FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - 2014

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

I thought I might get a copy of this ebook, but I'm trying to figure out about the free edition.

When I go to the eyeonwindows site they're selling it. I wasn't sure if you meant people should look at the Amazon edition, but it's not available in Aus.

I don't feel comfortable just downloading a zip file without knowing it's source - what is the source of it?

I got it from a spammer and computer hacker in Russia. He said that I could trust him. hahahah

Actually, I got the information from a post by an individual on another forum. I learned that the websites sponsoring the free ebook are one or both of these: windows9update.com and eyeonwindows.com. If you go to both sites you'll notice that the design, etc. of the websites is (nearly?) identical; they're related somehow, but how I don't know. Maybe I need to be more like you and be cautious and wary, or even suspicious, but the websites seem okay.

I checked a very reliable website safety rating service called Web of Trust (WOT). Interestingly, they say that windows9update.com is "unsatisfactory," but say that eyeonwindows.com is "good!" But, the ratings come from users, some of which can have vendettas for one reason or another and, too, I think that WOT will give a rating based upon just one person's response.

Anyway, I have the pdf file of the book on my hard drive. I scanned it with my antivirus program, which is up-to-date on the virus signatures. It tells me that there is "no threat," i.e., the file is clean. I know that there is a way to post attachments, but I've never done it. If someone would be kind enough to tell me how to do it, I would be happy to do that. There may be other Mobilereaders who would want to download it, too.

But now the question is: do you trust me? hahahah

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Bargain @ $1.99 from Oxford University Press's US division (couponable @ Kobo, was matched at Amazon, but not iTunes, Google Play, or B&N when I checked, price good for Canada & US, at least, geo-restricted in the UK):

In Her Own Right : The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Elisabeth Griffith, her biography of
<snip>

Nice find. Another book, though, that I wish had a Whispersync or other cheap audio counterpart (sigh).

I hope that you don't mind if I post the URL for the book at Amazon. As of right now, it's still $1.99. The URL is http://www.amazon.com/Her-Own-Right-...right+griffith.

[ATDrake]

^

No worries; if it helps someone else easily zero in on stuff in their preferred store, I'm all for it. I'm just personally lazy about putting extra links in for non-free books and default to Kobo since that's where I usually shop (especially if stuff is couponable) since I prefer ePub and people can easily see if it's the same price for their own country, and Amazon URLs usually have a bunch of cruft I feel compelled to strip off anyway, so that's extra time I don't want to spend if I don't have to.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Nice find. Another book, though, that I wish had a Whispersync or other cheap audio counterpart (sigh).

Well, there's always the DIY option with text to speech, if you're really cheap. Much as I dislike Mac OS X Yosemite's new and disimproved steamrollered day-glo icons and interface, I will say that they've significantly improved the TTS options, and added better quality voices for even more of the languages* available.

* Now up to 28! Even more if you count regional variation dialects† separately.

† They even have Québécois French, which is a nice touch.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

^

No worries; if it helps someone else easily zero in on stuff in their preferred store, I'm all for it.
<snip>

Thanks. I didn't think that it would be a problem, but I try to make sure that I don't do something that will cause someone on the Site to be offended, get mad, etc.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, there's always the DIY option with text to speech, if you're really cheap.
<snip>

I'm really cheap. hahahah

I'm a Windows guy, though, I'll have to look, more than I have already, into the options for it. My experience so far with text-to-speech in the Windows orb has been less than satisfying. If anyone has some knowledge or insight about how to get good text-to-speech with the Windows operating system, I'd love to hear it.

I would get a Mac, but it would take a l-o-n-g time saving money on audiobooks to make up for, what, a couple of thousands of $ ?, that I'd have to spend for the Mac. hahahaha

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Anyway, I have the pdf file of the book on my hard drive. I scanned it with my antivirus program, which is up-to-date on the virus signatures. It tells me that there is "no threat," i.e., the file is clean. I know that there is a way to post attachments, but I've never done it. If someone would be kind enough to tell me how to do it, I would be happy to do that. There may be other Mobilereaders who would want to download it, too.

Attaching a file is pretty easy. If you're using the "advanced" message creation (either click "NEW REPLY" under the last post or Go Advanced" under the quick reply), then there's a paperclip right next to a smiley face that brings up a dialog. You can only attach certain file types, but PDFs are OK (I've attached a list of recipes cloning patent medicines from a book published in 1895; you're welcome).

That said, it's probably not a good idea to attach the book that you downloaded. First, even if the download is free, you don't have the right to offer it as a download yourself without a license (GPL or Creative Commons, for example). Second, it's possible that the download isn't supposed to be free. I've bought ebooks from authors that just email me a link to a Dropbox file or some such. This might be one of those and even if it's legal for you to download (I don't know that following a link would be illegal just because someone doesn't want you to, but the DMCA and various "hacking" laws in the US might apply), uploading it somewhere else certainly wouldn't be.

To keep this post firmly on-topic, Microsoft Press has a number of free ebooks. The list is pretty stable, but I see a few books that are new since the last time I checked. The link is to an actual Microsoft site, so you can trust it as much as you trust Windows.

Microsoft Virtual Acadamy free ebooks

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ 99 cents (regularly $4.99) for today only (Nov 20th) as Weightless Books' weekly 1-day pick (DRM-free choice of ePub/Mobi/PDF, available worldwide):

To Each Their Darkness by multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning horror author Gary A. Braunbeck (ISFDB, Wikipedia), his part-memoir analytical non-fiction advice guide on storytelling for aspiring writers with particular emphasis on the ins and outs of suspense/horror writing as well as general story building tips.

This won the 2010 Stoker for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction, according to ISFDB (Weightless' blurb just claims a nomination, though it might have been put up before the winners were announced).

Explore the world of writing horror from a Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning author’s point of view. Gary Braunbeck uses film, fiction and life experience to elucidate the finer points of storytelling, both in and out of genre. This part-autobiographical, always analytical book looks at how stories develop and what makes them work–or not work–when they’re told.

Be warned: reality is as brutal as fiction. Rob Zombie, police shootings, William Goldman and human misery are all teachers to the horror neophyte, and Braunbeck uses their lessons to make To Each Their Darkness a whirlwind of horror and hope for the aspiring writer.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Bargain @ 99 cents (regularly $4.99) for today only (Nov 20th) as Weightless Books' weekly 1-day pick (DRM-free choice of ePub/Mobi/PDF, available worldwide):

To Each Their Darkness by multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning horror author Gary A. Braunbeck (ISFDB, Wikipedia), his part-memoir analytical non-fiction advice guide on storytelling for aspiring writers with particular emphasis on the ins and outs of suspense/horror writing as well as general story building tips.

This won the 2010 Stoker for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction, according to ISFDB (Weightless' blurb just claims a nomination, though it might have been put up before the winners were announced).

Explore the world of writing horror from a Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning author’s point of view. Gary Braunbeck uses film, fiction and life experience to elucidate the finer points of storytelling, both in and out of genre. This part-autobiographical, always analytical book looks at how stories develop and what makes them work–or not work–when they’re told.

Be warned: reality is as brutal as fiction. Rob Zombie, police shootings, William Goldman and human misery are all teachers to the horror neophyte, and Braunbeck uses their lessons to make To Each Their Darkness a whirlwind of horror and hope for the aspiring writer.

Is there no way to get a sample on this site or am I missing something?

[ATDrake]

^

Sometimes Weightless links to sample chapters on the publisher's website if they're available, which in this case it's not.

However, you can use either the Amazon or B&N or Kobo or iBooks preview/sampling mechanisms via the links on publisher Apex's website.

According to the opening matter, apparently this is a revised and expanded version of Braunbeck's Fear in a Handful of Dust: Horror As a Way of Life, which originally came out from Wildside Press in 2003 as a pricey limited edition costing $30+ in USD.

[ATDrake]

Free again from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Blind But Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson by musician and former university professor Kent Gustavson (Wikipedia), his biography of the late Grammy Award-winning and National Medal of Arts recipient Doc Watson (Wikipedia), who I found out was a very important & influential Appalachian/bluegrass musician indeed from MR members who were themselves guitar players when this book previously popped up free a couple of years back, so it's nice to see it come around free again (although it's kind of too bad that remaining KDP Select exclusive-or-else means that average people who shop from other stores will likely never see it in a form they can easily use without having to learn how to use "the tools").

Anyway, originally out from small press Blooming Twig in 2010, and the author's Wikipedia entry says that this "won the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Award for best biography and was a finalist in the 2010 book of the year awards presented by ForeWord Magazine."

Before his death at the age of 89, Doc Watson was the true voice of Appalachian music. After being discovered in 1960 by folklorist Ralph Rinzler, the blind guitarist graced thousands of American stages with his down-home wit, deep knowledge of traditional songs, and his blistering flatpicking guitar. Over 52 years in the music business, Doc influenced every musician with a pulse, from Bob Dylan to Jerry Garcia, and from Gillian Welch to Pete Seeger.

[tubemonkey]

Downpour has 4 audiobooks on sale this weekend about early American history.

Downpour -- Weekend Spotlight -- exp 23 Nov

Thanksgiving is just days away, so why not delve into some early American history! This weekend only save up to 60% on four great histories of the early struggles and the genesis of the United States!

• $9.98 - Between Two Worlds -- Malcolm Gaskill
• $14.99 - Desperate Sons -- Les Standiford
• $15.39 - Savage Kingdom -- Benjamin Woolley
• $19.25 - Making Haste from Babylon -- Nick Bunker

Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans

Over 350,000 intrepid English men, women, and children migrated to America in the seventeenth century, leaving behind their homeland for an uncertain future on distant shores. Whether they settled in Jamestown, Salem, or Barbados, these early English migrants—entrepreneurs, soldiers, and pilgrims alike—sought to re-create their old country in the new land.

Desperate Sons: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, et al

This groundbreaking narrative is a historical political thriller that explores the role of the Sons of Liberty in the American Revolution.

More than two hundred years ago, a group of British colonists in America decided that the conditions under which they were governed had become intolerable. Angry and frustrated that King George III and the British Parliament had ignored their lawful complaints and petitions, they decided to take action.

Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown

Four centuries ago, and fourteen years before the Mayflower, a group of men— led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy—left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607 and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River. Despite their shortcomings, and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost that laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World

At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across the night sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to the Arctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning of doom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrims prepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, the atmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men and women readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divine retribution. Against this background, and amid deep economic depression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile.

[itisbomb]

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
by George Packer

is $4.99 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Unwinding-Inne...=the+unwinding

Below is the blurb:
The 2013 National Book Award Winner
A New York Times Bestseller
Selected by New York Times’ critic Dwight Garner as a Favorite Book of 2013
One of Amazon's Best Books of 2013
A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
A Washington Post Best Political Book of 2013
An NPR Best Book of 2013
A New Republic Best Book of 2013
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of 2013
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

A riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation

American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.

The Unwinding journeys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet’s significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era’s leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics that capture the flow of events and their undercurrents.

The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation. Packer’s novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America is his most ambitious work to date.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 each to commemorate the anniversary of the assassination of JFK (good through Nov 23rd, or so I'm getting the impression from the few that were given expiry dates in the newsletter) from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard stores, prices good for Canada & US, may possibly be on sale in other regions, etc.):

• Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (geo-restricted to US-only), a 1980 CWA Gold Dagger winner by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Summers (Wikipedia), which the blurb says is updated with the latest evidence.
• Kennedy Justice by National Book Award-winning journalist Victor S. Navasky (Wikipedia). This one is actually about Robert F. Kennedy and itself was also a finalist for a National Book Award.
• Conversations with Kennedy by the late long-time Washington Post journalist Benjamin C. Bradlee (Wikipedia), who was both a professional and a personal friend of JFK and was also involved in exposing the Watergate scandal.
• Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties by Richard N. Goodwin (Wikipedia), an advisor and speechwriter to the Kennedys and Lyndon B. Johnson as well. This is more of a behind-the-scenes overview of the decade and history-making stuff he was personally involved with than a dedicated Kennedy book like the rest.
• Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy by Kenneth P. O'Donnell (Wikipedia) & David F. Powers (Wikipedia), two of JFK's top aides who were riding in the car behind him on the day of the assassination, according to Wikipedia.
• A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O’Donnell by Helen O'Donnell, granddaughter of Kenneth P.
• With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit by Dale K. Myers (Wikipedia), who's won an Emmy Award for his animated re-creation of the assassination, according to Wikipedia.
• Oswald's Game by Jean Davison, a biography focusing on the life and possible motivations of Lee Harvey Oswald.
• Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner (Wikipedia), who apparently specializes in famous figure assassination books and is plagued by a plagiarism scandal (and possibly also complicit in some shenanigans involving the copyright and ensuing royalties of To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee, but that did eventually get settled in the author's favour, it looks like), according to Wikipedia. Nevertheless, this one was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for History, also according to Wikipedia, and although it's apparently controversial and discredited, you may be interested out of sheer morbid curiosity.

I think this is all of them. ORM doesn't seem to have a dedicated promo page for this like they do for their other grouped theme sale items.

[Little.Egret]

Professor Krylov's Navy: Memoir of a Naval Architect by Alexey Krylov & Laura Meyerovich (Translator)

Memoirs of Alexey Krylov, Russian naval engineer, scientist, and businessman, about his childhood, his education in Russia and France in the 19th century, his years in the Naval Academy, and his naval career and business endeavors before and after the Russian Revolution.

(review) In my opinion Krylov's memoir belongs to the best in this type of literature. This smart witty man was talented in many different areas. His book full of bright precise observations and wise thoughts about the time and people around him is very enjoyable and informative reading.
==

Even Sir Basil Zaharoff turns up.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P4MNO52/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00P4MNO52/
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00P4MNO52/

[bookmarked]

If anyone is looking for computer books, the Pearson Education stores are having Black Friday sales. Buy 1 - Save 35%, Buy 2+ - Save 55% on books, eBooks, and videos. Their ebooks are DRM-free but watermarked with your name on each page. Discount offer expires 11:59 p.m. EST November 29, 2014.

Que Publishing
Microsoft Press
InformIT
Cisco Press
Pearson IT Certification

Note that the offer pages list some titles but pretty much anything in each store is eligible for the discount (see the fine print for the few exceptions).

[GtrsRGr8]

Oregon Country: The Story of the 1843 Oregon Trail Migration. By T.J. Hanson. Rated 4 1/2 stars, from 329 reviews. Print list price $33.95; digital (list?) price: $3.99; Kindle price now $1.99. Inkwater Press, publisher. 668 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Country...rail+Migration.

Book Description
The Story of the 1843 Oregon Trail Migration

This is a journey of destiny, marking the beginnings of the new American Western frontier ...

Oregon Country is, truly, an American story.

Become part of the first caravan of wagons to journey West of the Rocky Mountains to a land known only to trappers, missionaries, and Indian tribes. Travel with the men and women of Oregon Country—an account of the Oregon Migration of 1843, peopled with sharply rendered protagonists and real characters who actually made the perilous journey over the “Trail to Oregon.” Join these adventurous emigrants as they leave the depression-wrought United states for the fabled Oregon Country—a place said to be filled with riches, free for anyone willing to risk the dangers of a 2,000-mile trek. Organize your outfit in Independence, Missouri, and set out with the Oregon Emigrating Company across vast prairies, treacherous rivers, and unforgiving mountain ranges. Traverse the Rockies’ South Pass and the Snake River Plains, then cut your way through the thick forests of the Blue Mountains. Ride the wild and dangerous Columbia River to your final destination, the end of the Oregon Trail at Oregon City. Live through this tale of determination, hope, and courage, and witness what these few pioneers accomplished: the creation of a new frontier.