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg join forces to reveal the crucial partnership of two extraordinary founders, creating a superb dual biography that is a thrilling and unprecedented account of early America. The third and fourth presidents have long been considered proper and noble gentlemen, with Thomas Jefferson’s genius overshadowing James Madison’s judgment and common sense. But in this revelatory book, both leaders are seen as men of their times, ruthless and hardboiled operatives in a gritty world of primal politics where they struggled for supremacy for more than fifty years. In most histories, the elder figure, Jefferson, looms larger. Yet Madison is privileged in this book’s title because, as Burstein and Isenberg reveal, he was the senior partner at key moments in the formation of the two-party system. It was Madison who did the most to initiate George Washington’s presidency while Jefferson was in France in the role of diplomat. So often described as shy, the Madison of this account is quite assertive. Yet he regularly escapes bad press, while Jefferson’s daring pen earns him a nearly constant barrage of partisan attacks... Supported by a wealth of original sources - newspapers, letters, diaries, pamphlets - Madison and Jefferson is a stunning new look at a remarkable duo who arguably did more than all the others in their generation to set the course of American political development." - Amazon.

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

The Elephant to Hollywood: The Autobiography, by Michael Caine. Hodder, 2010. Print Length: 416 p. Kindle edition $15.16 (Hardcover: 18.90). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's been a long journey for Maurice Micklewhite - born with rickets in London's poverty-stricken Elephant & Castle - to the bright lights of Hollywood. With a glittering career spanning more than five decades and starring roles which have earned him two Oscars, a knighthood, and an iconic place in the Hollywood pantheon, the man now known to us as Michael Caine looks back over it all. Funny, warm, honest, Caine brings us his insider's view of Hollywood (where there's neither holly nor woods). He recalls the films, the legendary stars, the off-screen moments with a gift for story-telling only equalled by David Niven." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch: Romance and Western Fiction (18 Oct 2010)

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

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

Simple Irresistible: A Lucky Harbor Novel by Jill Shalvis. Forever, 2010. Print Length: 336 p. Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"In one fell swoop, Maddie loses her boyfriend (her decision) and her job (so not her decision). But rather than drowning her sorrows in bags of potato chips, Maddie leaves L.A. to claim the inheritance left by her free-spirited mother - a ramshackle inn nestled in the little coastal town of Lucky Harbor, Washington. Starting over won't be easy. Yet Maddie sees the potential for a new home and a new career - if only she can convince her two half-sisters to join her in the adventure. The contractor Maddie hires is a tall, dark-haired hottie whose eyes - and mouth - are making it hard for her to remember that she's sworn off men. Even harder will be Maddie's struggles to overcome the past, though she's about to discover that there's no better place to call home than Lucky Harbor." - Amazon.

Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber. Mira, 2010. Print Length: 256 p. Kindle edition $7.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"This Christmas, Emily Merkle (call her Mrs. Miracle!) is working in the toy department at Finley's, the last family-owned department store in New York City. And her boss is none other than...Jake Finley, the owner's son. For Jake, holiday memories of brightly wrapped gifts, decorated trees and family were destroyed in a Christmas Eve tragedy years before. Now Christmas means just one thing to him - and to his father. Profit. Because they need a Christmas miracle to keep the business afloat. Holly Larson needs a miracle, too. She wants to give her eight-year-old nephew, Gabe, the holiday he deserves. Holly's widowed brother is in the army and won't be home for Christmas, but at least she can get Gabe that toy robot from Finley's, the one gift he desperately wants. If she can figure out how to afford it... Fortunately, it's Mrs. Miracle to the rescue. Next to making children happy, she likes nothing better than helping others - and that includes doing a bit of matchmaking!" - Amazon.

The Devil Wears Plaid by Teresa Medeiros. Simon & Schuster, 2010. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Emmaline’s wedding day is rudely interrupted when a strapping Highlander and his men kidnap her and carry her off to the mountains. Despite its lavishness, her wedding isn’t that important to her given that she is sacrificing herself to a wealthy, old, decrepit earl to pay off her father’s gambling debts. Jamie Sinclair is demanding a ransom for her return, but Emmaline’s capture is more about family honor and the centuries-long feud between the Sinclairs and the Hepburns... Medeiros is a superb storyteller. Both primary and secondary characters are vividly three-dimensional; her plot is full of tasty twists, and Medeiros can pull every last emotion from the reader with tear-inducing scenes and laugh-out-loud dialogue." - Shelley Mosley for Booklist.

Eat Prey Love by Kerrelyn Sparks. Harper Collins, 2010. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Carlos Panterra is looking for a mate, a woman who will love and care for the young orphans he's recently taken under his wing (or paw, as the case may be). When the shape shifter spies the beautiful Caitlyn, it's like sunshine amidst the darkness. At last, he's found the perfect woman, except... Caitlyn Whelan is mortal. Worse, her father is the head of a CIA agency bent on hunting the undead..." - Amazon.

A Hellion in Her Bed by Sabrina Jeffries. Pocket Books, 2010. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"As a successful gambler, Lord Jarret Sharpe knows a thing or two about risk, but his latest deal with his grandmother just might be his biggest bet yet. If Jarret can manage the family brewery for one year, his grandmother will not only excuse him from her mandate that all of her grandchildren marry within a year or be disinherited, Jarret will also gain permanent control of the brewery. Annabel Lake knows a thing or two about brewing beer. She runs her family brewery, and hopes that her plan to export her October ale to India will result in a tremendous financial windfall. But Annabel needs Jarret’s help, and Jarret seems oddly disinterested, until Annabel comes up with a wager he simply cannot refuse..." - John Charles for Booklist.

The Bite Before Christmas by Heidi Betts. Kensington Books, 2010. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $8.96. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In Heidi Betts’s collection of holiday novellas, vampires turn to Angelina Bertolli - vampire matchmaker extraordinaire - to help them find that special someone to curl up with under the mistletoe." - Amazon.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

WESTERNS

The Canyon of Bones by Richard S. Wheeler. Forge Books, 2010. Print Length: 336 p. Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It is the late 1850s and Skye, a deserter from the Royal Navy, and his Crow Indian wife, Victoria, agree that Skye should take a second Indian wife to produce a son. Skye marries Blue Dawn, a beautiful, young Shoshone woman, and the trio is hired to guide brash English explorer and journalist Graves Duplessis Mercer to see a mysterious canyon full of dinosaur bones. Skye, happy with two wives, doesn't care much for Mercer, whose arrogance and selfishness endangers the whole party. The details of Skye's courtship and wedding are hilarious, and the fieldcraft the group must employ to survive the harsh wilderness is suspenseful and instructive. Wheeler is one of the best western authors around today. He doesn't rely on epic battles or gunfights to tell his stories, relying instead on fascinating characters, vivid imagery, subtle action and carefully drawn historical detail." - Publishers Weekly.

Savage Guns by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone. Pinnacle Books, 2010. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Cotton Pickens made it through fifth grade. That and a tin star were good enough to make him the sheriff in the boomtown of Doubtful, Wyoming. And Doubtful’s name is no accident. The saying around town is, If you’re a lawman, it’s doubtful you’ll last a day. Spoiled, brash King Bragg is going to hang for the murder of three men in a barroom. But King’s arrogant father - and his beautiful sister - use their powers of persuasion to convince Cotton to look into the shooting. And when Cotton does, he uncovers some disturbing secrets about one Crayfish Ruble, the second biggest rancher in Puma County. Soon, Cotton is surrounded by some people who want to hang King now, some who want to bust him free, and some too busy keeping their stories straight..." - Amazon.

Texas Standoff: A Novel of the Texas Rangers by Elmer Kelton. Forge Books, 2010. Print Length: 288 p. Kindle edition $11.99 (Hardcover: $16.49). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Ranger Andy Pickard and his partner, Logan Daggett, are sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts. The two biggest cattlemen in the area blame each other for the violence, but it seems to Andy that neither man may be guilty. The case is complicated by the rise of a gang of "regulators' - masked vigilantes - and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman whose employer is unknown..." - Amazon.

The Killing Shot by Johnny D. Boggs. Pinnacle Books, 2010. Print Length: 344 p. Kindle edition $3.83. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Deputy U.S. Marshal Reilly McGilvern is hauling criminals to Yuma when his prison wagon is attacked, and McGilvern is left locked inside to die. When another outlaw gang comes upon the scene, Reilly McGilvern thinks he’s lived to see another day...but his problems are just beginning. Bloody Jim Pardo wants to avenge the Civil War - and to steal the kind of weapons that will let him do it. Riding with his mother, his trusted killers and two hostages, Pardo thinks McGilvern is a fearsome criminal. Now, to stop Jim Pardo’s bloody madness, McGilvern needs to play his part perfectly. And when the time comes, make every shot a killing shot..." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's 15 Oct 2010 Issue

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the October 15th issue include:

Peace Meals: Candy-Wrapped Kalashnikovs and Other War Stories, by Anna Badkhen. Free Press, 2010. Print length: 288 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "...gritty memoir of Afghanistan and Iraq that focuses not on front-line reportage but on behind-the-scenes kindnesses of local families, many of whom shared their hearths, and their bread with the foreign journalist." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $11.99 (Hardcover: $16.50). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Travel books bring us to places. War books bring us to tragedy. This book brings us to one woman’s travels in war zones: the locals she met, the compassion they scraped from catastrophe, and the food they ate. It reveals how one war correspondent’s professional choices are determined not only by her opinion of which story is important but also by the instinctive comparisons she, a young mother, makes each time she meets children in war zones; by her intrinsic sense of guilt for leaving her family behind as she goes off to her next dangerous assignment; and, quite prosaically - though not surprisingly - by her need to eat. Wherever Badkhen went, she broke bread with the people she wrote about, and the simple conversations over these meals helped her open the door into the lives of strangers. Sometimes dinner was bread and a fried egg in a farmer’s hut, or a packet of trail mix in the back of an armored humvee. Sometimes it was a lavish, four-course meal at the house of a local warlord, or a plate of rice and boiled meat at a funeral tent. Each of these straightforward acts of humanity tells a story. And these stories, punctuated by recipes from these meals, form Peace Meals. Following Badkhen’s simple instructions, readers will taste what made life in these tormented places worth living.

Anna Badkhen has covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Chechnya, and Kashmir. Her reporting has appeared in The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and Salon.com, among others." - Amazon.

Meeks, by Julia Holmes. Small Beer Press, 2010. Print length: 192 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...leavened by Holmes' wit, never becomes grim melodrama." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $7.96. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"No woman will have Ben without a proper bachelor's suit...and the tailor refuses to make him one. Back from war with a nameless enemy, Ben finds that his mother is dead and his family home has been reassigned by the state. As if that isn't enough, he must now find a wife, or he'll be made a civil servant and given a permanent spot in one of the city's oppressive factories. Meanwhile, Meeks, a foreigner who lives in the park and imagines he's a member of the police, is hunted by the overzealous Brothers of Mercy. Meeks' survival depends on his peculiar friendship with a police captain - but will that be enough to prevent his execution at the annual Independence Day celebration? A dark satire rendered with the slapstick humor of a Buster Keaton film..." - Amazon.

Nemesis, by Philip Roth. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. Print length: 304 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "This would have been a stunning short story." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $11.69 (Hardcover: $12.99). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...this latest in the series far exceeds its predecessors in both emotion and intellect. In general terms, the novel is a staggering visit to a time and place when a monumental health crisis dominated the way people led their day-to-day lives. Newark, New Jersey, in the early 1940s (a common setting for this author) experienced, as the war in Europe was looking better for the Allies, a scare as deadly as warfare. The city has been hit by an epidemic of polio. Of course, at that time, how the disease spread and its cure were unknown. The city is in a panic, with residents so suspicious of other individuals and ethnic groups that emotions quickly escalate into hostility and even rage. Our hero, and he proves truly heroic, is Bucky Canter, playground director in the Jewish neighborhood of Newark. As the summer progresses, Bucky sees more and more of his teenage charges succumb to the disease. When an opportunity presents itself to leave the city for work in a Catskills summer camp, Bucky is torn between personal safety and personal duty." - Brad Hooper for Booklist.

Bad Blood: A Virgil Flowers Novel, by John Sanford. Putnam, 2010. Print length: 400 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "...he's overseen a brand extension without any discernible lapse in quality." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (54 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $14.99). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Bobby Tripp was a good kid, working at a grain mill, saving for college. But he killed Jacob Flood, a local farmer delivering his harvest; and then, after Bobby was arrested, he hung himself in jail. The sheriff, Lee Coakley, reaches out for help to Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. She gets Virgil Flowers, the throwback hippie with the hair, the rock-band T-shirts, and a rep as a lockdown investigator...As usual, Sandford delivers a great mystery with action, suspense, humor, and, yes, sex..." Wes Lukowsky for Booklist.

The Reversal, by Michael Connelly. Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Print length: 416 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "...workmanlike..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (49 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $14.86). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case fraught with political and personal danger. Opposing them is Jessup, now out on bail, a defense attorney who excels at manipulating the media, and a runaway eyewitness reluctant to testify after so many years." - Amazon.

Worth Dying For: A Reacher Novel, by Lee Child. Delacorte Press, 2010. Print length: 400 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "It's the first time Child has published two books in a single year, and the strain shows." Amazon customer rating: Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"There’s deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska...and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades-old, that Reacher can’t let go. The Duncans want Reacher gone - and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. They’re awaiting a secret shipment that’s already late - and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. - Amazon.

Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal, by Russell Brand. Harper Collins, 2010. Print length: 304 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...those who were charmed by Brad's previous My Booky Wook...should be similarly entranced by this devilishly hilarious roundup of his fame-era shenanigans..." Amazon customer rating: 1 star (1 review). Kindle edition $12.99 (Hardcover: $13.49). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Russell charts his rise from crack-house junky to Hollywood star, indulging in sexual excesses that make Caligula seem like a prudish spinster. On his quest to find true love, Russell encountered thousands of women, often three or four at a time (for efficiency), and his dizzying ambition led to chaos and controversy that could have landed him in prison and left the BBC in ruins. This is the story of what happens when insatiable desire meets limitless opportunity and when a punk from the wrong side of the tracks is given the keys to the palace..." - Amazon.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, by Jane Leavy. Harper Collins, 2010. Print length: 400 p. BIOGRAPHY. EW's slant: "...little new info..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99 (Hardcover: $11.99). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself. How long was the Tape Measure Home Run? Did Mantle swing the same way right-handed and left-handed? What really happened to his knee in the 1951 World Series? What happened to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy known back home as Mickey Charles?" - Amazon.
Note: Given the high price of the Kindle edition compared to the hardcover, this might be a good time to remind readers to utilize the free services of the Kindle Price Drop Tracker where you can sign up to be notified when the Kindle price of this title - or any other Kindle e-book - goes down.

NaNoWriMo for the Kindle Reader: Mastering the Craft of Fiction

Once a year, in November, thousands of aspiring novelists get together in a massive write-in called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel starting November 1 and finishing by November 31.

Last year over 167,000 people participated and - as of October 13th - more than 50,00 writers have signed up for this year. If you're interested in this novelist's boot camp - one that has pushed a lot of writers from the "thinking about it" to the "doing it" stage, visit the NaNoWriMo website to sign up for the writing adventure of your life or just to find out more.


While waiting for the starting bell, Kindle readers will find a good selection of books for aspiring novelists available in the Amazon bookstore:

No Plot? No Problem: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty. Chronicle Books, 2004. Print length: 176 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (108 reviews). Kindle edition $9.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Every November, tens of thousands of people sign up for National Novel Writing Month and attempt to write a 50,000-word novel. Baty, the brains behind this competition, has produced an uproariously funny motivational manifesto so readers can get a leg-up in his race or in the larger publishing game. The key is to lower your expectations "from 'best-seller' to 'would not make someone vomit,'" says Baty, who maintains that stress and a deadline are important parts of writing. Aimed at the nonserious, with an emphasis on summoning creativity and having a life-changing experience, this original approach will appeal to anyone up for a challenge." - Library Journal.

Architecture of the Novel: A Writer's Handbook by Jane Vandenburgh. Foreword by Anne Lamott. Counterpoint, 2010. Print length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Architecture of the Novel derives from the many years Vandenburgh has spent teaching the craft of fiction writing. Her method points to the elemental nature of narrative: A story consists of its events, which are told in scenes. These scenes naturally place themselves along the arc of the story in an order that provides suspense and mystery, drawing characters toward the inevitability of their fictive destinies. Profoundly practical yet encouraging to writers at all levels, Architecture of the Novel offers the maps and mechanics to successfully guide writers toward the story that must be told." - Amazon.

Your First Novel by Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb. Foreword by Dennis Lehane. Writer's Digest, 2009. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (25 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"An author agent team shares the keys to achieving your dream. This work includes all the start to finish fundamentals you need to produce and launch a first novel. It offers readers balanced advice on both writing and publishing their first novel, from the perspective of a published author and seasoned agent." - Amazon.

Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. Writers Digest Books, 2008. 5th ed. Print length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (105 reviews). Kindle edition $9.03. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...clear, concise information that will help you create a believable and memorable plot including techniques for crafting strong beginnings, middles and endings, with easy to understand plotting diagrams and charts. Bell also provides brainstorming techniques for developing original plot ideas and tips and tools for correcting common plot problems." - Amazon.

3 AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley. Writers Digest Books, 2009. Print length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (18 reviews). Kindle edition $9.29. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"If you write, you know what it's like. Insight and creativity - the desire to push the boundaries of your writing - strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act: in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night. The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write, and revise like never before, without having to wait for creative inspiration. Brian Kitely, noted author and director of the University of Denver's creative writing program, has crafted and refined these exercises through 15 years of teaching experience. You'll learn how to: transform staid and stale writing patterns into exciting experiments in fiction, shed the anxieties that keep you from reaching your full potential as a writer, craft unique ideas by combining personal experience with unrestricted imagination, examine and overcome all of your fiction writing concerns, from getting started to writer's block. Open the book, select an exercise, and give it a try." - Amazon.

Writing Fiction for Dummies by Peter Economy and Randy Ingermanson. For Dummies Press, 2009. Print length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (34 reviews). Kindle edition $9.89. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...don’t settle for just writing a novel. Aim high. Write a novel that you intend to sell to a publisher. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a complete guide designed to coach you every step along the path from beginning writer to royalty-earning author. Here are some things you’ll learn in Writing Fiction for Dummies:
* Strategic Planning: Pinpoint where you are on the roadmap to publication; discover what every reader desperately wants from a story; home in on a marketable category; choose from among the four most common creative styles; and learn the self-management methods of professional writers.
* Writing Powerful Fiction: Construct a story world that rings true; create believable, unpredictable characters; build a strong plot with all six layers of complexity of a modern novel; and infuse it all with a strong theme.
* Self-Editing Your Novel: Psychoanalyze your characters to bring them fully to life; edit your story structure from the top down; fix broken scenes; and polish your action and dialogue.
* Finding An Agent and Getting Published: Write a query letter, a synopsis, and a proposal; pitch your work to agents and editors without fear." - Amazon.

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print length: 272 p. Amazon Customer Rating: 5 stars (33 reviews). Kindle edition $8.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...from basics on verb tense to the value of forming a support group - Poynter Institute vice president Clark offers tips, tricks and techniques for anyone putting fingers to keyboard. The best assets in Clark's book are in the 'workshop' sections that conclude each chapter and list strategies for incorporating the material covered in each lesson (minimize adverbs, use active verbs, read your work aloud). Though some suggestions are classroom campy ('Listen to song lyrics to hear how the language moves on the ladder of abstraction' and 'With some friends, take a big piece of chart paper and with colored markers draw a diagram of your writing process'), Clark's blend of instruction and exercise will prove especially useful for teachers. One exercise, for instance, suggests reading the newspaper and marking the location of subjects and verbs. Another provides a close reading of a passage from The Postman Always Rings Twice to look at the ways word placement and sentence structure can add punch to prose." - Publishers Weekly.

Kindle Genre Watch: New in Fantasy & Science Fiction (12 Oct 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 science fiction include:

FANTASY

Kill the Dead: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey. Harper Collins. Print length: 448 p. Kindle edition $10.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend's murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It's a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse. Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard..." - Amazon.
Kadrey's first novel to feature James Stark was Sandman Slim which is now available in a free promotional Kindle edition on Amazon.

Distinctions: Prologue to Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Tor Books, 2010. Print length: 80 p. Kindle edition $2.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this Prologue to Towers of Midnight, book thirteen of The Wheel of Time, Lan Mandragoran rides on toward death; Perrin Aybara, Lord Goldeneyes, has a disturbing dream; Galad leads the Whitecloaks into harm’s way; one who has left humanity behind creeps through the Blight; and the Blight border faces invasion. As with the previous four titles in The Wheel of Time series, this prologue from Robert Jordan’s Towers of Midnight, completed by Brandon Sanderson, is available for sale before the book’s official release date (November 2, 2010)." - Amazon.

Gauntlgrym by R. A. Salvatore. Book one in the Neverwinter series. Wizards of the Coast, 2010. Print length: 352 p. Kindle edition $14.71 (Hardcover: $16.34). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Drizzt joins Bruenor on his quest for the fabled dwarven kingdom of Gauntlgrym: ruins said to be rich with ancient treasure and arcane lore. But before they even get close, another drow and dwarf pair stumbles across it first: Jarlaxle and Athrogate. In their search for treasure and magic, Jarlaxle and Athrogate inadvertently set into motion a catastrophe that could spell disaster for the unsuspecting people of the city of Neverwinter - a catastrophe big enough to lure even the mercenary Jarlaxle into risking his own coin and skin to stop it. Unfortunately, the more they uncover about the secret of Gauntlgrym, the more it looks like they can’t stop it on their own. They’ll need help, and from the last people they ever thought to fight alongside again..." - Amazon.

Masques by Patricia Briggs. Ace, 2010. Print length: 320 p. Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"After an upbringing of proper behavior and oppressive expectations, Aralorn fled her noble birthright for a life of adventure as a mercenary spy. Her latest mission involves spying on the increasingly powerful sorcerer Geoffrey ae'Magi. But in a war against an enemy armed with the powers of illusion, how do you know who the true enemy is - or where he will strike next?" - Amazon.
This is a revised version of a novel first published by Ace Books in 1993. The author is building on it as the foundation of her new Sianim series. The second book in the series, Wolfsbane, will be published on November 2, 2010.

Venom: An Elemental Assassin Book by Jennifer Estep. Pocket Books, 2010. Print length: 416 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"It’s hard to be a badass assassin when a giant is beating the crap out of you. Luckily, I never let pride get in the way of my work. My current mission is personal: annihilate Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who murdered my family. Which means protecting my identity, even if I have to conceal my powerful Stone and Ice magic when I need it most. To the public, I’m Gin Blanco, owner of Ashland’s best barbecue joint. To my friends, I’m the Spider, retired assassin. I still do favors on the side. Like ridding a vampire friend of her oversized stalker - Mab’s right-hand goon who almost got me dead with his massive fists. At least irresistible Owen Grayson is on my side. The man knows too much about me, but I’ll take my chances. Then there’s Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland’s finest. Until recently, I thought my baby sister was dead. She probably thinks the same about me. Little does she know, I’m a cold-blooded killer...who is about to save her life." - Amazon.

Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Thomas Dunne Books, 2010. Print length: 480 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Swedish TV and stage writer Lindqvist's first novel is set in a commonplace suburb of Stockholm, where 12-year-old Oskar lives with his mother, is bullied at school, shoplifts, and keeps a scrapbook of notes and clippings about gruesome murders. Eli, apparently about his age, moves in next door but doesn't go to school, leaving the flat only at night. Shortly after, the killings start. At first more fascinated than sorry, since one victim had bullied him, Oskar eventually discovers that Eli is a vampire, stuck permanently in childhood. What should Oskar do, especially when Eli is his friend as much as anyone is?" - Booklist.



SCIENCE FICTION

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Night Shade Books, 2010. Print length: 361 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...grim but beautifully written tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and out-of-control mutation. Capt. Jaidee Rojjanasukchai of the Thai Environment Ministry fights desperately to protect his beloved nation from foreign influences. Factory manager Anderson Lake covertly searches for new and useful mutations for a hated Western agribusiness. Aging Chinese immigrant Tan Hock Seng lives by his wits while looking for one last score. Emiko, the titular despised but impossibly seductive product of Japanese genetic engineering, works in a brothel until she accidentally triggers a civil war. This complex, literate and intensely felt tale, which recalls both William Gibson and Ian McDonald at their very best, will garner Bacigalupi significant critical attention and is clearly one of the finest science fiction novels of the year." - Publishers Weekly.
First published in hardcover in 2009 and now available for the Kindle.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Del Rey, 2010. Print length: 832 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"It's safe to say that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest science fiction novels ever written. Adams spoofs many core science fiction tropes: space travel, aliens, interstellar war - stripping away all sense of wonder and repainting them as commonplace, even silly. This omnibus edition begins with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which Arthur Dent is introduced to the galaxy at large when he is rescued by an alien friend seconds before Earth's destruction. Then in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur and his new friends travel to the end of time and discover the true reason for Earth's existence. In Life, the Universe, and Everything, the gang goes on a mission to save the entire universe. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish recounts how Arthur finds true love and 'God's Final Message to His Creation.' Finally, Mostly Harmless is the story of Arthur's continuing search for home, in which he instead encounters his estranged daughter, who is on her own quest... As the series progresses, its wackier elements diminish, but the satire of human life and foibles is ever present." - Brooks Peck.

Forbidden the Stars by Valmore Daniels. Mummer Media, 2010. Print length: 278 p. Kindle edition $2.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At the end of the 21st century, a catastrophic accident in the asteroid belt has left two surveyors dead. There is no trace of their young son, Alex Manez, or of the asteroid itself. On the outer edge of the solar system, the first manned mission to Pluto, led by the youngest female astronaut in NASA history, has led to an historic discovery: there is a marker left there by an alien race for humankind to find. While studying the alien marker, it begins to react and, four hours later, the missing asteroid appears in a Plutonian orbit, along with young Alex Manez, who has developed some alarming side-effects from his exposure to the kinetic element they call Kinemet. From the depths of a criminal empire based on Luna, an expatriate seizes the opportunity to wrest control of outer space, and takes swift action. The secret to faster-than-light speed is up for grabs, and the race for interstellar space is on!" - Amazon.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media (12 Oct 2010)

Media interviews are a popular way for writers to introduce new books they hope will catch the viewer's eye and generate interest in their work. 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 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (08 OCT 2010):
Our Kind of Traitor, by John Le Carré. Viking, 2010. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition: $14.99 (Hardcover: $15.09). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In his last few novels, le Carré has exhibited a remarkable ability to turn multiple forms of international chicanery into gripping, incisive fiction, seemingly before the end of the news cycle... Now, it’s something a little different: international money-laundering. It starts when two idealistic young professionals, one an Oxford professor, the other a lawyer, take a tennis vacation in Antigua, where they meet an unsavory Russian who claims to be 'the world’s Number One money-launderer.' Dima wants Perry and Gail to help him defect to the West - not from Russia, in the cold war sense, but from the Russian underworld, whose leaders have decided he knows too much. One of the things Dima knows is which British 'vulture capitalists' have used Russian Mob money to survive the collapse of the banking industry. It is a complex but fascinating subject, and le Carré dissects it brilliantly..." - Bill Ott for Booklist.

ON CBS'S 60 MINUTES (10 OCT 2010):
Conversations with Myself, by Nelson Mandela. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition: $14.99 (Hardcover: $18.48). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Nelson Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on 18 July 1918. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison and then later moved to Pollsmoor Prison, during which his reputation as a potent symbol of resistance to the anti-apartheid movement grew steadily. Released from prison in 1990, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was inaugurated as the first democratically-elected president of South Africa in 1994. Conversations with Myself draws on Mandela’s personal archive of never-before-seen materials to offer unique access to the private world of an incomparable world leader. Journals kept on the run during the anti-apartheid struggle of the early 1960s; diaries and draft letters written in Robben Island and other South African prisons during his twenty-seven years of incarceration; notebooks from the postapartheid transition; private recorded conversations; speeches and correspondence written during his presidency—a historic collection of documents archived at the Nelson Mandela Foundation is brought together into a sweeping narrative of great immediacy and stunning power. An intimate journey from Mandela’s first stirrings of political consciousness to his galvanizing role on the world stage..." - Amazon.

ON CSPAN'S BOOK TV (10 OCT 2010):
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang. W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print Length: 354 p. Kindle edition: $14.82 (Hardcover: $17.79). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The Charlie Chan we know from the movies (played by Swedish actor Warner Oland) had two strands to his DNA: E. D. Biggers’ immensely popular Charlie Chan novels and the actual man on whom Biggers based his tales. The model for Biggers’ canny Honolulu detective was Chang Apana, who rose from Hawaiian paniolo (cowboy) in the 1890s to Humane Society officer to Honolulu cop and detective in the early twentieth century. Chang’s beat concentrated on the notorious gambling dens, scenes and seeds of drugs and violence in the labyrinth of Honolulu’s Chinatown. Huang, who was born in China and is a professor of English at the University of California, brings a wealth of perspective on the treatment of Chinese, both historically and in fiction, to this work. Readers will learn a great deal about how the Chinese fared as plantation workers in Hawaii, about Hawaiian history, about Chang, about Biggers, and about the meaning of the Chan oeuvre, both books and movies. Huang also works in his own story of immigrating to the U.S., which is both stirring and illuminating." - Connie Fletcher for Booklist.

ON NBC'S TODAY SHOW (11 OCT 2010):
Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, by Hugh Shelton with Ronald Levinson and Malcolm McConnell. St. Martin's Press, 2010. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition: $14.99 (Hardcover: $18.47). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, General Shelton was never afraid to speak out and tell it like it is. Shelton chronicles his incredible journey from a small farming community in North Carolina to the highest level of American military and political power at the Pentagon and White House. As one of the nation’s elite Special Forces soldiers, Shelton served twice in Vietnam, commanding a Green Beret unit and then an airborne infantry company. Shelton rose up the ranks and was assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne Division as they invaded Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, then led the 20,000 American troops tasked with restoring Haiti’s deposed President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power. Promoted to 4-star General, he became Commander in Chief of U.S. Special Operations Command (including Delta Force, Navy SEALS and other top secret Special Mission Units). But it was while serving as Chairman during both the Clinton and Bush administrations that he faced his biggest challenges, including his role as chief architect of the U.S. military response to 9/11. General Shelton speaks frankly of how decisions were made behind the scenes in the inner sanctum of the E-Ring and Oval Office...Yet it's Shelton’s amazing personal story that puts his military career in perspective." - Amazon.

ON ABC'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA (12 OCT 2010):
Late, Late at Night, by Rick Springfield. Touchstone, 2010. Print Length: 336 p. Kindle edition: $12.99 (Hardcover: $14.04). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
In the 1980s, singer-songwriter and actor Rick Springfield seemed to have it all: a megahit single in 'Jessie’s Girl,' sold-out concert tours, follow-up hits that sold more than 17 million albums and became the pop soundtrack for an entire generation, and 12 million daily viewers who avidly tuned in to General Hospital to swoon over his portrayal of the handsome Dr. Noah Drake. Yet lurking behind his success as a pop star and soap opera heartthrob and his unstoppable drive was a moody, somber, and dark soul, one filled with depression and insecurity. In a searingly candid memoir which he authored himself, Grammy Award-winning pop icon Rick Springfield pulls back the curtain on his image as a bright, shiny, happy performer to share the startling story of his rise and fall and rise in music, film, and television and his lifelong battle with depression. On one level, he reveals the inside story of his ride to the top of the entertainment world. On a second, deeper level, he recounts with unsparing candor the forces that have driven his life, including his longtime battle with depression and thoughts of suicide, the shattering death of his father, and his decision to drop out at the absolute peak of fame. Having finally found a more stable equilibrium, Rick’s story is ultimately a positive one, deeply informed by his passion for creative expression through his music, a deep love of his wife of twenty-six years and their two sons, and his life-long quest for spiritual peace." - Amazon.

ON COMEDY CENTRAL'S THE DAILY SHOW (12 OCT 2010):
Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, by Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. Threshold Editions, 2010. Print Length: 224 p. Kindle edition: $9.99 (Paperback: 10.20). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"A prescriptive call-to-action for the Republican party by three Congressmen. Eric Cantor (Virginia) is the Republican Whip who holds a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee and serves as chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. He chairs the House Economic Recovery Working Group, which developed the Republican alternative to the president’s stimulus package and crafted a range of solutions to get families and small-business people back to work. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) is a sixth-term congressman, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Kevin McCarthy (California), a two-term congressman and House Chief Deputy Republican Whip, was named one of the GOP’s 'most persuasive, compelling members' by Newsweek." - Amazon.

ON NPR'S THE DIANE REHM SHOW (12 OCT 2010):
The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics, by Walter Mondale. Scribner, 2010. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition: $14.99 (Hardcover: $20.16). Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"For more than five decades in public life, Walter Mondale has played a leading role in America’s movement for social change - in civil rights, environmentalism, consumer protection, and women’s rights - and helped to forge the modern Democratic Party. In The Good Fight, Mondale traces his evolution from a young Minnesota attorney general, whose mentor was Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, into a U.S. senator himself. ...Just as indispensably, he charts the evolution of Democratic liberalism from John F. Kennedy to Clinton to Obama while spelling out the principles required to restore the United States as a model of progressive government..." - Amazon.