Free and Bargain Non-Fiction in July 2014

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Leviathan vs. Behemoth: The Roman-Parthian Wars 66 BC-217 AD by Cam Rea

Have you read this and are recommending it? I'm always a bit more leery of self-pubbed non-fiction books than fiction.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Leviathan vs. Behemoth: The Roman-Parthian Wars 66 BC-217 AD by Cam Rea
<snip>

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Have you read this and are recommending it? I'm always a bit more leery of self-pubbed non-fiction books than fiction.

I'm leery, too. I'd love to know more about the Roman-Parthian Wars (well, anything about it really since I had never heard of the Roman-Parthian Wars before). I wish that there were ratings for the book (the reason that there isn't any is that the book was just published). $3.99 is not much to gamble except my book budget is busted; I've got to be very choosy for a little while.

Would anyone volunteer to read the book and give a book report before the class? It's only 304 pages. Anyone? Anyone?

[GtrsRGr8]

Ack! I'm being ganged up on by all of the non-American English-speakers of the world!

Originally Posted by avantman42

Either is correct, surely? As the page that I linked to shows, the sun still doesn't set on the British Empire.
<snip>

I apologize. I forgot about the Pitcairn Islands and the "Autonomous Base Areas." Ack! So, you're right and I'm wrong. See how mellow that I can be?

With that I will end my discussion of this matter on this thread lest I be reprimanded by the moderator, who is a Brit, for being off-topic. I'm sure that he would come down hard on me after my remarks about the Brits. This seems to be a hot topic, however, and I would be willing to continue the discussion in the appropriate forum and on the appropriate thread if there is sufficient interest.

I've got to get back to surfing the Internet for ebook bargains. I need to check some sites before 12 midnight (Eastern Standard Time (4 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. Ack!)) as some deals expire at the stroke of midnight.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I'm always a bit more leery of self-pubbed non-fiction books than fiction.

Unfortunately, I'm getting more and more wary of trad-pubbed non-fiction, too

[issybird]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I need to check some sites before 12 midnight (Eastern Standard Time (4 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. Ack!)) as some deals expire at the stroke of midnight.

Midnight Eastern Standard Time is 5 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, always. Midnight Eastern Daylight Time is 4 a.m. GMT and is the current local time nomenclature. When one wants to be pedantic and spell things out for the presumably less informed, one needs to get it right.

[AnemicOak]

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham is $2.99 at...
Amazon US | B&N | Kobo | Google | eBooks.com

The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of history’s towering leaders

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one—a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children.

Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. Sons of the elite, students of history, politicians of the first rank, they savored power. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics and haters in their own nations—yet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDR’s affections—which was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aides—and Winston Churchill.

Confronting tyranny and terror, Roosevelt and Churchill built a victorious alliance amid cataclysmic events and occasionally conflicting interests. Franklin and Winston is also the story of their marriages and their families, two clans caught up in the most sweeping global conflict in history.

Meacham’s new sources—including unpublished letters of FDR’s great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with the few surviving people who were in FDR and Churchill’s joint company—shed fresh light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle.

Hitler brought them together; later in the war, they drifted apart, but even in the autumn of their alliance, the pull of affection was always there. Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age.

[GtrsRGr8]

Did that short title catch your attention?

It's Katharine Hepburn's memoir. I loved K.H. in On Golden Pond (movie); Henry Fonda was pretty good, too. I'll never forget what K.H. called H.F.over and over--"you old poop."(ha)

The Kindle price has been marked way, way down (to $1.99).

Me. By Katharine Hepburn. Rated 4 stars from 144 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $18.00; Kindle price now $1.99 (Kobo's price right now is $13.99!). 432 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Me-Katharine-H...harine+hepburn.

Book Description
Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years, four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.

A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year

A Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection

NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

[BelleZora]

Free today: Clifford Irving's Prison Journal (a/k/a Jailing) by Clifford Irving

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J273TMI

When the Nixon administration dealt Clifford Irving a 2 ½ year prison sentence for committing the Howard Hughes Autobiography Hoax, the 41-year-old author was shocked . . . and unprepared to serve time. In prison, he learned how to jail and prevail. But then he was caught with contraband, moved to a three-star penitentiary, and later accused of inciting a riot and conspiring to kill the warden.

This is the true and penetrating story of how Irving survived and won the battle for his freedom. After his journal was excerpted in Playboy, the full memoir hasn't been available until this Kindle edition.

I can't resist this one. It was a fascinating story back in the day.

[AnemicOak]

These are currently each on sale for $1.59 for the US or £0.99 for the UK direct from the publisher (Osprey) where you can buy either as ePub or PDF. They normally sell for $15.95/£9.98 each. They are also on sale a few other places for even less...

Martin B-26 Marauder (Air Vanguard #4)
Author: Martyn Chorlton, Illustrators: Henry Morshead & Adam Tooby
Osprey | Amazon US ($1.49) | Kobo ($1.49/UK?) | Amazon UK (£0.59)

One of the most underrated medium bombers of the Second World War, the Martin B-26 Marauder never fully managed to shake off an underserved early reputation as a dangerous aircraft to fly. Admittedly, in inexperienced hands, the B-26 could be tricky to fly, but once mastered, proved to be one of the best in its class.

The aircraft incorporated a host of both revolutionary design methods and construction techniques, never before attempted amongst American aircraft manufacturers. Peyton M. Magruder's design had its roots in a USAAC proposal dating back to March 1939 calling for a twin-engined medium bomber capable of reaching 350 mph with a 2,000lb bomb load up to a range of 3,000 miles. Deemed superior to all other designs on the table at the time, almost a 1,000 had been ordered before the aircraft first took to the air November 1940.

From late 1941 the first B-26s became operational in the Pacific, followed by the Mediterranean, but it is in the European theatre that the type was most prolific. Initially serving with the 8th Air Force, the type was 'discarded' to the 9th Air Force with whom it served with great distinction for the remainder of the war. It was particularly during the Normandy Landings and later the advance beyond 'the bulge' into Germany, were the B-26s medium level tactical ability shone through.
The Marauder also served with the RAF, SAAF and Free French Air Force in the Mediterranean and also as part of the little credited Balkan Air Force in support of Tito's Partisans in Yugoslavia.

Sadly the B-26 was unfairly treated at the beginning of its career and even more so at the end as many of the 5,200+ aircraft built were scrapped only days after the end of the war. A great aircraft in many respects the B-26 deserves to be in a better place.

Lockheed A-12: The CIA's Blackbird and other variants (Air Vanguard #12)
Author: Paul F Crickmore, Illustrator: Adam Tooby
Osprey | Amazon US ($1.49) | Kobo ($1.49/UK?) | Amazon UK (£0.59)

During the early years of the Cold War, the most effective way to gather strategic intelligence about the Soviet Union and its allies was manned overflight. Lockheed's U-2 was spectacularly successful in this role. Much to the concern of President Eisenhower, its shape meant that it could be tracked on Russian radars. Given the highly sensitive nature of such flights, the President insisted that every effort should be made to reduce to zero the U-2's radar cross section (RCS), thereby making the aircraft "invisible." When this was proven to be impossible, the stage was set for a U-2 replacement. Following a competition between Lockheed and Convair, the former was declared the winner and the result was the A-12. Designed to incorporate 'stealth' features before the term was even coined, the A-12 has to date proven to be the fastest, highest flying jet aircraft ever built, and is operated exclusively by the Central Intelligence Agency.

This book will also cover a two-seat variation of the design built as an advanced interceptor - the YF-12. In addition, the D-21 drone programme, known as Tagboard will also be covered.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

These are currently each on sale for $1.59 for the US or £0.99 for the UK direct from the publisher (Osprey) where you can buy either as ePub or PDF. They normally sell for $15.95/£9.98 each. They are also on sale a few other places for even less...

Thanks. Kobo says they're not available to the UK, though they are available from Amazon UK.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Thanks. Kobo says they're not available to the UK, though they are available from Amazon UK.

Neither Amazon (UK or US) nor Kobo will sell them to me. Osprey itself, though, will. Go figure...

[LovesMacs]

Futebol Nation: The Story of Brazil through Soccer by David Goldblatt

Now that the 2014 FIFA World Cup is over, the price has dropped on this history of Brazil as seen through the lens of football/soccer. I bought this at $9.99 and now I wish I had waited.

$2.99 Amazon US
$2.99 Barnes and Noble
No discount at Kobo, sorry!

No nation is as closely identified with the game of soccer as Brazil. For over a century, Brazil’s people, politicians, and poets have found in soccer the finest expression of the nation’s collective potential. Since the team’s dazzling performance in 1938 at the World Cup in France, Brazilian soccer has been revered as an otherworldly blend of the effective and the aesthetic.

Futebol Nation is an extraordinary chronicle of a nation that has won the World Cup five times and produced players of miraculous skill, such as Pelé, Garrincha, Rivaldo, Zico, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho. It shows why the phrase O Jogo Bonito—the Beautiful Game—has justly entered the global lexicon. Yet there is another side to Brazil and its game, one that reflects the harsh sociological realities of the “futebol nation.” David Goldblatt explores the grinding poverty that creates a vast pool of hungry players, Brazil’s corrupt institutions exemplified by its soccer authorities, and the pervasive violence that has seeped onto the field and into the stands.

Futebol Nation illuminates both Brazilian soccer and Brazil itself; its brilliance, its magic, its style, and the fabulous myths that have been constructed around it; as well as its tragedies, its miseries, and its economic and political injustices. It is the story of Brazil told through its chosen national game.

[AnemicOak]

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand has dropped to $3.00 at...
Amazon US | Google

BONUS: This edition contains a Seabiscuit discussion guide and an excerpt from Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken.

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:

Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.

[curtw]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Did that short title catch your attention?

It's Katharine Hepburn's memoir. I loved K.H. in On Golden Pond (movie); Henry Fonda was pretty good, too. I'll never forget what K.H. called H.F.over and over--"you old poop."(ha)

The Kindle price has been marked way, way down (to $1.99).

Me. By Katharine Hepburn. Rated 4 stars from 144 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $18.00; Kindle price now $1.99 (Kobo's price right now is $13.99!). 432 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Me-Katharine-H...harine+hepburn.

Book Description
Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years, four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.

A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year

A Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection

NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

This book is OK. I bought it in paper when it first came out. Unfortunately, it's nowhere as entertaining as her earlier book, The Making of The African Queen, which reads like an intimate fireside conversation with the great lady. Actually, after reading both, I began to suspect that the Queen book was actually ghost written and based on interviews.

[pendragginp]

Yes, I agree. This one has her authentic voice, which is choppier for one thing.