FREE (and bargain) books for the Kindle - May 2011

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Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy (US Kindle)

Product Description

A gritty but compassionate novel about an ingenuous young man’s confrontation with the unpleasant realities of urban life, Midnight Cowboy is an under-appreciated classic of postwar American literature.

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Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella (US Kindle)

Product Description

"He went to Canada in the 1960's to avoid the draft. Now, back in the USA, he has a vision: build a ballpark in an Iowa cornfield "if you a build it they will come." Two who do are the tragic ballplayer, Joe Jackson and the lead's father. This affecting novel was the basis of the FIELD OF DREAMS, Kevin Costner's landmark 1980's film."

"Wild...Romantic...Unconventional...A triumph of hope."

THE BOSTON GLOBE

The voice of a baseball announcer tells the Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella: "If you build it, he will come." "He" is Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ray's hero. "It" is a baseball stadium which Ray carves out of his cornfield. Like the movie FIELD OF DREAMS that was made from this novel, SHOELESS JOE is about baseball. But it's also about love and the power of dreams to make people come alive....

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Ecstasy (A Contemporary Romance) by Bella Andre (US Kindle)

Product Description

Candace, a newcomer to writing erotica, is thrilled when Charlie, a veteran of the industry, agrees to be her mentor. But neither of them ever expected that Charlie's lessons on new positions, using toys, varying locations and role playing would spiral from verbal instruction into hot, hands on education. Unfortunately, Candace's deception about the new erotic romance she's writing--where Charlie plays the starring role--is about to threaten their one chance at true love.

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Linda Goodman's Sun Signs by Linda Goodman (US Kindle)

Product Description
Before 1968, astrology had a narrow following in the United States and around the world.
The publication of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs in 1968 changed that forever. Magazines
and newspapers started running astrology columns. Linda Goodman contributed insert
pieces to the mass circulation women’s magazines. An ever-increasing percentage of
people knew their sign (and yours) and studied astrological tendencies.

Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs has been the worldwide introductory “bible” to astrology
since publication. The book’s organization is simplicity itself – sign by sign, the Man,
Woman, Child, Boss and Employee.

This edition of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs has been fully updated to make references to
people current. Linda Goodman’s magical first-person writing has been preserved in
the context of a contemporary experience for the reader.

The 2011 e-book edition of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs is the first time that this classic
work has been available in e-book formats.

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The Brand Within: The Power of Branding from Birth to the Boardroom by Daymond John is free again (US Kindle)

Product Description
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, every day nearly 2,500 people go into business for themselves. Their firms account for 78 percent of U.S. businesses and $951 billion in receipts. Entrepreneurship is abundant in America, especially in the current economic crisis, but how do these companies stand out from the rest in order to succeed?

The Brand Within by Daymond John, founder and CEO of the revolutionary FUBU clothing line, brand strategist and star of the ABC hit reality show, Shark Tank, is the second nonfiction book in the best-selling Display of Power series. The Brand Within examines the loyalty of relationships companies seek to establish by attaching celebrities to their brands and the instantaneous impulses consumers exhibit when purchasing a product. Drawing on his cutting-edge experiences in the fashion business, as well as his hard-won insights developed as a sought-after marketing consultant to trendsetters and tastemakers, the author argues that branding relationships have now seeped into every aspect of our lives.

Daymond John is widely recognized as a branding and marketing authority and a sought-after consultant on the ever-changing urban/pop culture marketplace. He describes the evolution of a brand--from its generic inception to its watermark--and offers expert commentary on iconic personal ''brands'' ranging from Tiger Woods to Muhammad Ali and branding as it pertains to corporations such as Blackberry and UPS, among others.

The Brand Within, co-authored by Daniel Paisner, who is credited with nine New York Times bestsellers, is a dynamic roadmap to growing a successful brand.

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Wall Street & the Financial Crisis - Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, by Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - US Senate

Book Description
Concluding a two-year bipartisan investigation, Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Senator Tom Coburn M.D., R-Okla., Chairman and Ranking Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a 635-page final report on their inquiry into key causes of the financial crisis. The report catalogs conflicts of interest, heedless risk-taking and failures of federal oversight that helped push the country into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The Levin-Coburn report expands on evidence gathered at four Subcommittee hearings in April 2010, examining four aspects of the crisis through detailed case studies: high-risk mortgage lending, using the case of Washington Mutual Bank, a $300 billion thrift that became the largest bank failure in U.S. history; regulatory inaction, focusing on the Office of Thrift Supervision's failed oversight of Washington Mutual; inflated credit ratings that misled investors, examining the actions of the nation's two largest credit rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's; and the role played by investment banks, focusing primarily on Goldman Sachs, creating and selling structured finance products that foisted billions of dollars of losses on investors, while the bank itself profited from betting against the mortgage market.

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FYI, bargain only for those in Canada:

Engine City by Ken MacLeod is discounted to $1.96 for the Kindle (Canada) - it's $6.99 for US people

Product Description

The Concluding Volume of the Engines of Light

With Cosmonaut Keep and Dark Light, both finalists for science fiction’s Hugo Award, Ken MacLeod launched a new interstellar epic with all the engaging characters and ingenious SF inventiveness of his earlier Fall Revolution novels. Now MacLeod delivers the culmination of his epic of a human future crammed with innumerable varieties of intelligent alien life, and in which humans find themselves involved in the politics of aliens as powerful and inscrutable as gods...and entangled in their wars.

For ten thousand years, Nova Babylonia has been the greatest city of the Second Sphere, an interstellar civilization of human and other beings who have been secretly removed, throughout history, from Earth.

Now humans from the far reaches of the Sphere have come to offer immortality—and to urge them to build defenses against the alien invasion they know is coming.

As humans and aliens compete and conspire, the wheels of history will lathe all the players into shapes new and surprising. The alien invasion will reach New Babylon at last—led by the most alien figure of all.

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Now free in the US Kindle store for UK and EU customers (UK link). Keep an eye on this one, as it is likely to be free in the US by tomorrow.

Book Description
We didn’t need a dog. We had a perfectly nice dog named Shakespeare, a big, loveable, huggable shaggy black mutt from the pound. And a cat, a beautiful tabby named Isis. We were a family—me and the dog and the cat and Mikey, my youngest child and the only one left at home. His siblings were grown and gone. His father was just gone. When I finally scraped up the money to buy a little house, Mikey reminded me that it was time for the puppy.

“What puppy?” I didn’t do puppies.
“‘When we get a home of our own,’ you said. You promised,” insisted Mikey.
You promised—the two words in the English language most likely to bring a single mother to her knees.
We didn’t need a dog. We certainly didn’t need a beagle. And we most certainly didn’t need Freddie.

There are bad dogs--and then there are bad beagles.

In this hilarious and heartwarming memoir, single mother Paula Munier takes on the world's worst beagle--and loses every time. She tries everything to fix Freddie--but nothing really works. As her youngest son grows up and prepares to leave her soon-to-be empty nest, Paula's worst fear is that after more than thirty years of raising kids, she'll be left all alone--with Freddie.

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Fixing Freddie by Paula Munier is now free at the US Kindle store

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Married by Mistake by Abby Gaines

Product Description

The bride wore a white dress and a look of despair… Do not adjust your set. That really was Casey Greene being jilted by her fiancé on live TV. And that really was Tennessee’s most eligible bachelor who stepped in to marry her instead! Millionaire businessman Adam Carmichael only wanted to help Casey save face. He isn’t prepared for the news that their “fake” wedding is legal and binding. While they secretly wait for an annulment, media and family scrutiny forces them to put on their best loving couple act. Except by now, neither one is quite sure who’s acting…

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Several books have been reduced to $0.01, aside from The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty (that I've posted previously)

Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook (US Kindle)

Product Description
In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father’s Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school. While conducting a class on evil throughout history, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father’s crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie’s lineage can’t. But when the investigation turns in an unexpected direction, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie’s motives—and his own.

As the deadly consequences of Jack’s actions fall inescapably into place, Thomas H. Cook masterfully reveals the darker truths that lurk in the recesses of small-town lives and in the hearts of well-intentioned men.

About the Author
THOMAS H. COOK is the author of twenty-one novels and two works of nonfiction. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award seven times in five different categories, including Best Novel for Red Leaves, which was also nominated for the British Crime Writers' Association's Duncan Lawrie Dagger and won the Barry for Best Novel. The Chatham School Affair won the Edgar for Best Novel. He lives in New York City and Cape Cod.

The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople by Stephan Schiffman (US Kindle)

Product Description:

Now you can join the hundreds of thousands of salespeople who have followed Stephen Schiffman's advice and watch your performance soar. Schiffman lets you in on the industry's best-kept secrets.

Learn how to:
• Convert leads to sales
• Motivate yourself and motivate others
• Give killer presentations
• Keep your sense of humor

This new edition includes:
• New examples using the latest advances in sales presentation technology
• Up-to-date cases of these successful habits in action
• Five bonus habits showing readers how to overcome mistakes, set sales timetables, and reexamine processes to shore up weaknesses

If you're a salesperson looking to succeed, this is the book for you!

The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey (US Kindle)

Product Description
Alfred Kropp was just trying to survive high school when his guardian uncle gets him roped into a suspicious get-rich-quick scheme that changes his life forever: stealing Excalibur—the legendary sword of King Arthur. But after Alfred unwittingly delivers the sword into the hands of a man with enormously evil intentions, he sets off on an unlikely quest to try to right his wrong and save the world from imminent destruction. This gripping, fast-paced, hilarious novel is both a thrilling adventure story and an engaging account of one boy’s coming of age.

Many Ways to Say I Love You: WISDOM FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN FROM MISTER ROGERS by Fred Rogers (US Kindle)

Product Description

Words of wisdom and inspiration on parenting from the beloved Fred Rogers. These excerpts from previously published as well as never-before-published works show appreciation for parents whose children are fully-grown as well as give advice to those parents raising young ones.

The book is a collection of segments from never-before published speeches and observations from his years of working with parents and children, as well as other materials from books, songs, TV commentary, and more. Using stories from his own life, Rogers discusses the importance of children and the role of parents.

Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage by Robert Morgan (US Kindle)

Product Description

Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2000

There is a most unusual woman living in Gap Creek. Julie Harmon works hard, "hard as a man," they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. She is just a teenager when her little brother dies in her arms. That same year she marries and moves down into the valley where floods and fire and visions visit themselves on her, and con men and drunks and lawyers come calling.

Julie and her husband discover that the modern world is complex and that it grinds ever on without pause or concern for their hard work. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep chaos and madness at bay.

Robert Morgan's latest novel, Gap Creek, returns his readers to the vivid world of the Appalachian high country. Julie and Hank's new life in the valley of Gap Creek in the last years of the nineteenth century is more complicated than the couple ever imagined. Sometimes it's hard to tell what to fear most-the fires and floods or the flesh-and-blood grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate themselves into their new lives. Their struggles with nature, with work, with the changing century, and with their disappointments and triumphs make this a riveting follow-up to Morgan's acclaimed novel, The Truest Pleasure.

Love Springs/Prelude: Two Inspector Monde Tales of Strange and Terrible Adventures (The Inspector Monde Tales) by John Booth (US Kindle)

Product Description

Love Springs
A woman, a man, each searching for the other, fear etched in their eyes as Inspector Monde seeks to understand. Only he knows if the bridge will reveal their secrets.

Prelude
An invitation, a warning, a clue. An old case that still haunts Inspector Monde resurfaces and he suspects revenge. Even Cervantes and his kind flee the evil that postures and taunts and lures Inspector Monde to a place of such corruption that the unthinkable becomes real.

Inspector Monde walks the dark side of Paris where the supernatural can be found. Every police force has an Inspector Monde though they try to deny it. When the blood chills and the hairs on the back of the neck rise they send for him and don't look too closely at what he does. For the Inspector does not particularly believe in the Law but will fight for Justice to his last breath.

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Several books have been reduced to $0.05

Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess by Steven Curtis Chapman (US Kindle)

Product Description

As the clock strikes midnight, remember . . .

Each moment we have to spend with our children is a blessing from above. But as we cherish this chapter of life, we realize the pages of time will keep turning. Alternating between the voices of a father and his daughter, Cinderella celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love and life. You will be enchanted by this modern fairytale that teaches us how to hand our own Cinderella her glass slippers and let her go.

The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2: Love Bites by Trisha Telep (US Kindle)

Product Description
A wonderful variety of compellingly original vampire stories, many of them wholly unexpected, from award-winning, New York Times bestselling authors. There are typical vampires who would be right at home in a horror story or a gothic romance; historical vampires; contemporary, gritty, urban vampires; fang-in-cheek comedy; boy-meets-girl sweetheart stories (if a little bloodier!); and erotic tales of inhuman passions and midnight pleasures. Look out, too, for stand-alone stories relating to existing series and characters of contributing authors, or stories which develop more fully characters who have only walk-on parts in those authors' longer fiction. Includes writing by big-name authors such as Jennifer Ashley, Kim Harrison writing as Dawn Cook, Caitlin Kittredge, Diane Whiteside and Eileen Wilks.

Defining Twilight: Vocabulary Workbook for Unlocking the SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT by Brian Leaf (US Kindle) - can't help but think this is a joke

Product Description
Can you resist the allure of Edward’s myriad charms—his ocher eyes and tousled hair, the cadence of his speech, his chiseled alabaster skin, and his gratuitous charm? Will you hunt surreptitiously and tolerate the ceaseless deluge in Forks to evade the sun and uphold the facade? Join Edward and Bella as you learn more than 600 vocabulary words to improve your score on the *SAT, ACT®, GED®, and SSAT® exams!

Use this workbook side-by-side with your own copy of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight!
• Each chapter of the workbook gives you eight words taken from Twilight, with page references for you to read the words in the context of your favorite novel
• Define the words on your own before turning back to the workbook for their actual definitions
• At the end of each section you’ll take SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT drills and quizzes to review and integrate what you’ve learned
• Plus, you’ll learn synonyms, Latin word parts, and memorization tools throughout the workbook

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Several books have been reduced to $0.06

Sexy in 6 by Tracey Mallett (US Kindle)

Product Description
Don't have time to hit the gym? You can get a bikini body in just six weeks-in your spare time! Proven effective for all body types, Sexy in 6 offers highly motivating, super-fast workouts that are easy to squeeze into a busy day, plus a simple diet plan and delicious recipes. Split into six-minute training intervals, the plan uses a unique blend of Pilates, yoga, cardio, and strength training-even exercises to make sex better-to help you lose up to twenty-five pounds. With Sexy in 6, you can find the time, lose the weight, and regain confidence.

Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage by Raquel Welch (US Kindle)

Product Description
She didn’t hatch out of an eagle’s nest, circa One Million Years B.C., clad in a skimpy fur bikini. She didn’t aspire to fame as a sex symbol. Yet, for many years after making her Hollywood entrance as every man’s fantasy, Raquel Welch was best known for her beauty and sex appeal. A private person, she allowed people to draw their own conclusions from her public image. Now, Raquel Welch is ready to speak her mind. And, with the luxury of hindsight and the benefit of experience, she has plenty to share about the art of being a woman—even men will find it enlightening to read about what makes her tick.

In Beyond the Cleavage, Raquel Welch talks, woman to woman, about her views on all that comes with being a member of the female sex—love, sex, style, health, body image, career, family, forgiveness, aging, and coming of age. Looking back on her life, she lets women in on her childhood, dominated by a volatile father; her first love, marriage, and divorce; her early struggles as a single working mother in Hollywood; her battles for roles and respect as an actress; and her daring decision never to lie about her age. Looking forward, she offers women a compass to guide them at every crossroad of life, from menopause through the empty nest years, to dating younger men and beyond. Along with bringing baby boomers into her confidence—she offers essential tips for staying motivated and positive past fifty, as well as divulging her secrets for fabulous hair and makeup—she even talks to today’s younger generation of women about the importance of carrying themselves with dignity and self-respect.

With warmth, humor, conviction, and honesty, Raquel reveals her approach to preventative aging, her life-changing commitment to yoga, her recipe for eating right, her skincare regimen, her flair for fashion, and much more. Deeply personal (Welch wrote every word herself—no ghostwriter), Beyond the Cleavage is Raquel Welch’s gift to every woman who longs to look and feel her best, and be at peace with herself.

Ten Years Thinner by Christine Lydon (US Kindle)

Product Description
Ten Years Thinner presents Yale-educated medical doctor Christine Lydon's highly innovative diet and exercise program, every element of which Dr. Lydon has designed to fundamentally change how the body deals with food-all with the goal of developing a body chemistry that favors a youthful, toned, flab-free physique. To simplify the dietary transition to a higher metabolism, Ten Years Thinner includes a meal plan and dozens of quick, easy recipes that take the guesswork out of eating for a fabulous physique. Ten Years Thinner's fully illustrated work-out component, also specifically designed for sustainability, focuses on exercises that both maximize fat burning and combat the aging process-in less than 25 minutes a day.

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The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih is reduced to $0.07 (US Kindle)

Product Description
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

--Jimmy Wales

With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with access to a computer, this impressive assemblage of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how it all happened--from the first glimmer of an idea to the global phenomenon it's become.

Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted user who is granted access to technical features) at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site's inception in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth, while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions. Wikipedia is not just a website; it's a global community of contributors who have banded together out of a shared passion for making knowledge free.

Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia creation.

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Comes a Horseman by Robert Liparulo is reduced to $0.10 (US Kindle)

Product Description

The ancients saw Death as a blazing figure on horseback, swift and merciless. Those facing the black chasm often mistook their pounding hearts for the beating of hooves.

Now, two FBI agents pursuing a killer from a centuries-old cult realize they have become his prey. To survive, they must ignore their own fear, their own hearts pounding in their ears...

Pounding like Death, riding a pale horse.