What People Magazine is Reading This Week (02/28/11 Issue)

For those Kindle readers who read for entertainment, perusing the book reviews in People magazine are good way to check out new people-related books - celebrity bios, popular novels, absorbing nonfiction - just hitting bookstore shelves. Featured in the February 28th issue of People:

Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing, by Roger Rosenblatt. Harper Collins, 2011. Print Length: 176 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 (6 reviews). People's slant: "There is much to love and ponder within these passionate pages." Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $11.19. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"For more than forty years, distinguished author Roger Rosenblatt has also been a teacher of writing, guiding students with the same intelligence and generosity he brings to the page, answering the difficult questions about what makes a story good, an essay shapely, a novel successful, and the most profound and essential question of them all - why write? Unless It Moves the Human Heart details one semester in Rosenblatt's 'Writing Everything' class. In a series of funny, intimate conversations, a diverse group of students - from Inur, a young woman whose family is from Pakistan, to Sven, an ex–fighter pilot - grapples with the questions and subjects most important to narrative craft. Delving into their varied lives, Rosenblatt brings readers closer to them, emotionally investing us in their failures and triumphs." - Amazon.

The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld. Riverhead, 2011. Print Length: 464 p. HISTORICAL FICTION. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (26 reviews). People's slant: "...ably blends fact and fiction." Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.33. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The destruction of the World Trade Center was not New York’s first terrorist attack. In 1920, a bomb blast on Wall Street sent cars tumbling and bodies flying. Rubenfeld’s novel, opening with the explosion, has the feel of a historical mystery. A cop and his sidekick are on the scene at once. The investigation begins. A witness to the explosion recalls seeing something that didn’t belong but can’t recall it. Thriller under way? Well, not exactly. Suddenly we’re into a 30-page World War I flashback. Then we visit Vienna for tea with Doctor Freud. We learn of Marie Curie’s work with radium. The sidekick has a rocky time with his love life, and we learn all about it. This fat book is heir to Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, using the detective format as a chance to wander in the past... - Don Crinklaw for Booklist.

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady, by Elizabeth Stuckey-French. Doubleday, 2011. Print Length: 352 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (35 reviews). People's slant: "...charmingly off-kilter..." Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.54. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Seventy-seven-year-old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences. Marylou has been plotting her revenge for fifty years. When she accidentally discovers his whereabouts in Florida, her plans finally snap into action. She high tails it to hot and humid Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where a now senile Spriggs lives with his daughter’s family, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into their lives. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she is stum­bling into. Told from the varied perspectives of an incredible cast of endearing oddball characters and written with the flair of a native Floridian, this dark comedy does not disappoint." - Publisher.

A Widow's Story, by Joyce Carol Oates. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 432 p. MEMOIR. People's slant: "...as much a portrait of a unique marriage as a chronicle of grief." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (22 reviews).Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $15.07. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Brutal violence and catastrophic loss are often the subjects of Oates’ powerful novels and stories. But as she reveals in this galvanizing memoir, her creative inferno was sequestered from her joyful life with her husband, Raymond Smith. A revered editor and publisher who did not read her fiction, Smith kept their household humming during their 48-year marriage. After his shocking death from a 'secondary infection' while hospitalized with pneumonia, Oates found herself in the grip of a relentless waking nightmare. She recounts this horrific 'siege' of grief with her signature perception...Oates has created an illuminating portrait of a marriage, a searing confrontation with death, an extraordinarily forthright chronicle of mourning, and a profound 'pilgrimage' from chaos to coherence." -Donna Seaman for Booklist.

New in Nonfiction for Kindle

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:

Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard, by Robert R. Desjarlais. University of California Press, 2011. Print Length: 266 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $15.15. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Chess gets a hold of some people, like a virus or a drug, writes Robert Desjarlais in this absorbing book. Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, Desjarlais guides readers into the world of twenty-first-century chess to help us understand its unique pleasures and challenges, and to advance a new 'anthropology of passion.' Immersing us directly in chess’s intricate culture, he interweaves small dramas, closely observed details, illuminating insights, colorful anecdotes, and unforgettable biographical sketches to elucidate the game and to reveal what goes on in the minds of experienced players when they face off over the board. Counterplay offers a compelling take on the intrigues of chess and shows how themes of play, beauty, competition, addiction, fanciful cognition, and intersubjective engagement shape the lives of those who take up this most captivating of games." - Publisher.
Robert Desjarlais is a Professor of Anthropology at Sarah Lawrence College.


Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, by Stephen Baker. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (18 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.25. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"What if there were a computer that could answer virtually any question? IBM engineers are developing such a machine, teaching it to compete on the quiz show Jeopardy. In February 2011, it will face off in a nationally televised game against two of the game’s greatest all-time winners, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Final Jeopardy tells the riveting story behind the match [and] carries readers on a captivating journey from the IBM lab to the podium. The story features brilliant Ph.D.s, Hollywood moguls, knowledge-obsessed Jeopardy masters — and a very special collection of silicon and circuitry named Watson... What can we teach machines? What will Watson’s heirs be capable of in ten or twenty years? And where does that leave humans? As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world — and how they’ll disrupt it." - Amazon.com Review.


The Diary of a West Point Cadet: A Graduate's Captivating and Hilarious Stories that Teach Vital Leadership Lessons from the US Military Academy, by Captain Preston Pysh. Pylon Publishing, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (6 reviews).Kindle edition $7.99; Paperback $14.24. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Let's be honest. A lot of books about West Point or leadership can be very dry. Learning doesn't have to be that way. Each intriguing firsthand account of Preston's top 12 enthralling and hilarious stories from attending West Point, will capture your interest and imagination. The stories walk the reader down a personal journey many outsiders never see behind the thick stoney walls. As an added bonus, Preston efficiently summarizes how each gripping story taught him a vital leadership lesson that prepared him to be a combat commander with the renown 101st Airborne Division. If you are an aspiring cadet, a small-group leader, or even an emerging leader in corporate America, this book is for you." - Publisher.


Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed America, by Anne Macdonald. Ballantine Books, 2010. First published in 1992. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $19.66. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this fascinating study of American women inventors, historian Anne Macdonald shows how creative, resourceful, and entrepreneurial women helped to shatter the ancient stereotypes of mechanically inept womanhood. In presenting their stories, Anne Macdonald's thorough research in patent archives and her engaging use of period magazine, journals, lectures, records from major fairs and expositions, and interviews, have made her book nothing less than an overall history of the women's movement in America." - Publisher.

Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $4.48; Paperback $4.98. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's...hilarious and poignant collection of essays surrounding her favorite topics: knitting, knitters, and what happens when you get those two things anywhere near ordinary people. For the 60 million knitters in America, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (a.k.a. the Yarn Harlot) shares stories of knitting horrors and triumphs, knitting successes and defeats, but, mostly, stories about the human condition that ring true for everyone - especially if you happen to have a rather large amount of yarn in your house." - Amazon.

Curious Folks Ask 2: Our Fellow Creatures, Our Planet, and Beyond, by Sherry Seethaler. FT Press, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (13 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $14.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Why do lizards do pushups? Does hot water really freeze faster than cold water? Why do some people float and others sink? What’s better, paper or plastic? How much does the earth weigh? Why can’t you make square soap bubbles? These are just a few of the fascinating science questions real people have asked top science writer, author, and columnist Sherry Seethaler. This book brings together 188 of her best answers = all crystal-clear, accurate, quick, and a pleasure to read..." - Amazon.

The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book, by Timothy Beal. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $15.94. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this revelatory exploration of one of our most revered icons, a critically acclaimed author and professor takes us back to early Christianity to ask how a box of handwritten scrolls became the Bible, and forward to see how the multibillion-dollar business that has brought us Biblezines and Manga Bibles is selling down the Bible’s sacred capital. Showing us how a single official text was created from the proliferation of different scripts, Beal traces its path as it became embraced as the word of God and Book of books. Timothy Beal is Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University." - Amazon.

Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, by Seth Kubersky and Kelly Monaghan. The Intrepid Traveler, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $2.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Your complete guide to all the rides, all the shops, all the restaurants and all the insider secrets of Harry Potter's Wizarding World at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure theme park.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's Feb 25th Issue

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

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain. Ballantine Books, 2011. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "By making the ordinary come to life, McLain has written a beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s - as a wife and one's own woman." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (19 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.85. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness - until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group - the fabled 'Lost Generation' - that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley." - Amazon.

History of a Suicide, by Jill Bialosky. Atria, 2011. Print length: 272 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "She writes so gracefully and bravely that what you're left with in the end is an overwhelming sense of love." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99; Hardcover $13.67. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"On the night of April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s twenty-one-year-old sister Kim came home from a bar in downtown Cleveland. She argued with her boyfriend on the phone. Then she took her mother’s car keys, went into the garage, closed the garage door. She climbed into the car, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep... Those are the simple facts, but the act of suicide is anything but simple. For twenty years, Bialosky has lived with the grief, guilt, questions, and confusion unleashed by Kim’s suicide. Now, in a remarkable work of literary nonfiction, she re-creates with unsparing honesty her sister’s inner life, the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night. In doing so, she opens a window on the nature of suicide itself, our own reactions and responses to it - especially the impact a suicide has on those who remain behind." - Publisher.

Rodin's Debutante, by Ward Just. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Print length: 272 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...Just's spare prose packs a solid emotional punch." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30; Hardcover $16.46. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Tommy Ogden, a Gatsbyesque character living in a mansion outside robber-baron-era Chicago, declines to give his wife the money to commission a bust of herself from the French master Rodin and announces instead his intention to endow a boys’ school. Ogden’s decision reverberates years later in the life of Lee Goodell, whose coming of age is at the heart of Ward Just’s emotionally potent new novel. Lee’s life decisions - to become a sculptor, to sojourn in the mean streets of the South Side, to marry into the haute-intellectual culture of Hyde Park - play out against the crude glamour of midcentury Chicago. Just’s signature skill of conveying emotional heft with few words is put into play as Lee confronts the meaning of his four years at Ogden Hall School under the purview, in the school library, of a bust known as Rodin’s Debutante. And, especially, as he meets again a childhood friend, the victim of a brutal sexual assault of which she has no memory. It was a crime marking the end of Lee’s boyhood and the beginning of his understanding...that how and what we remember add up to nothing less than our very lives. Ward Just's sixteen previous novels include Exiles in the Garden, Forgetfulness, the National Book Award finalist Echo House, A Dangerous Friend, winner of the Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize." - Publisher.

And Furthermore, by Judi Dench. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print length: 288 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...telling stories to ghostwriter John Miller - who already wrote her biography in 1998 - is not Dame Judi's strong suit..." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.66. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this warmhearted memoir, actress Dench brings such a fresh and natural reaction as she describes her roles from Mother Courage to Cleopatra, Lady Bracknell and Sally Bowles that a sense of identification occurs; Dench shows the theatrical inside plumbing of the player and how personal insights, emotional backstories, and initial responses create the character. She believes she is blessed with her marriage to actor Michael Williams and a supportive and understanding family, sharing stories about them as well as about actors Sir John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Stephen Sondheim." - Publishers Weekly.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

Books They're Talking About: Kindle Books in the Media

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 broadcasts. Books are arranged in chronological order by the date of the scheduled interview.

On CBS's 60 MINUTES (20 Feb 11) AND NBC's Today Show (21 Feb 11):

Against All Odds: A Life from Hardship to Hope, by Scott Brown. Harper Collins, 2011. Print Length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Scott Brown's greatest win did not occur on a cold January election night in 2010 when he came from behind to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly fifty years. It began when he survived a savage beating at the drunken, dirty-fingernail hands of a stepfather when he was barely six years old, while trying to protect his mother. In this gripping memoir of resilience and redemption, Brown tells the story of his difficult, often nomadic childhood, shunted from house to apartment, and town to town, seventeen times over his first eighteen years. For nearly two decades' growing up, Brown endured innumerable hardships and challenges, even stealing food to eat. With clear-eyed conviction and unflinching candor, Brown tells the story of his own bad-boy days, of the coaches who mentored him, and of how he found a way out of familial chaos through the swish of a ball in the net, winning a starting slot on the Tufts varsity basketball team as a freshman player and becoming the tenth-highest scorer to graduate in the school's history. His rise from there was even more improbable: a first-year law student and member of the Massachusetts National Guard, he was picked as Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" and was vaulted into the glamorous world of New York modeling at the height of the 1980s. But the man who was once ushered into the backrooms of Studio 54 returned to Massachusetts to continue with his military and legal training, settle down, raise a family, and soon found an unlikely path that would lead him to national political stardom. Poignant, heartfelt, humorous, and profound, this is the story of one man's dream and his determination to fight for a better future." - Amazon.

On C-SPAN2's Book TV (20 Feb 2011):

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, by Evgeny Morozov. Public Affairs, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition: $9.99; Hardcover $18.45. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"'The revolution will be Twittered!' declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder - not easier - to promote democracy. ...Morozov is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy and Boston Review and a Schwartz Fellow at the New American Foundation." - Amazon.

On ABC's Good Morning America (21 Feb 2011), on ABC's Nightline (21 Feb 2011), and on Comedy Central (24 Feb 2011):

A Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need from Washington (and a Trillion That We Don't!), by Mike Huckabee. Sentinel, 2011. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.20. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Armed with little money but a lot of common sense, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee surprised the nation by coming in second during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. He connected with millions of voters by calling for a smaller, simpler government that would get out of the way when appropriate. ...Huckabee has continued to be the voice of common sense conservatism, through his television talk show, his radio commentaries, and his lectures around the country. Now he's written a book that sums up the twelve things we really need from Washington to get the country back on the right track. These twelve essential truths will have you nodding in agreement, whether you're a Republican, an Independent, or even an open-minded Democrat. They can help us put aside our differences, tone down the partisan rancor, and return to the simple principles of the Founding Fathers: liberty, justice, personal freedom, and civic virtue. And they can help us tackle even the most seemingly complicated of today's problems." - Amazon.

On the CBS Late Show with David Letterman (21 Feb 2011):

Known and Unknown: A Memoir, by Donald Rumsfeld. Publisher. Print Length: 832 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (47 reviews). Please note: many of the 1 star reviews are based on the fact that the publisher is asking more for the Kindle edition than for the hardcover version. Proceeds from the sale of the book, however, will go to veterans charities supported by the Rumsfeld Foundation. Kindle edition $19.99; Hardcover $18.73. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history: his experiences growing up during the Depression and World War II, his time as a Naval aviator; his service in Congress starting at age 30; his cabinet level positions in the Nixon and Ford White Houses; his assignments in the Reagan administration; and his years as a successful business executive in the private sector. Rumsfeld addresses the challenges and controversies of his illustrious career, from the unseating of the entrenched House Republican leader in 1965, to helping the Ford administration steer the country away from Watergate and Vietnam, to bruising battles over transforming the military for the 21st century, to the war in Iraq, to confronting abuse at Abu Ghraib and allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay. Along the way, he offers his plainspoken, first-hand views and often humorous and surprising anecdotes about some of the world's best known figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Saddam Hussein, from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell, from Elvis Presley to Dick Cheney, and each American president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush." - Amazon.

On NPR's Diane Rehm Show (21 Feb 2011):

Wild Bill Donovan, by Douglas Waller. Free Press, 2011. Print Length: 400 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $16.08. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals - the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, “Wild Bill” Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency) and the father of today’s CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan’s relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage." - Amazon.

On C-SPAN2's Book TV (22 Feb 2011):

Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters, by James Zogby. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover: $16.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Using comprehensive polling date from eight Arab countries, James Zogby presents the thoughts and feelings of Muslims about stereotypes of their culture and religion, the 9-11 attacks, the War on Terror and the Iraq War. With this data, Mr. Zogby says he hopes to clarify Arab culture and beliefs to the Western world. James Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute and writes a weekly column that appears in 20 Arab newspapers. He's a member of the Democratic National Committee and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a senior advisor to the polling firm Zogby International." - C-SPAN2.

On NPR's Diane Rehm Show (24 Feb 2011):

33 Men: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners, by Jonathan Franklin. Putnam, 2011. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $13.40. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...the riveting and authoritative account of the 2010 San José mine rescue in Chile - after one of the longest human entrapments in history. For eight weeks, Franklin conducted interviews with families, rescue workers, the mine psychologist, drill operators, scientists, and the architects of the rescue operation. He reported from an improvised office on the mountainside that was the nerve center of the rescue operation, in a makeshift container. Far below, families and loved ones lived in a cluster of tents known as Camp Hope. While the men were still underground, Franklin interviewed them via a crude telephone; he helped send vital supplies to them via the "paloma" (pigeon). And when the first miners were rescued on October 13, Mr. Franklin had the first media contact with the recently freed men in a series of interviews from inside the field hospital. In captivating and never-before-revealed detail, Franklin tells a spellbinding story of the improbable survival of the miners, trapped some 2,200 feet underground for sixty-nine days. Based on more than 110 interviews with the miners, their families, and the rescue team, Franklin's account combines an expert eye for detail and dialogue with the remarkable human interest story of these miners struggling to survive in a savage environment." - Amazon.

It's All in the Numbers: Popular Math Books for the Kindle Reader

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater." - Albert Einstein.

Whether you want to learn more about how mathematics figures in your daily life or just review some of the math you learned years ago in school, you will find a number of very readable books for the non-mathematician in the Kindle bookstore. For example:

What the Numbers Say: A Field Guide to Mastering Our Numerical World, by Derrick Niederman and David Boyum. Crown, 2007. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $11.62. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Our society is churning out more numbers than ever before, whether in the form of spreadsheets, brokerage statements, survey results, or just the numbers on the sports pages. Unfortunately, people's ability to understand and analyze numbers isn't keeping pace with today's whizzing data streams. And the benefits of living in the Information Age are available only to those who can process the information in front of them. What the Numbers Say offers remedies to this national problem. Through a series of witty and engaging discussions, the authors introduce original quantitative concepts, skills, and habits that reduce even the most daunting numerical challenges to simple, bite-sized pieces. Why do the nutritional values on a Cheerios box appear different in Canada than in the U.S.? How is it that top-performing mutual funds often lose money for the majority of their shareholders? Why was the scoring system for Olympic figure skating doomed even without biased judges? By anchoring their discussions in real-world scenarios, Derrick Niederman and David Boyum show that skilled quantitative thinking involves old-fashioned logic, not advanced mathematical tools." - Publisher's note.

How to Lie with Statistics, by Darrell Huff. Norton, 1993. Print length: 144 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (116 reviews). Kindle edition $6.65; Paperback $7.93. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Huff sought to break through 'the daze that follows the collision of statistics with the human mind' with this slim volume, first published in 1954. The book remains relevant as a wake-up call for people unaccustomed to examining the endless flow of numbers pouring from Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and everywhere else someone has an axe to grind, a point to prove, or a product to sell. Although many of the examples used in the book are charmingly dated, the cautions are timeless. Statistics are rife with opportunities for misuse, from 'gee-whiz graphs' that add nonexistent drama to trends, to 'results' detached from their method and meaning, to statistics' ultimate bugaboo - faulty cause-and-effect reasoning. Huff's tone is tolerant and amused, but no-nonsense. Like a lecturing father, he expects you to learn something useful from the book, and start applying it every day..." - Amazon.

Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks, by Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer. Three Rivers Press, 2008. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (59 reviews). Kindle edition $7.93; Paperback $10.40. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. Please note: This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on devices with larger screens such as Kindle DX, Kindle for PC/Mac, and Kindle for iPad.
"Get ready to amaze your friends - and yourself - with incredible calculations you never thought you could master, as renowned 'mathemagician' Arthur Benjamin shares his techniques for lightning-quick calculations and amazing number tricks. This book will teach you to do math in your head faster than you ever thought possible, dramatically improve your memory for numbers, and - maybe for the first time - make mathematics fun. Yes, even you can learn to do seemingly complex equations in your head; all you need to learn are a few tricks. You’ll be able to quickly multiply and divide triple digits, compute with fractions, and determine squares, cubes, and roots without blinking an eye. This is the math they never taught you in school." - Amazon.

The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, by David Wells. Penguin, 1997. Print length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $9.59; Paperback $10.09. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Why was the number of Hardy's taxi significant? Why does Graham's number need its own notation? How many grains of sand would fill the universe? What is the connection between the Golden Ratio and sunflowers? Why is 999 more than a distress call? All these questions and a host more are answered in this fascinating book, which has now been newly revised, with nearly 200 extra entries and some 250 additions to the original entries. From minus one and its square root, via cyclic, weird, amicable, perfect, untouchable and lucky numbers, aliquot sequences, the Cattle problem, Pascal's triangle and the Syracuse algorithm, music, magic and maps, pancakes, polyhedra and palindromes, to numbers so large that they boggle the imagination, all you ever wanted to know about numbers is here..." - Amazon.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow. Vintage, 2008. Print length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (168 reviews). Kindle edition $7.50; Paperback $7.91. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"With the born storyteller's command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire. Leonard Mlodinow received his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and now teaches about randomness to future scientists at Caltech." - Amazon.

Numbers Rule Your World : The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do, by Kaiser Fung. McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print length: 224 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $13.77; Hardcover $15.61. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Statistician and blogger Kaiser Fung is your guide inside the hidden world of facts and figures - the ones that affect you every day, in every way. These are the statistics that rule your life, your job, your commute, your vacation, your food, your health, your money, and your success. They govern how engineers calculate your quality of living, how corporations determine your wants, and how politicians estimate your opinions. These are the numbers you never think about - even though they play a crucial role in every single aspect of your life. Kaiser Fung is a statistician with more than a decade of experience in applying statistical methods to unlocking the relationship between advertising and customer behaviors. He leads a team of statisticians at Sirius Satellite Radio that is responsible for gleaning insight into customers and operational best practices." - Publisher.

Forgotten Calculus, by Barbara Lee Bleau. Barron's Educational Series, 2002. Print length: 480 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (37 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $11.53. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. Please note: This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on devices with larger screens such as Kindle DX, Kindle for PC/Mac, and Kindle for iPad.
"This practical text-workbook will help you recapture the calculus that got away. Each work unit offers clear instruction and worked-out examples to help you brush up on the calculus you studied years ago in school but have since forgotten. Author Barbara Lee Bleau offers a teach-yourself refresher text, but the book can also serve as a valuable supplementary workbook and review text for students currently enrolled in a calculus course. Because the material is presented clearly, taking concepts one at a time, this book can also be used as a self-teacher by readers who have never studied calculus. New in this edition: use of graphing calculators explained." - from the back cover.

Master Math: Algebra, by Debra Anne Ross. 2nd ed. Delmar Learning, 2009. Print length: 192 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $12.23. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. Please note: This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on devices with larger screens such as Kindle DX, Kindle for PC/Mac, and Kindle for iPad.
"...a comprehensive reference guide that explains and clarifies algebraic principles in a simple, easy-to-follow style and format. Beginning with the most basic fundamental topics and progressing through to the more advanced topics that will help prepare you for pre-calculus and calculus, the book helps clarify algebra using step-by-step procedures and solutions, along with examples and applications..." - Amazon.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection

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.

Free e-book selections for this week include a book by Edna Ferber that you may not have heard of, a novel set during WWI, the letters of a woman homesteader, a thriller linking lost prophesies of Nostradamus with a modern day terrorist plot, a classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an old-fashioned tale for children, and an epistolary novel that draws you into the mind of a young German woman.

Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney, by Edna Ferber. NOVEL. Download site: GirleBooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney was first published in 1913. It chronicles the adventures of perhaps the only a successful traveling saleswoman in literary history, a stellar employee of T. A. Buck’s Featherloom Petticoats. Emma is the divorced mother of a 17-year-old son Jock, who also makes a few appearances. The title refers to the only consistently good road food, in Emma's opinion: roast beef." - GirleBooks.

The Secret Battle, by A. P. Herbert. NOVEL. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.00.
"...first published in 1919. The book draws upon Herbert's experiences as a junior infantry officer in the First World War, and has been praised for its accurate and truthful portrayal of the mental effects of the war on the participants. It was one of the earliest novels to contain a detailed description of Gallipoli, or to challenge the Army's executions of soldiers for desertion." - Wikipedia.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. CORRESPONDENCE. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day as house-cleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scotch cattle-man, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell the story of her new life in the new country. They are genuine letters, and are printed as written, except for occasional omissions and the alteration of some of the names." - Publishers Note.

Quatrain, by John Medler. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.99.
"In 1557, Nostradamus published his famous prophetic opus entitled Les Propheties - a collection of four-line, rhyming verses called 'quatrains.' The original set was supposed to have 1,000 prophecies. However, only 942 have survived. 58 quatrains have been lost in the annals of time...until now. Can a cynical college professor and his two rebellious teenagers find the missing 58 quatrains of Nostradamus in time to stop a terrorist attack on the United States, and will anyone believe them?" - Amazon.

The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. NOVEL. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922. The novel takes place following the First World War. American society enjoyed prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers. After its republishing in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is today widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Great Gatsby has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world, and is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." - Wikipedia

The Joyous Story of Toto, by Laura E. Richards. CHILDREN'S FICTION. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw.) Price: $0.00.
"Toto was a little boy, and his grandmother was an old woman (I have noticed that grandmothers are very apt to be old women); and this story is about both of them. Now, whether the story be true or not you must decide for yourselves; and the child who finds this out will be wiser than I. Toto's grandmother lived in a little cottage far from any town, and just by the edge of a thick wood; and Toto lived with her, for his father and mother were dead, and the old woman was the only relation he had in the world..."

Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther: Being the Letters of an Independent Woman, by Elizabeth von Arnim. NOVEL. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw.) Price: $0.00.
Elizabeth von Arnim (1866 – 1941), was an Australian-born British novelist. In 1944 her book Mr. Skeffington was made into a movie starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther is an epistolary novel, a story of love and loss told from the woman's point of view.
"This enchanting novel tells the story of the love affair between Rose-Marie Schmidt and Roger Anstruther. A determined young woman of twenty-five, Rose-Marie is considered a spinster by the inhabitants of the small German town of Jena where she lives with her father, the Professor. To their homes comes Roger, an impoverished but well-born young Englishman who wishes to learn German: Rose-Marie and Roger fall in love. But the course of true love never did run smooth..." - Amazon.

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's Feb 18th Issue

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

House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home, by Mark Richard. Nan A. Talese, 2011. Print length: 224 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...effortlessly killer prose...the man can tell a full story in the flick of a phrase." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $12.93. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Called a 'special child,' Southern social code for mentally - and physically - challenged children, Richard was crippled by deformed hips and was told he would spend his adult life in a wheelchair. The son of a solitary alcoholic father whose hair-trigger temper terrorized his family, and of a mother who sought inner peace through fasting, prayer, and scripture, Richard spent his bedridden childhood withdrawn into the company of books. As a young man, Richard, defying both his doctors and parents, set out to experience as much of the world as he could - as a disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, house painter, naval correspondent, aerial photographer, private investigator, foreign journalist, bartender and unsuccessful seminarian - before his hips failed him. While digging irrigation ditches in east Texas, he discovered that a teacher had sent a story of his to the Atlantic, where it was named a winner in the magazine’s national fiction contest launching a career much in the mold of Jack London and Mark Twain. A superbly written and irresistible blend of history, travelogue, and personal reflection..." - Amazon.

West of Here, by Jonathan Evison. Algonquin Books, 2011. Print length: 496 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...the kind of work that begs to be called sweeping, with its large cast of characters encompassing multiple eras, sturdy American themes of community and nature, and a style that could be called cinematic..." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (17 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.55. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"A century after the late-19th-century settlers of Olympic Peninsula to the west of Seattle set out to build a dam, their descendants want to demolish it to bring back fish runs, providing one of the many plots in this satisfyingly meaty work from Evison (All About Lulu). The scenes of the early settlers track an expedition into the Olympic wilderness and the evolving relations between settlers and the Klallam tribe, provide insights into early feminism, and outline an entrepreneur's dream to build the all-important dam. By comparison, the contemporary stories are chock-full of modern woe and malaise, including a Bigfoot watcher and seafood plant worker who wishes to relive his glory days as a high school basketball star; an ex-convict who sets out into the wilderness to live off the land; and an environmental scientist who is hit with an unexpected development. Evison does a terrific job at creating a sense of place as he skips back and forth across the century...this is a damn fine book." - Publishers Weekly.

A Widow's Story, by Joyce Carol Oates. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 432 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...as searing as the best of her fiction." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (8 reviews).Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $15.07. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Brutal violence and catastrophic loss are often the subjects of Oates’ powerful novels and stories. But as she reveals in this galvanizing memoir, her creative inferno was sequestered from her joyful life with her husband, Raymond Smith. A revered editor and publisher who did not read her fiction, Smith kept their household humming during their 48-year marriage. After his shocking death from a 'secondary infection' while hospitalized with pneumonia, Oates found herself in the grip of a relentless waking nightmare. She recounts this horrific 'siege' of grief with her signature perception...Oates has created an illuminating portrait of a marriage, a searing confrontation with death, an extraordinarily forthright chronicle of mourning, and a profound 'pilgrimage' from chaos to coherence." -Donna Seaman for Booklist.

The Terror of Living, by Urban Waite. Little, Brown and Company, 2011. Print length: 320 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "...Waite brings a nimble touch to the material. Throwaway lines are rendered with surprising delicacy, and Living's knife-fetishist villain makes for an oddly endearing sociopath." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99, Hardcover $13.83. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Phil Hunt is in deep trouble. Hunt is on the run from two men: Drake, the deputy sheriff who intends to catch him, and Grady, the vicious hitman who means to kill him. For twenty years Hunt has lived in Washington State, raising horses with his wife on his small farm. He's tried to stay out of trouble, wanting only to make a living and taking the occasional illicit job in order to do so. Then his last delivery goes horribly wrong, and the chase is on from the mountains down into the Puget lowlands..." - Amazon.
"A hell of a good novel, relentlessly paced and beautifully narrated. There's just no let-up. An auspicious debut." - Stephen King.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

Kindle Genre Watch: New in Romance & Western Fiction

Spend less time searching for new 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

Between Friends by Debbie Macomber. Mira, 2011. Print length: 352 p. Kindle edition $8.23; Paperback $8.90. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...scrapbook-style novel, which relies solely on letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries and even school essays to tell the story of a friendship spanning more than half a century. Born in 1948 in the same Washington State town, Jillian Lawton and Lesley Adamski have vastly different backgrounds. Wealthy Jillian is on a trajectory to become a lawyer like her father. Just as smart, but from the wrong side of the tracks, Lesley is destined to remain in their native Washington; like her mother, she becomes pregnant at a young age by an alcoholic philanderer. Despite their different circumstances, Jillian and Lesley forge a grade-school friendship that lasts a lifetime and is evoked in their various communiques." - Publishers Weekly.

Marrying Daisy Bellamy by Susan Wiggs. Mira, 2011. Print length: 432 p. Kindle edition $5.49; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Daisy Bellamy has struggled for years to choose between two men - one honorable and steady, one wild and untethered. And then, one fateful day, the decision is made for her. Now busy with a thriving business on Willow Lake, Daisy knows she should be happy with the life she's chosen for herself and her son. But she still aches for the one thing she can't have. Until the man once lost to her reappears, resurrected by a promise of love. And now the choice Daisy thought was behind her is the hardest one she'll ever face..." - Amazon.

When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 384 p. Kindle edition $7.99; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"After Prince Augustus Frederick reneges on his promise to marry her, Linnet Thrynne faces social ruin since everyone - based partly on her mother’s scandalous past and partly on Linnet’s ill-fated decision to wear a ball gown that gives the impression she is pregnant - now believes Linnet is a hussy of the first degree. Fortunately, Linnet’s aunt, Lady Etheridge, comes up with a solution. Rumor has it that Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, is in the market for a wife. The irascible nobleman’s only requirement is that his bride-to-be be a woman 'more beautiful than the sun and the moon,' a condition Linnet easily meets... With equal measures of superbly nuanced characters, sexy passion, and scintillating wit, James deftly fashions a fairy-tale-perfect romance." - John Charles for Booklist.

Wild Man Creek by Robyn Carr. Mira, 2011. Print length: 368 p. Kindle edition $5.49; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Colin Riordan came to Virgin River to recuperate from a horrific helicopter crash, the scars of which he bears inside and out. His family is wonderfully supportive, but it's his art that truly soothes his troubled soul. Stung personally and professionally by an ill-advised affair, PR guru Jillian Matlock has rented an old Victorian with a promising garden in Virgin River. She's looking forward to cultivating something other than a corporate brand. Both are looking to simplify, not complicate, their lives, but when Jillian finds Colin at his easel in her yard, there's an instant connection..." - Amazon.

Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt. Vision, 2011. Print length: 400 p. Kindle edition $7.99; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Lady Hero Batten, the beautiful sister of the Duke of Wakefield, has everything a woman could want, including the perfect fiancé. True, the Marquis of Mandeville is a trifle dull and has no sense of humor, but that doesn't bother Hero. Until she meets his notorious brother. Griffin Remmington, Lord Reading, is far from perfect - and he likes it that way. How he spends his days is a mystery, but all of London knows he engages in the worst sorts of drunken revelry at night. Hero takes an instant dislike to him, and Griffin thinks that Hero, with her charities and faultless manners, is much too impeccable for society, let alone his brother. Yet their near-constant battle of wits soon sparks desire - desire that causes their carefully constructed worlds to come tumbling down. As Hero's wedding nears, and Griffin's enemies lay plans to end their dreams forever, can two imperfect people find perfect true love?" - Amazon.

Westerns

The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton. Forge Books, 2010. Print length: 304 p. Kindle edition $6.99; Paperback $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"An intense, red-haired young man named Rusty Shannon rides into Fort Belknap on the Brazos River and joins the Texas Rangers. Years before, Mike Shannon rescued Rusty from a Comanche war party and became his adoptive father. Not long ago, Mike Shannon, was bushwhacked and killed, and his death still haunts Rusty. Rusty thinks he knows the identity of Mike’s killers. But with Texas now in the throes of seceding from the Union, Rusty has his hands full fighting for the law in lawless Texas and for the life of the woman he loves. If that were not enough of a burden, Rusty is also heading for a showdown with the Comanche warrior who killed his family over twenty years ago." - Amazon.
Kelton has written forty books, is a six-time winner of the Spur Award, has earned four Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and was named the greatest Western author of all time by the Western Writers of America in 1995.

A Matter of Honor by Brian Gore. Brian Gore, 2010. Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When Jebediah Taylor, running from the ghosts of Appomattox, finds his valley, in the western mountains, he thinks he's found the place to heal his soul; but the greed, and lust for power, that fed that war, finds him, even there in those remote mountains, where he must fight to the death, for life and love. It's hard enough to carve a ranch out of the wilderness when you're alone. The task is ever harder, when you must do your building, carrying the ghosts of a long dead war. The burden gets unbearably heavy when you find yourself the last target of the most powerful megalomaniac in the territory. When you've been beaten, burned out, had your herd rustled, shot, and pursued across the high country, you end up in a pretty poor mood, and go hunting for revenge. The only thing that can save your soul, and keep you from sinking into the abyss, are the friends who find you along the way, and the unexpected, lusty, passion of the woman who heals your heart." - Amazon.

The Sixth Rider by Max McCoy. 20th Anniversary Edition. Quien Sabe Press, 2011. Print length: 182 p. Kindle edition $4.77. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...the Wild West is becoming tamed by telegraph wire, railroads, and the modern methods of federal lawmen. But the Dalton boys, kin to the infamous Younger and James clans, haven't heard the news. Brought up on romantic tales and songs about outlaws, they aim for glory and gold, following in the bloody footsteps of the legendary gangs of the West. Samuel Cole Dalton is the youngest of fifteen children sired by a drunk and raised by a Bible-reading Kansas woman whose love can't keep her brood on the straight and narrow. At thirteen, Sam still has a chance at an honest life, but his fate is decided when he witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of his brother, Frank, by the moonshiner William Towerly..." - Amazon.

Nemesis by L. J. Martin. Publisher. Print length: 278 p. Kindle edition $2.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The fools killed his family...then made him a lawman. McBain, broken and beaten from the Civil war, is reluctant to return to his family, as a snake dwells in his belly and he can't get the images out of his mind...until he learns his sister and her family have been murdered. Then it's retribution time." - Amazon.

The Snake Den by Chuck Tyrell. Solstice Publishing, 2011. Kindle edition $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Arizona, 1882. Falsely accused of theft, Shawn Brodie is sent to serve three years in the Hellhole called Yuma Territorial Prison. Lamb to the slaughter, maybe? The Mexican Zapata wants to stick him with a knife, the warden wants him to mend his thieving ways, and the sergeant of the guard wants to get into Shawn’s pants. Is his young life going to be made up of beatings, rape, and incarceration in the deadly Snake Den? The odds seem stacked against young Shawn ever getting out of Yuma Prison alive. Somehow, Shawn must learn how to defend himself, and chance throws him in with Shoo Lee, a cellmate, an Oriental proficient in the barehanded fighting technique Kara Ti. Perhaps if he becomes Shoo Lee’s disciple he can endure..." - Amazon.

Beyond the Pyramids: Egypt for the Kindle Reader

With Egypt dominating the news in recent days, Kindle readers may wish to learn more about this uneasy ally of the United States. Who will fill the vacuum left by the overthrow of Mubarik and will Egypt emerge from the "social media revolution" of the last two weeks with a chance to build the free and democratic society that many Egyptians desire? Here is a small selection of Kindle books that will give you a taste of the recent history and culture of a country the whole world is watching.

Egypt: Culture Smart! The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture by Jailan Zayan. Kuperard, 2010. Print length: 168 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $7.79; Paperback $9.95. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Egypt: Culture Smart! is one of a series of outstanding culture guides on countries around the world. It offers insights into customs, values and traditions as well as the history, religion and political background of Egypt, including insider information you might never find in a travel book. The author, a British national of Libyan-Egyptian origin, is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She who moved to Egypt in 2000 and has reported and contributed articles to international and Middle Eastern publications about the Arab world, specifically Egypt.

Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution by John R. Bradley. Palgrave Macmillan, updated edition 2008. Print length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $11.53. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Five decades after Nasser and the Free Officers overthrew the British-backed monarchy in a dramatic coup d'état, the future of Egypt grows more uncertain by the day. John Bradley examines the junctions of Egyptian politics and society as they slowly disintegrate under the twin pressures of a ruthless military dictatorship at home and a flawed Middle East policy in Washington. Inside Egypt is a tour-de-force of the most brutal Arab state where torture and corruption are endemic - but one that is also a key U.S. all and a historic regional trendsetter. This uniquely insightful book brings to vivid life Egypt's competing identities and political trends, as the Mubarak dynasty struggles to resolve a succession crisis and the disciplined Islamists wait patiently in the wings for a chance to seize power.
John R. Bradley has written for The Economist, The Washington Quarterly, The Financial Times, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, and Salon. Fluent in Egyptian Arabic, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Saudi Saudi Arabia Exposed." - Amazon.

Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak by Tarek Osman. Yale University Press, 2011. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $4.99; Paperback $13.60. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Famous until the 1950s for its religious pluralism and extraordinary cultural heritage, Egypt is now seen as an increasingly repressive and divided land, home of the Muslim Brotherhood and an opaque regime headed by the aging President Mubarak. In this immensely readable and thoroughly researched book, Tarek Osman explores what has happened to the biggest Arab nation since President Nasser took control of the country in 1954. He examines Egypt’s central role in the development of the two crucial movements of the period, Arab nationalism and radical Islam; the increasingly contentious relationship between Muslims and Christians; and perhaps most important of all, the rift between the cosmopolitan elite and the mass of the undereducated and underemployed population, more than half of whom are aged under thirty. This is an essential guide to one of the Middle East’s most important but least understood states. Born and raised in Egypt, Tarek Osman was educated at the American University in Cairo and Bocconi University in Italy. His writings appear in a number of publications in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East." - Amazon.


The Day the Leader was Killed by Naguib Mahfouz. Anchor, 2008. Print length: 112 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $8.59; Paperback $9.64. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"From the Nobel Prize laureate and author of the acclaimed Cairo Trilogy, a beguiling and artfully compact novel set in Sadat's Egypt. The time is 1981, Anwar al-Sadat is president, and Egypt is lurching into the modern world. Set against this backdrop, The Day the Leader Was Killed relates the tale of a middle-class Cairene family. Rich with irony and infused with political undertones, the story is narrated alternately by the pious and mischievous family patriarch Muhtashimi Zayed, his hapless grandson Elwan, and Elwan's headstrong and beautiful fiancee Randa. The novel reaches its climax with the assassination of Sadat on October 6, 1981, an event around which the fictional plot is skillfully woven." - from the trade paperback edition.


Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist by Donald P. Ryan. Harper Collins, 2010. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (14 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $19.43. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...Ryan, the archaeologist who rediscovered tomb KV 60 in the Valley of the Kings (later identified as the final resting place of the pharoah Hatshepsut), takes us through his life, career, and numerous expeditions. It's a thrilling book, not because it's full of Indiana Jones heroics but because Ryan's enthusiasm for what he does (more dirt-sifting than bullwhip-wielding) is manifested on every page; and...he catches us up in his excitement, makes us wish we weren't just reading about this stuff but were actually doing it. Ryan also dispels or challenges some long-held pieces of so-called common knowledge, such as the belief that slaves built the pyramids (there's no evidence to support that) and the much-ballyhooed but sadly nonexistent curse of the mummy's tomb. This wonderful adventure story should be must reading for anyone aspiring to become an archaeologist, but even those of us who harbor no such dreams will be aching to get a little dirt under our fingernails." - David Pitt for Booklist.

A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present by Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print length: 196 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $15.39; Hardcover $90.00. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Egypt occupies a central position in the Arab world. Its borders between sand and sea have existed for millennia and yet, until 1952, the country was ruled by foreigners. Afaf al-Sayyid Marsot explores the paradoxes of Egypt's history in a new edition of her successful A Short History of Modern Egypt. Charting the years from the Arab conquest, through the age of the Mamluks, Egypt's incorporation into the Ottoman Empire, the liberal experiment in constitutional government in the early twentieth century, followed by the Nasser and Sadat years, the new edition takes the story up to the present day. During the Mubarak era, Egyptians have seen major changes with the rise of globalization and its effects on their economy, the advent of new political parties, the entrenchment of Islamic fundamentalism and the consequent changing attitudes to women. Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot is Professor Emerita of History at the University of California at Los Angeles." - Amazon.


The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. Harper Collins, 2006. Print length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (74 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $10.07. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed 'scientist of women'; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires. These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller." - Amazon.

Hold on to Your Veil, Fatima! And Other Snapshots of Life in Contemporary Egypt a by Sanna Negus. Gaarnet Publishing, 2010. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $5.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"What happened to a former Miss Egypt when she took to wearing the veil under her pilot’s cap? Who are the young people posting videos of policemen torturing crime suspects? Where do Coptic Christians celebrate the Holy Family’s journey to Egypt? Why is President Hosni Mubarak still ruling Egypt, virtually uncontested, after more than 25 years in power? In Hold on to Your Veil, Fatima!, author Sanna Negus answers these questions and more, taking the reader on a journey into 21st-century Egypt. As a reporter, Ms Negus witnessed Egypt’s political opening after the Iraq war, the subsequent quelling of the Cairo Spring, and the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition to politics, the author discusses the thorny issue of relations between the sexes, listens to Copts’ grievances about the worsening relations between Muslims and Christians, and reveals an appalling human rights record. On the brighter side, she also visits oriental dancers and authors who defy censorship. While Egyptians joke about the longevity of their president, there is no doubt that Egypt is a nation waiting for a new, uncertain dawn... This is the other side of Egypt, an intriguing modern nation a long way removed from the pyramids and temples visited by most visitors to the country." - Amazon.

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney. Little, Brown and Company, 2007. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (36 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $10.19. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"This is travel writing at its most enjoyable: the reader is taken on a great trip with an erudite travel companion soaking up scads of history, culture and literary knowledge, along with the scenery. The genesis for the trip is simple: the author's love of rowing. Her plan, 'to buy a small Egyptian rowboat and row myself along the 120-mile stretch of river between the cities of Aswan and Qena,' is less so. Mahoney conveys readers along the longest river in the world, through narrative laced with insight, goodwill and sometimes sadness. Mahoney's writing style is conversational, her use of metaphor adept. She cleverly marshals the writings of numerous river travelers but focuses on 'two troubled geniuses': Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert. The device allows readers a backward glance at the Edwardian travel accoutrements of sumptuous riverside dinners, staggering supplies of alcohol and food, trunks of books and commodious accommodations. The physical environment is demanding. 'When I removed my hat, the sun had made the top of my head sting... it was like having a freshly baked nail driven into one's skull.' Yet her biggest obstacle isn't the climate but the slippery hurdles of culture and sex. Whether struggling to buy a boat, visiting historic Luxor or rowing, innocent encounters become sticky psychological and philosophical snares. Still, the ride is smooth, leaving the reader wishing for more nautical miles." - Publishers Weekly.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

The Centurian Did It: Kindle Mysteries Set in Ancient Rome

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. - Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

The Ancient Romans didn't have Miranda rights and capital punishment in that age might have very well consisted of being torn apart by lions. Romans didn't carry personal firearms, but evidently could still find plenty of ways to dispose of their fellow human beings - from Emperors to lowly slaves. Their attitudes towards murder have long fascinated mystery writers. Contemporary mystery authors writing in this sub-genre include Steven Saylor, Ruth Downie, Lindsey Davis, John Maddox Roberts and Bruce MacBain. A few of their more popular titles available in Kindle editions include:

Roman Blood, by Steven Saylor. Minotaur Books, 2007. Print Length: 401 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (95 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $10.37. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. This is the first novel (in chronological order) in Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa mystery series.
"Saylor's remarkable first novel takes the reader deep into the political, legal and family arenas of ancient Rome, providing a stirring blend of history and mystery, well seasoned with conspiracy, passion and intrigue. In the steamy spring of 80 B.C. fledgling orator Cicero is preparing the legal defense of Sextus Roscius, a wealthy farmer accused of the murder of his father. Things look grim for Sextus; it is well-known that his father had threatened to disinherit him in favor of his younger half-brother. Cicero engages Gordianus to get at the truth of the matter, and while the orator practices powerful speech-making the investigator proves the aptness of his sobriquet, 'the finder.' Gordianus soon discovers that truth and mortal danger walk hand-in-hand through the twisting streets and the great forum of Rome. But he is unflinching in his quest for veritas in a story greatly enhanced by its vivid characters, including Cicero's clever slave Tiro; a mute street urchin and his widowed mother; a beautiful, enigmatic whore; Gordianus's spirited slave and lover, Bethesda; the aging dictator Sulla; and a dyspeptic but brilliant Cicero." - Publishers Weekly.

Medicus, by Ruth Downie. Bloomsbury, 2010. Print Length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $0.00; Hardcover $9.73. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will delight in this series debut set in Roman-occupied Britain and featuring wry army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso. Newly divorced and burdened with the debts of his late father, Ruso finds himself in a ramshackle military outpost with miserable weather and minimal supplies. Ruso's new job gets off to a rocky start when he's called upon to examine the corpse of a young woman who drowned. Then, after a long shift of tending to the sick, the cranky but charitable doctor rescues an injured slave girl from her sadistic owner. His good deed earns Ruso unwanted attention from a hospital administrator whose attempts to cover his bald spot are both desperate and hilarious. It also lands the medicus in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of two local barmaids..." - Allison Block for Booklist.

The Silver Pigs, by Lindsey Davis. Minotaur Books, 2006. Print Length: 329 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (20 reviews). Kindle edition $2.99; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman 'informer' who has a nose for trouble that's sharper than most, encounters Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately all is not right with the pretty girl. She confesses to him that she is fleeing for her life, and Falco makes the rash decision to rescue her - a decision he will come to regret. For Sosia bears a heavy burden: as heavy as a pile of stolen Imperial ingots, in fact. Matters just get more complicated when Falco meets Helena Justina, a Senator's daughter who is connected to the very same traitors he has sworn to expose. Soon Falco finds himself swept from the perilous back alleys of Ancient Rome to the silver mines of distant Britain - and up against a cabal of traitors with blood on their hands and no compunction whatsoever to do away with a snooping plebe like Falco..." - Amazon.

Caveat Emptor, by Ruth Downie. Bloomsburg, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.86. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"When tax collector Julius Asper goes missing, physician Gaius Petreius Ruso, who'd rather get medical work, reluctantly investigates in Downie's superb fourth historical set in second-century Roman Britain (after Persona Non Grata). Since Asper's brother and assistant, Julius Bericus, has also disappeared, some suspect the two men have run off with the emperor's tax money, but Ruso considers it more likely that robbers attacked the brothers on the road from the provincial town of Veralamium to Londinium. When the body of a man who fits Asper's description turns up in a Londinium alley, Ruso has a murder case on his hands, and must journey to Veralamium for answers. Downie excels in bringing the ancient world to life as well as making the attitudes and customs of its inhabitants accessible to a modern audience. She also succeeds at leavening the whodunit plot with flashes of humor, many stemming from her hero's British wife, Tilla." - Publishers Weekly.

Arms of Nemesis, by Steven Saylor. Minotaur Books, 2008. Print Length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (38 reviews). Kindle edition $6.99; Paperback $10.63. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The hideously disfigured body was found in the atrium. The only clues are a blood-soaked cloak, and, carved into the stone at the corpse's feet, the word Sparta. The murdered man was the overseer of Marcus Crassus's estate, apparently killed by two runaway slaves bent on joining Spartacus's revolt. In response to the murder, the wealthy, powerful Crassus vows to honor an ancient law and kill his ninety-nine remaining slaves in three days. Now Gordianus the Finder has been summoned from Rome by a mysterious client to find out the truth about the murder before the three days are up." - Amazon.

SPQR I: The Kings Gambit, by John Maddox Roberts. Minotaur Books, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (32 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $10.17 Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes readers back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike, so the garroting of a lowly ex-slaved and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy. But Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger - highborn commander of the local vigiles - was determined to investigate. Despite official apathy, brazen bribes, and sinister threates, Decius uncovers a world of corruption at the highest levels of his government that threatens to destroy him and the government he serves." - Amazon.

Roman Games, by Bruce MacBain. Poisoned Pen Press, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $6.95; Paperback $10.17. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...Rome in 96 CE. It is time for the Ludi Romani (Roman Games), a festival that brings the business of the law courts to a halt for 15 days. In the midst of the festivities, Sextus Verpa, a notorious senator who is both an informer and a libertine, is stabbed to death in his bedroom. The cruel, insane emperor Domitian commands Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Younger, to investigate. He races against time, hoping to save Verpa’s slaves from death in the arena. With assistance from the decadent poet Martial, the young senator and lawyer unravels a complex plot that involves Jews and Christians (atheists in the eyes of the Roman polytheists), Egyptian cultists, and a horoscope predicting the emperor’s death. Macbain, a professor of ancient history, vividly captures the violence and decadence of Roman life while enticing readers to turn the pages..." - Barbara Bibel for Booklist.

Two for the Lions, by Lindsey Davis. Mysterious Press, 2000. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (18 reviews). Kindle edition $6.99; Hardcover $18.85. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Marcus Didius Falco, Lindsey Davis's clever, ambitious, not-so-holy Roman man about town, is on special assignment for the Emperor Vespacian. This time he's tracking down tax fraud among the bestiarii, the slaughterers, and the lanistae, the suppliers of the gladiators and animals who provide the executions, spectacles, and entertainment for the Roman masses. Hoisted by his own tarnished petard, Falco is unwillingly partnered with his ex-boss Anacrites, Rome's chief spy, but that's the least of his problems; his investigation has hardly begun when he finds himself in the tunnels under the arena with a lion named Leonidas - a man-killer who may or may not have been switched with a tamer beast for a private party meant to impress a wealthy Senator's mistress..." - Amazon.com Review.

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's February 4-11 Issue

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

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness. Viking, 2011. Print length: 592 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail...as the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.77. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Diana Bishop is the last of the Bishops, a powerful family of witches, but she has refused her magic ever since her parents died and, instead, has turned to academia. When a new project takes her to Oxford, she is looking forward to several months in the Bodleian, investigating alchemical manuscripts. Her peace is soon interrupted when one of the books she finds in the library turns out to have been lost for 150 years and is wanted desperately by the witch, daemon, and vampire communities - so desperately that many are willing to kill for it. But the very first creature to approach her after her discovery is Matthew, a very old vampire and fellow scholar, who seems only to want to protect her. Harkness creates a compelling and sweeping tale that moves from Oxford to Paris to upstate New York and into both Diana's and Matthew’s complex families and histories. All her characters are fully fleshed and unique, which, when combined with the complex and engaging plot, results in one of the better fantasy debuts in recent months." - Jessica Moyer for Booklist.

Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart, by Stefan Kanfer. Knopf, 2011. Print length: 304 p. BIOGRAPHY. EW's slant: "Kanfer...labors to bring us the man behind the star, but he never gets beneath the celluloid surface..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $13.06; Hardcover $14.51. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Kanfer, a Time magazine editor who has written biographies of Marlon Brando, Lucille Ball, and Groucho Marx, turns his attention to Humphrey Bogart, whose 'outstanding characteristics - integrity, stoicism, a sexual charisma accompanied by a cool indifference to women - are never out of style when he's on-screen.' After a privileged New York childhood as the son of famed illustrator Maud Humphrey, Bogart flunked out of Phillips Andover, joined the Navy near the end of WWI, and entered show business as a stage manager. Kanfer delivers compelling coverage of Bogart's early marriages and 13 years as a New York stage actor, culminating with The Petrified Forest, his 1935 Broadway breakthrough. Casablanca and other film classics are detailed with both illuminating insights and anecdotal accounts of Tinseltown. Raymond Chandler was pleased by the casting of The Big Sleep because, he wrote, "Bogart can be tough without a gun." ... an entertaining, definitive portrait, enriched with delightful digressions into Bogie's noirish, rough-hewn persona." - Publishers Weekly.

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, by Benjamin Hale. Twelve, 2011. Print length: 592 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "It may take a million monkeys clacking into infinity on a million Remingtons to re-create the works of Shakespeare, but it takes only one literate, hyperintelligent chimpanzee to narrate this stunning debut novel." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.20. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"From the first page of Benjamin Hale's exquisite novel, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, Hale’s linguistic talent locks the reader into their seat and sends them ticking up the roller coaster ride of Bruno Littlemore’s life. An unlikely narrator, Bruno is a chimpanzee trying to become a man - a process he sees as 'equal parts enlightenment and imprinting your brain with taboos.' Bruno acquires a fervent love of language - and of primatologist Lydia Littlemore, with whom he develops a deep (and, yes, sexual) relationship until she falls ill. Comic relief comes in the form of Leon, a boisterous subway thespian, who introduces Bruno to the stage shortly before a murderous transgression results in Bruno’s return to captivity. With Bruno Littlemore, Hale has crafted a truly original narrator, holding a mirror on humanity with a razor-like precision that makes this stunning novel one readers will want to discuss the minute they turn the last page." - Seira Wilson for Amazon.com Review.

Townie: A Memoir, by Andre Dubus III. W. W. Norton, 2011. Print length: 400 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...frank, moving memoir..." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.85; Hardcover $14.27. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Long before he became the highly acclaimed author of House of Sand and Fog, Dubus shuffled and punched his way through a childhood and youth full of dysfunction, desperation, and determination. Just after he turned 12, Dubus's family fell rapidly into shambles after his father - the prominent writer Andre Dubus - not only left his wife for a younger woman but also left the family in distressing poverty on the violent and drug-infested side of their Massachusetts mill town. For a few years, Dubus escaped into drugs, embracing the apathetic 'no-way-out' attitude of his friends. After having his bike stolen, being slapped around by some of the town's bullies, and watching his brother and mother humiliated by some of the town's thugs, Dubus started lifting weights at home and boxing at the local gym. Modeling himself on the Walking Tall sheriff, Buford Pusser, Dubus paid back acts of physical violence with physical violence. Ultimately, he decided to take up his pen and write his way up from the bottom and into a new relationship with his father. In this gritty and gripping memoir, Dubus bares his soul in stunning and page-turning prose." - Publishers Weekly.

A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley. Delacorte Press, 2011. Print length: 416 p. MYSTERY. EW's slant: "Don't be fooled by Flavia's age or the 1950s setting: This isn't a dainty tea-and crumpets sort of mystery. It's shot through with real grit." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $12.10. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey - mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard. Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets." - Amazon.

O: A Presidential Novel, by Anonymous. Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print length: 384 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...not funny...little, if any, inside-the-White-House knowledge..." Amazon customer rating: 2 1/2 stars (13 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.65. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"This is a novel about aspiration and delusion, set during the presidential election of 2012 and written by an anonymous author who has spent years observing politics and the fraught relationship between public image and self-regard. The novel includes revealing and insightful portraits of many prominent figures in the political world - some invented and some real." - Amazon.

A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage, by Sally Ryder Brady. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print length: 256 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "At its best, ... a fascinating peek into a bygone era of three-martini lunches and receptions that saw John Wayne pass out on the dance floor. At its most frustrating, it's just a dark box, begging for the author to shed some light." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99; Hardcover $13.37. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Upton and Sally Brady were a rare breed: cultivated and elegant, they lived a life of literary glamour and high expectations. Sally a debutante; Upton a classics major from Harvard, they met at the Boston Cotillion. He was articulate, witty, and worldly, and he danced like Fred Astaire. How could she resist? Despite raising four children on Upton’s modest wage as the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly Press, theirs was a world of champagne, sailboats, private islands, famous writers, family rituals, and ice-cold martinis. They lived life on their terms. But as time wore on, Upton, the charming and brilliant husband, the inventive, beguiling partner, grew opinionated, cranky, controlling, and dangerous. When Upton died suddenly one evening in their Vermont cottage, Sally began uncovering secrets. As she went through his papers, she discovered that her husband of forty-six years had desired the love of other men. Her riveting, charismatic husband was not quite the man he appeared to be, and a year of mourning became for Sally a time to unravel the dark and unexpected web he had left behind. Hers is a moving and powerful story of coming to terms with what cannot be changed." - Amazon.

Concierge Confidential: The Gloves Come Off - and the Secrets Come Out! Tales from the Man Who Serves Millionaires, Moguls, and Madmen, by Michael Fazie and Michael Malice. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print length: 288 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.98. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Michael Fazio is the ultimate behind-the-scenes support man. Want two orchestra tickets to the Broadway musical that just won the Tony? Call Fazio. How about an upgrade to first class on an overbooked overnight flight to Tokyo? Call Fazio. Or a roomful of fresh hydrangeas - in winter? That’s right. Call Fazio. From his early start as the harried and neglected personal assistant to a typical L.A. casting agent, Fazio took what he learned there and moved into concierge work at New York City’s Intercontinental Hotel, where he was eventually able to parlay his services into a large and successful business of his own. In Concierge Confidential, Fazio reveals the behind-the-scenes madness that goes into getting the rich and famous what they want, and shares some great insider knowledge on how to get access to the unattainable without making the concierge, waiters and other service people crazy." - Amazon.

The Cypress House, by Michael Koryta. Little, Brown and Company, 2011. Print length: 432 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "With its evocative Gulf Coast setting, the book makes for a warm beach read in midwinter." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (12 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.98. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...battle-hardened WWI veteran Arlen Wagner can foretell others’ deaths. With the Great Depression crippling the country, he works in the Civilian Conservation Corps and keeps his demons at bay with hard work and a flask full of whiskey. He and young friend Paul Brickhill are traveling by train to a new CCC camp in the Florida Keys when Arlen’s supernatural sense tells him they have to get off the train if they want to stay alive. They find themselves at Cypress House, a strangely empty fishing resort on the Gulf Coast run by beautiful but taciturn Rebecca Cady - and right in the middle of a vipers’ nest of small-town corruption and misery...simmering tension erupts into a rolling boil by the bloody, spooky, and satisfying ending." - Keir Graff for Booklist.

The Book of Tomorrow, by Cecelia Ahern. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 320 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Lovers of stories involving crumbling castles, nefarious family secrets, and Zac Efron references will be ecstatic." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (25 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Born into the lap of luxury and comfortable in the here and now, spoiled, tempestuous Tamara Goodwin has never had to look to the future - until the abrupt death of her father leaves her and her mother a mountain of debt and forces them to move in with Tamara's peculiar aunt and uncle in a tiny countryside village. Tamara is lonely and bored, with a traveling library as her only diversion. There she finds a large leather-bound book with a gold clasp and padlock, but no author name or title. Intrigued, she pries open the lock, and what she finds inside takes her breath away." - Amazon.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.