FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - August 2014

[bfisher]

Thanks very much. Also available at amazon.ca
http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...blisher=Osprey

[AnemicOak]

How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War by Norman Longmate is currently $1.99

Although nearly 90% of the population of Great Britain remained civilians throughout the war, or for a large part of it, their story has so far largely gone untold. In contrast with the thousands of books on military operations, barely any have concerned themselves with the individual's experience. The problems of the ordinary family are barely ever mentioned - food rationing, clothes rationing, the black-out and air raids get little space, and everyday shortages almost none at all.

This book is an attempt to redress the balance; to tell the civilian's story largely through their own recollections and in their own words.

[mitford13]

Free Kindle Single (66 pp):

The Secret Agent: In Search of America's Greatest World War II Spy by Stephan Talty

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...cm_cd_asin_lnk

Eric Erickson was the most important American spy of World War II. He also had a secret to keep.

In 1942, the Brooklyn-born Erickson was a millionaire oil mogul who volunteered for a dangerous mission inside the Third Reich: locating the top-secret synthetic oil plants that kept the German war machine running. To fool the Nazis, Erickson played the role of a collaborator. He hung a portrait of Hitler in his apartment and “disowned” his Jewish best friend, then flew to Berlin, where he charmed Himmler and signed lucrative oil deals with the architects of the Final Solution. All the while, he was visiting the oil refineries and passing their coordinates to Allied Bomber Command, who destroyed the plants in a series of B-17 raids, helping to end the war early.

After the war, Erickson's was revealed as a secret agent and received the Medal of Freedom for his bravery. William Holden even played him in a hit Hollywood movie. For a brief moment in the early '60s, Erickson was the most famous spy in the world. His secret? He hadn't played a Nazi collaborator. He'd actually been one - a war profiteer who'd made millions of trading with Hitler before having a change of heart. Black-listed by the Allies and disowned by his family, Erickson had volunteered for the spy mission in order to redeem himself, and ended up saving thousands of Allied lives.

Based on newly-discovered archives in Sweden, The Secret Agent is a riveting piece of narrative nonfiction that tells the true story of Erickson's remarkable life for the first time.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War by Norman Longmate is currently $1.99

Thanks very much - it looks quite interesting. Got it for $CDN 2.17 at amazon.ca

http://www.amazon.ca/How-We-Lived-Th.../dp/B0031Y9DQO

[murg]

Originally Posted by mitford13

Eric Erickson was the most important American spy of World War II. He also had a secret to keep.

Why is it that every spy in WWII that has a book written about them 'the most important spy in WWII'?

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by murg

Why is it that every spy in WWII that has a book written about them 'the most important spy in WWII'?

Probably because it's most important for their sales

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by murg

Why is it that every spy in WWII that has a book written about them 'the most important spy in WWII'?

I'm sure that that is a rhetorical question, for which you already know the answer. But I'll answer it, in a roundabout way, anyway.

What if the publisher, author, or whoever actually stated the truth of how important the spy was? For example, "this is a book about the 44th most important spy in WWII," or "this spy is the most important spy in WWII, after 61`others which were more important"? I'm sure that none of those books would sell very well at all; a book about a spy that was the first and maybe second most important (and, remember, it's going to be truthful) probably would be the only one that would sell.

Having said that, from what I've read about Eric Erickson, he very well might have been the most important, or at least among the top 5 or so most important, spies for the Allies in WWII. This is at least in part due to the fact that Hitler and Himmler had complete trust in him--Erickson, who was of Swedish ancestry, had expressed early in the War that he was a devotee of the Nazi cause. He convinced Himmler, and then Hitler, to start a synthetic oil industry (obtaining enough oil for Germany's mechanized military was a constant challenge, in part because Germany had little or none in its home territory). He was given a free pass to visit all of the synthetic oil factories in Germany. From those visits, he would obtain detailed information about their locations. He passed this information on to the Allies, and the Allies bombed the daylights out of those plants. Before the end of the War, Germany's synthetic oil industry had been completely destroyed. It is a fact that the War was shortened because of the severe shortage of oil by Germany.

[GtrsRGr8]

Dover Publishers has put a large number--204, if I counted correctly--of ebooks on sale for $.79 each. The sale is good for "a limited time."

I looked at only a few of them, but they all appear to be books that are in the public domain. You can probably get a lot of these free or for cheap elsewhere. You can be the judge as to whether or not these editions, by a major publisher, have some advantages worth paying 79 cents each for.

Go to this page to see them all: http://store.doverpublications.com/e...e-special.html.

I've put this post only here in this non-fiction thread, but most of the titles are probably works of fiction. I couldn't find a general fiction thread, just a lot of fiction subtopic threads. If you are so inclined, feel free to post a duplicate of this post in any or all of the fiction threads that you want to.

Happy hunting.

[GA Russell]

Thanks Little.Egret!

[Laurablue]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Thanks very much - it looks quite interesting. Got it for $CDN 2.17 at amazon.ca

http://www.amazon.ca/How-We-Lived-Th.../dp/B0031Y9DQO

Kobo Canada has price matched this book, and I was able to use the SAV50 coupon code on it (I was surprised since I thought Random House wasn't couponable). For some reason the cover is just a bland graphic.
How We Lived Then

[GA Russell]

The Complete Works of Nellie Bly - 99 cents

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works...rds=nellie+bly

[koland]

For the NOT "Free and Bargain Military & War" thread:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...sher=Heraklion

(roughly 54 titles)

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by koland

For the NOT "Free and Bargain Military & War" thread:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...sher=Heraklion

(roughly 54 titles)

Thanks for posting these.

I usually end up downloading well over half of the offerings when someone posts "new" Heraklion titles, and I did so this time.

[Little.Egret]

Many History but not War


Bonnie Dundee and the First Jacobite Rebellion (Lectures in Scottish History Book 2) by George Harris

The Unification of Italy (A-Grade History Lectures Book 12) by George Harris

Bismarck and the Making of the German Empire (A-Grade History Lectures Book 5) by George Harris

Votes for Women! (A-Grade History Lectures Book 1) by George Harris

The Great Liberal Social Reforms:1906-1914 (A-Grade History Lectures) by George Harris

The Russian Revolution of 1917 (A-Grade History Lectures Book 3) by George Harris

Hitler's Rise to Power (a-Grade History Lectures Book 2) by George Harris

The Cold War (A-Grade History Lectures Book 7) by George Harris

See all 8

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...eorge%20harris

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...eorge%20harris

http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...eorge%20harris

http://www.amazon.com.au/s/?url=sear...eorge%20harris

[AnemicOak]

The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir has dropped to $1.99 (in the US at least)
Amazon | Kobo | Google | eBooks.com | (no drop @ B&N or OmniLit as of yet)

Lancaster and York. For much of the fifteenth century, these two families were locked in battle for control of the British monarchy. Kings were murdered and deposed. Armies marched on London. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. The war between the royal House of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy. In The Wars of the Roses, Alison Weir reconstructs this conflict with the same dramatic flair and impeccable research that she brought to her highly praised The Princes in the Tower.

The first battle erupted in 1455, but the roots of the conflict reached back to the dawn of the fifteenth century, when the corrupt, hedonistic Richard II was sadistically murdered, and Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, seized England's throne. Both Henry IV and his son, the cold warrior Henry V, ruled England ably, if not always wisely--but Henry VI proved a disaster, both for his dynasty and his kingdom. Only nine months old when his father's sudden death made him king, Henry VI became a tormented and pathetic figure, weak, sexually inept, and prey to fits of insanity. The factional fighting that plagued his reign escalated into bloody war when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, laid claim to the throne that was rightfully his--and backed up his claim with armed might.

Alison Weir brings brilliantly to life both the war itself and the historic figures who fought it on the great stage of England. Here are the queens who changed history through their actions--the chic, unconventional Katherine of Valois, Henry V's queen; the ruthless, social-climbing Elizabeth Wydville; and, most crucially, Margaret of Anjou, a far tougher and more powerful character than her husband,, Henry VI, and a central figure in the Wars of the Roses.

Here, too, are the nobles who carried the conflict down through the generations--the Beauforts, the bastard descendants of John of Gaunt, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known to his contemporaries as "the Kingmaker"; and the Yorkist King, Edward IV, a ruthless charmer who pledged his life to cause the downfall of the House of Lancaster.

The Wars of the Roses is history at its very best--swift and compelling, rich in character, pageantry, and drama, and vivid in its re-creation of an astonishing, dangerous, and often grim period of history. Alison Weir, one of the foremost authorities on the British royal family, demonstrates here that she is also one of the most dazzling stylists writing history today.