FREE/BARGAIN - General Fiction, Literature - 2014

[alee]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I thought a few of these might be interesting but the link gives you no description, just a book cover you can't click on. I used one of my throw away emails to see if I could get a description if I signed up.

Those are not the books you can choose from. You can choose from these that I have no interest in. These publishers can't do anything right can they?

I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel
Stephen Hunter

Underworld: A Novel
Don Delillo

Wishes
Jude Deveraux

Daughter of Darkness
V.C. Andrews

Everyone Worth Knowing
Lauren Weisberger

Widow's Web
Jennifer Estep

The Lions of Lucerne
Brad Thor

They sent me an email with the code "OTS2" for BookShout, but the link in the email actually used the code "OTS3", which gave the latter set of books. I used it, and went back and manually entered "OTS2", which gave me the first set of books, and I was able to use that, too. Out of curiosity, I decided to try "OTS1" (expired) and "OTS4" (invalid).

So it seems that you can probably get two free books, one from each set, but you have to use BookShout to read them.

[peachiekene]

Free

Gatsby Girls by F. Scott Fitzgerald

She was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl -- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, "I married the heroine of my stories." All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda.

Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century -- the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald's stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the "flapper" to life and confirmed that America was changing faster than ever before. Women were bobbing their hair, drinking and flirting shamelessly, and Fitzgerald brought these exciting Gatsby Girls to life in the pages of the Post.

A foreword by Jeff Nilsson, archivist for the Post, adds historical context to this wonderful, new collection, which is highlighted by an introduction written by Fitzgerald himself. Each story is accompanied by the original illustrations and the beautiful cover images from the Post. Read the stories that made F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the most beloved writers in America -- and around the world -- still today.

This is B&N's Free Friday offering and appears (thus far) to be a B&N exclusive Freebie.

B&N

[GtrsRGr8]

Delphi Classics, a part of the Delphi publishing company, has a brand new Facebook page. "To announce this news," they are offering a free poetry ebook--an anthology of "thousands of the World's Greatest Poems ever composed." It's available both as an ePub and a Kindle/mobi.

I know that you probably have a dozen anthologies of the world's greatest poetry (according to their editors) lying around at home. So do I. But do you have one in digital form? Do you have this anthology; this one may have bazillions (ack! the spell checker didn't flag that!) of poems that none of the other anthologies do. You wouldn't want to live a deprived life by not having copies of these other poems, would you? I thought not. So keep reading.

A simple way to obtain the ebook is to go to this page: https://www.facebook.com/notes/delph...86165844873258. You should see a link to download Kindle/mobi and a link to download the ePub. Click on the link of the format that you want, or both of them if you feel so inclined, and the download(s) should start very soon.

I would have given you direct links to the downloads, if I could've figured out how to do it (Ack!). Anyway, it's still easy peasy just like I've given it. I don't know that you even have to log in to Facebook (I didn't have to, but I think that I may always be logged in) and you don't have to say that you "Like" Delphi Classics to get the book. No hoops to have to jump through, I like that!

[ATDrake]

Free from the start-up small press re-publisher via KDP Select @ Amazon:

The Cruelest Lie by Milton E. Lyles, a coming-of-age suspenseful literary drama novel which looks to be of the Southern Gothic sort, set in a Louisiana small town with plenty of murders, lies, and hidden secrets being dragged into the light, originally out from small press Zinn Communications in 1998.

The CRUELEST LIE is a gritty telling of treachery, greed, love, betrayal, and courage set against the lush background of the Louisiana bayou country. The story centers around the deaths of three young men and the small town corruption and avarice that threatens to destroy an innocent boy setting in motion a deadly struggle between integrity and iniquity, truth and deceit.

Bo LeDeaux, at seventeen, by fate and cruel circumstances is compelled to escape the ruthless judgment of Sheriff Gilbow Brown, a man who uses the law to fuel his insatiable appetite for money and power. Bo’s confrontation with the sheriff is complicated by the murderous scheming of Tommy Sligo. A madman acting on the commands of an unforgiving God, and by Bo’s own wild mother, who fights to preserve her own ebbing sanity and her insatiable desire for cocaine long enough to save her son from the sheriff’s malice. Bo, Ruby and Gilbow Brown engage in a deadly struggle that plays Ruby’s beauty and cunning against Bo’s youthful isolation and Gilbow’s brute strength and unmitigated corruption, a struggle certain to doom Bo if Gilbow triumphs.

The ensuing melee unearths the web of lies that grips their small Louisiana town, lies that delineate past sins, heartless betrayals, brutal murders, and unremitting evil until only one lie remains, the cruelest lie that threatens to destroy them all.

[Dr. Drib]

I love Southern Gothic fiction, so just now picked it up.

Thank you!

[Purple Lady]

Free from Amazon - Before I Forget by Leonard Pitts Jr. I haven't read any of his fiction, but I always enjoyed his columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

This powerful novel of three generations of black men bound by blood — and by histories of mutual love, fear, and frustration — gives author Leonard Pitts the opportunity to explore the painful truths of black men's lives, especially as they play out in the fraught relations of fathers and sons. As 50-year-old Mo tries to reach out to his increasingly tuned-out son Trey (who himself has become an unwed teenaged father), he realizes that the burden of grief and anger he carries over his own estranged father has everything to do with the struggles he encounters with his son. Part road novel, part character study, and part social critique, and written in compulsively readable prose, Before I Forget is the work of a major new voice in American fiction. Pitts knows inside and out the difficulties facing black men as they grapple with the complexities of their roles as fathers.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056IJJOY

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $2.99 for today only (Nov 19th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard stores, price good for Canada & US, possibly other regions as well, etc.):

Twice Upon a Time by the late Daniel Stern (Wikipedia), a collection of his literary stories remixing other literary stories, originally published in various literary magazines and first collected by W. W. Norton & Co. in 1992.

This is a bit pricier than ORM's fiction sale titles usually are, but I'll note that Stern's two other collections of reimagined classics from them are currently priced at $9-13 CAD each, depending on where you look.

More sly and imaginative tributes to some of the greatest writing of the modern age, from author Daniel Stern

In Twice Told Tales, Stern wonderfully reimagined classics of world literature—from Forster to Freud—in homage to their authors and the power of great writing.Twice Upon a Time continues the project, though this time Stern goes further, weaving stories around texts as diverse as Marx and Engels’s The Communist Manifesto and the poetry of Wallace Stevens. In “Bartleby the Scrivener,” Melville’s famous copyist is relocated to Hollywood; the hero is an agent who “would prefer not to retire.”

Infectiously clever, Twice Upon a Time enchants like the best of the authors to whom it pays tribute.

[ATDrake]

Free from the small press publisher via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Darwin & Fitzroy by long-time actress and occasional playwright Juliet Aykroyd, a play based on the complicated relationship of Charles Darwin (I really shouldn't have to link you to Wikipedia for him, no matter how poorly you might have been educated regarding evolution) and Robert FitzRoy (Wikipedia), Captain of the HMS Beagle. This has been performed in theatres and here's a post from the British Society for Literature and Science's blog about it.

DARWIN & FITZROY is the first published play in nearly 150 years that authentically portrays Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, two iconic figures in English history, and captures their turbulent, complex and competitive 35-year relationship that started with the voyage of the Beagle in 1831 and ended with FitzRoy’s suicide in 1865.

In life, what began with fledgling 23-year-old naturalist Charles Darwin being accepted by Commander Robert FitzRoy of the HMS Beagle to join his five-year voyage of exploration of South America and the world for the British Admiralty ended 35 years later with FitzRoy dying impoverished, buried in an unconsecrated grave in the lonely yard of the All Saints Church in Upper Norwood, while Darwin was interred near the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey as a scientific genius for the ages.

And it was during the voyage of the Beagle that FitzRoy’s religious orthodoxy came face-to-face with Darwin’s early theories of evolution. From discussions in FitzRoy’s cabin in the 1830s off the coast of South America to the heated debates of today, the clash of these two geniuses has been felt for centuries as people try to explain the world through the prism of creationism vs. evolution.

Playwright Juliet Aykroyd was originally approached by Julian Hunt, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, CB, FRS, who graciously wrote the Foreword to this publication, when he was the Chief Executive of the UK Meteorological Office after he had seen her play about the architect John Vanbrugh. Lord Hunt was the ninth Director of the Meteorological Office, Admiral Robert FitzRoy being the first, and he was interested in bringing FitzRoy’s contributions during the first half of the 19th century to light; contributions that included his commanding of the Beagle and the invention of the daily weather report. Drawing on her personal history as a professional actor and as an award-winning playwright, it was Juliet Aykroyd’s idea that the play should be about the stormy relationship between Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy.

The first performances of the play were at the University of Reading and the Bloomsbury Theatre in London when Lord Hunt was retiring his post in 1997 and subsequent performances included one at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 2009.

Free from the small press publisher via KDP Select @ Amazon:

The Forbidden Ride: An Icelandic Love Story by Gerald & Loretta Hausman (Wikipedia), the former of whom is a folkloric storyteller with a number of literary awards and quite a few trad-publications to his credit. This is some kind of newly-written historical literary coming-of-age magical realism-sounding adventure drama set in 10th century Iceland, and I have this inordinate fondness for cultures which produce dragon boats and Iceland is my 2nd favourite country, and thus I'm posting this.

THE FORBIDDEN RIDE is the story of 15-year-old Freyja and the love of her life Jarn who is 17. Set in 10th century Iceland, a time of harsh laws and cruel men, Freyja falls in love with Jarn, a handsome young man from the next settlement, only to have him ripped from her by her father Sigurd as he enforces a merciless, ancient Icelandic law against Jarn for the crime of riding Sigurd's spirit horse Faxi without permission.

Surrounded by customs and rules that make little sense to her, Freyja must overcome her lack of status as a young woman in a man’s world of brutal justice and blood in order to save her family from banishment and shame, and with the help of the magical shaman-horse Faxi, to regain her freedom to be with Jarn.

[piperclassique]

Thank you, ATDrake.
Just a note that most, maybe all, of Darwin's books are available at Gutenberg
link to the Origin of species

[ATDrake]

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

From Here: Three Short Tales by Elizabeth Malin, who under the penname of Libby Sternberg has had a few mystery novels small-pressed from Five Star and Bancroft, and under the penname of Libby Malin is a Sourcebooks-published author of humorous chick-lit/romantic comedy.

These ones are general literary/contemporary fiction tales.

FROM HERE: A semi-retired opera star prepares for a role with a small regional troupe, reminiscing about his life and a now-deceased mentor, a tenor who sang so beautifully he brought even the jaded narrator to tears.

THE DIVA AND THE DRUG ADDICT: Two very different individuals are thrown together at a halfway house after spending time in therapy for personal problems. They learn to accommodate each other, but struggle with their singular challenges.

RUSSIAN TROPICS: An obscure Romanov princess escapes to Florida with her uncle, but when he dies, she must make her way in the strange land alone, always hoping her family will join her. Fifteen years later, she works as a maid for a gentle employer who offers her a brighter future...just as a hurricane threatens the land and the truth threatens her heart.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $2.99 for today only (Nov 24th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard Canada & US stores, may also be discounted in other regions as well, etc.):

The White Notebook by the late 1947 Nobel Prize-winning French author Andre Gidé (Wikipedia), translated by Wade Baskin. This is the 1st part of his 1891 semi-autobiographical novel Les cahiers d'André Walter and comes with an extensive introductory note by the translator.

This first published work lays bare the early brilliance and philosophical conflicts of André Gide, a towering figure in French literature

Nobel Prize–winning writer André Gide lays bare his adolescent psyche in this early work, first conceived and published as part of his novel The Notebooks of André Walter, completed when he was just twenty years old. This profoundly personal work draws heavily on his religious upbringing and private journals to tell the story of a young man who, like the author, pines for his forbidden love, cousin Emmanuelle.

This unique portrait of Gide as a young man presents the passions and conflicts, temptations and anguish he would explore in maturity.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 for today only (Nov 25th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard Canada & US stores, may also be discounted in other regions, etc.):

The Times Are Never So Bad: A Novella and Eight Short Stories by the late Andre Dubus (Wikipedia, and father of the namesake writer of the Oprah Book Club Selection House of Sand and Fog), who's won a bunch of literary prizes and whom the Amazon bio-blurb says "is considered one of the greatest American short story writers of the twentieth century". This was originally published in 1983 from David R. Godine, which was apparently a Canadian imprint, according to the author's introduction.

Dubus’s fourth collection is a compassionate depiction of lives that are never as neat as his characters would have them be

In his fourth collection, Andre Dubus revisits the themes of infidelity and fallibility that he has been known to explore with such unflinching honesty and unfailing respect. Set in the New England landscape and populated by the men and women he has come to claim as his own, these stories are ultimately characterized by their extraordinary ordinariness. They are a reverent testament to the quiet sadness of humble lives.

Deeply moving and insightful, The Times Are Never So Bad is yet another masterful work by a writer whose Chekhovian sensibilities inform—yet never distract from—his own fully realized perspective.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Andre Dubus including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $2.99 for today only (Nov 26th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard stores, price good for US, geo-restricted as Random House still owns the rights in Canada and possibly other Commonwealth nations):

The Box Garden: A Novel by the late US-born Canadian-immigrant Pulitzer Prize & Governor General's Award-winner Carol Shields (Wikipedia), her 1977 literary fiction novel.

The story of a woman dancing on the edge of a difficult life

Ever since her husband left her—seemingly vanishing into thin air—Charleen Forrest has supported herself and her fifteen-year-old son on what she earns as an obscure poet and part-time gofer for an even more obscure scientific journal. But when her estranged mother remarries, prompting an unplanned reunion, Charleen finds herself moving out of her familiar existence.

A dazzling counterpoint to Shields’s debut novel, Small Ceremonies, imbued with her scathing wit and dead-on observations, The Box Garden is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who finds transformation—and happiness—where she least expects it.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $2.99 in the US-only as part of Kobo's Black Friday sale (may be matched in other stores):

Blindness by the late 1998 Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago (Wikipedia), his 1995 sfnal literary fiction novel exploring the personal and societal effects of a sudden unexplained city-wide occurrence of Exactly What It Says In The Title, and one of his best-known novels, according to its Wikipedia entry. Apparently I own the film version (IMDB, Wikipedia) of this, which was made by Canadians, on Blu-Ray, which I should someday watch.

This edition is out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and appears to be only discounted in the US, but is couponable (I know what I'm going to be using my otherwise too-low-value Kobo contest codes upon).

ETA: there's a The Collected Novels of José Saramago omnibus edition, containing 12 of his works, including Blindness, with a new introduction by noted sf/fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin (ISFDB, Wikipedia), which seems to be available @ Amazon & B&N (geo-restricted to US-only, it would seem), which probably provides better value for money at its current price of $20.99 USD, if you've a compatible account.

ETA 2: Huh. Apparently the omnibus edition used to be available via Kobo but is no longer, was dirt-cheap for $7 at some points, had its contents futzed with and then restored, and generally had a surprising amount of drama surrounding it, according to its long-running dedicated MR bargain thread. I think I'll set a price-watch alert and see if it drops back down again (or HMH decide to withdraw it entirely).

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Golden Notebook by the late 2007 Nobel Prize-winning British author Doris Lessing (Wikipedia), her 1962 literary mid-20th-century historical period-spanning personal/psychological/political journey of self-discovery novel (Wikipedia), which the blurb calls her best-known and most influential novel.

This edition is out from Harper's Perennial imprint, is non-couponable, and appears geo-restricted to the US only.

Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

[Froide]

Wildside's new FREE EBOOK MONDAY Release! (For December 1, 2014)

The Christmas MEGAPACK™: 25 Modern and Classic Yuletide Stories

Christmas—the very word conjures up memories of the most wondrous childhood holiday of all—filled with the glitter of colorfully-wrapped presents, family visits, carols, photographs, decorating the tree, attendance at church to celebrate the birth of the Christ child, and tummy-stuffing dinners tucked with treats seen at no other time of the year. But the yule holiday has been celebrated for at least two centuries in North America, and our writers have been producing memorable stories about this unique day for almost as long.

Here are 25 Christmas stories old and new, tales to delight, to entrance, to beguile, and even to sadden a whole new generation of readers. From Nina Kiriki Hoffman's poignant "Lazelle Family Christmas" to Jacob A. Riis's gut-wrenching portrait of the holiday in the 1890s slums of New York to Johnston McCulley's riveting tale of Christmas in the Old West, we experience every possible facet of this most precious day of the year.

So sit back and relive your memories once again, as recreated through the eyes of some of the finest writers of their time!

Included in this volume are:
INTRODUCTION, by Robert Reginald
THE SUBSTITUTE SHOPPER, by Edna A. Collamore
CAN’T SEE THE TREE FOR THE FOREST by Skadi meic Beorh
THE GIFT, by Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen
SANTA’S STOLEN SACK, by S. Omar Barker
CHRISTMAS TREE DETAIL, by Johnston McCulley
THE SANTA TRAP, by Robin Aurelian
LAZELLE FAMILY CHRISTMAS, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
THE CHRISTMAS CRAZIES: A GRIFF & FATS STORY, by Gary Lovisi
SCROOGE 3000, by Michael McCarty
A HELL OF A CHRISTMAS, by Michael McCarty
THE CHRISTMAS BANE, by S. Clayton Rhodes
THE CHRISTMAS EVE GHOST, by Ernest Dudley
DOG EAT DOG: A CHRISTMAS TALE, by Robert Reginald
WHEN THE YULE LOG BURNS, by Leona Dalrymple
MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS, by Jacob A. Riis
THE RAPTURE OF HETTY, by Mary Hallock Foote
THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL, by Henry Van Dyke
CHRISTMAS: A STORY, by Zona Gale
COLONEL CROCKETT’S CO-OPERATIVE CHRISTMAS, by Rupert Hughes
THE BIRDS’ CHRISTMAS CAROL, by Kate Douglas Wiggin
THE MERRYVALE BOYS: CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS AT MERRYVALE, by Alice Hale Burnett
PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD-WILL TO DOGS, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
HOW IT HAPPENED, by Kate Langley Bosher
THE LITTLE CITY OF HOPE: A CHRISTMAS STORY, by F. Marion Crawford
ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE EVENING , by Grace S. Richmond