[arcadata]

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut from RosettaBooks (£0.99) is the Amazon UK Kindle Deal of the Day (February 17) *Wait for price to reflect discount before 1-clicking

Product Description

Customer review: "This is it, this is the book that proves that literature still has something to offer."

Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.

The core of the novel is Kilgore Trout, a familiar character very deliberately modeled on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985), a fact which Vonnegut conceded frequently in interviews and which was based upon his own occasional relationship with Sturgeon. Here Kilgore Trout is an itinerant wandering from one science fiction convention to another; he intersects with the protagonist, Dwayne Hoover (one of Vonnegut's typically boosterish, lost and stupid mid-American characters) and their intersection is the excuse for the evocation of many others, familiar and unfamiliar, dredged from Vonnegut's gallery.

The central issue is concerned with intersecting and apposite views of reality, and much of the narrative is filtered through Trout who is neither certifiably insane nor a visionary writer but can pass for either depending upon Dwayne Hoover's (and Vonnegut's) view of the situation. America, when this novel was published, was in the throes of Nixon, Watergate and the unraveling of our intervention in Vietnam; the nation was beginning to fragment ideologically and geographically, and Vonnegut sought to cram all of this dysfunction (and a goofy, desperate kind of hope, the irrational comfort given through the genre of science fiction) into a sprawling narrative whose sense, if any, is situational, not conceptual.

Reviews were polarized; the novel was celebrated for its bizarre aspects, became the basis of a Bruce Willis movie adaptation whose reviews were not nearly so polarized. (Most critics hated it.) This novel in its freewheeling and deliberately fragmented sequentiality may be the quintessential Vonnegut novel, not necessarily his best, but the work which most truly embodies the range of his talent, cartooned alienation and despair.

Dark Waters by Toni Anderson from Montlake Romance (£0.99) is the Amazon UK Kindle Daily Deal (February 17) *Wait for price to reflect discount before 1-clicking

Product Description

Customer review: "If you enjoy suspense, thrills and a strong lead figure then this book is for you!"

Danger once again laps at the shores of Barkley Sound, the Graveyard of the Pacific…

Since her rocky childhood and its abrupt, brutal ending, schoolteacher Anna Silver hasn’t given her trust easily. But when her estranged father gets in over his head—again—and winds up dead, his last message to Anna is as clear as it is insistent: she’s in danger and Brent Carver, the man with whom he shared a prison cell for five years, is the only person she should turn to for help. With nowhere else to go and with her father’s killer on her trail, Anna flees to what she hopes is safety.

Tucked into the west coast of Vancouver Island, Brent Carver’s isolated home hasn’t seen many visitors. And his friend’s daughter is the last person he ever expected to grace his doorstep. She’s in trouble, and he can’t deny her protection…just as he can’t deny his attraction to the independent beauty. As their passion sparks into flame, the perfect storm brews off the coast of his island home, bringing with it a sadistic killer hunting Anna and the secrets she’s come close to uncovering.

Mazimize Your Potential: Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks & Build an Incredible Career by Jocelyn K Glei from Amazon (£0.99) is the Amazon UK Kindle Deal of the Day (February 17) *Wait for price to reflect discount before 1-clicking

Product Description

Customer review: "Great read with some fantastic points in it that felt like they were directly written for me."

Success isn't about being the best. It's about always getting better.
Can you step outside your comfort zone? Bounce back from failure? Build new skills? Tapping into your true potential is no idle endeavor. It demands creativity, dedication, and a whole lot of hustle.

With wisdom from 21 leading creative minds, 99U's Maximize Your Potential will show you how to generate new opportunities, cultivate your creative expertise, build valuable relationships, and take bold, new risks so that you can utilize your talents to the fullest.

Maximize Your Potential features contributions from: Teresa Amabile, Sunny Bates, Michael Bungay Stanier, David Burkus, John Caddell, Ben Casnocha, Jack Cheng, Jonathan Fields, Joshua Foer, Jocelyn K. Glei, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Frans Johansson, Steffen Landauer, Mark McGuinness, Cal Newport, Robert Safian, Michael Schwalbe, Tony Schwartz, Tina Seelig, and Scott H. Young. Plus, a foreword from Behance founder & CEO Scott Belsky.