FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - 2015

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 for today only (June 26th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, price valid at the usual Canada & US retailers, may or may not be discounted elsewhere, etc.):

Stonewall by award-winning historian, academic, and activist Martin Duberman (Wikipedia), his book about the historical context and events of the eponymous riots (Wikipedia) which led to the mobilization of the US' modern LGBT rights movement, incorporating first-hand eyewitness accounts, and following 6 gay, lesbian, and trans individuals and the ripple effects on their lives over the years as well as conflicts and schisms in the movement, originally published by Dutton in 1993.

This has praise in the editorial reviews section and a recommendation from the Library Journal.

Kobo has developed a nasty habit of expiring Open Road deals and freebies earlier than their usual midnight Eastern Time server switchover, so here's additional linkage for B&N, Amazon, & Google Play. ETA: I should note that Kobo has apparently changed the catalogue listing since the last time this was on sale, so if you think you might have gotten it then, you'll need to check your library directly to see if you have it already.

Description
A powerful firsthand account of the Stonewall riots and the birth of the modern gay rights movement

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” —President Obama, 2013 Inaugural Address

In the summer of 1969, the Stonewall Inn, one of the few places where gay men could gather, was a mafia-run unlicensed bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. An unforeseen raid on the night of June 28 by federal agents ignited the now-famous five days of Stonewall riots that kindled the nation’s gay rights movement. Expertly weaving personal, eyewitness accounts of the riots, Martin Duberman’s Stonewall is an engrossing look at how six individuals, from distinctly different backgrounds, helped bring political and social awakening to the gay liberation movement.

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors

The Eiffel Tower: The History of Paris' Most Famous Landmark

The End of World War II: The History of the Battles that Ended the Fighting in Europe and the Pacific

American Legends: The Life of Gloria Swanson


http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...=charles+river

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...=charles+river
http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...=charles+river

[ATDrake]

For the old school gaming fans in the audience, StoryBundle has a new offer consisting of books about classic tabletop and video games until mid-July:

The Summer Video Game Bundle contains histories about TSR & Dungeons & Dragons, Japanese game developers, a general book about how video games are made, some best-of and other issues from gaming magazines, and more. There's even a title about a company that used to make video games specifically for the Christian religious market, which I admit I'm kind of morbidly curious about.

Anyway, at the basic pay-what-you-want tier (minimum $5), you get 3 books and a magazine issue:

• How Video Games Are Made by Russ Pitts
• Boss Fight Books: Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham
• Put This In Your Brain: The Best of Unwinnable Weekly by Stu Horvath & the Unwinnable Writers

At the $12 top-tier, the additional 3 books and a set of magazines are:

• Designers & Dragons - 1970s, 1980s, 1990s & 2000s by Shannon Appelcline
• The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers by John Szczepaniak
• HG 101 Presents: An Unofficial Guide to Castlevania by Kurt Kalata
• SCROLL: #12 - Introducing MSX (Plus #1-11 Bonus!) by Ray Barnholt

Unlike Humble Bundle, there doesn't seem to be any way to top up your purchase if you decide to spring for a higher tier later, so please make sure of which one you want before buying, if you're interested.

Speaking of Humble Bundle, IIRC I only cross-posted this to the Comics & Kids/YA megathreads when it came out, but their current offer, which is good until next Wednesday 11 AM Pacific Time:

Humble School's Out Book Bundle presented by No Starch Press

consists of a whole bunch of mostly kid-friendly (but some adult-oriented) geeky science & tech toys & computer programming books (including a kid-level graphic novel about plate tectonics, an illustrated guide to the periodic table of elements, and a university level manga guide to databases), and has added 3 more titles (all repeats from previous HBs which you might have missed) to their mid-tier.

X-link to the DRM-free megathread for details.

[John K]

$2.99

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...rd_i=154606011

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors

The Lawrence Massacre: The History of the Civil War's Most Notorious Guerrilla Attack

A reader adds

Lawrence is one of the sleepiest university towns you can encounter - especially since it has both KU and Haskell Indian Nations University in it's parish. In Kansas terms it's a huge city - by everyone else's standards it's a town or possibly even crossroads.
It's history is - frankly - bloody and violent with no holds barred and your short book was a great summary of some of the horrors of the civil war and the tensions that still exist 150 years later. It also has a brilliant emporium called "Brits!" that imports liquorice allsorts, Marmite and coopers marmalade.
There are some great Renaissance fairs in and around, an open air amphitheatre with college plays and tailgate cookouts.
If you are travelling that way be careful - it's the only wiggle on the highway for 438 miles so most accidents happen here. But well worth a visit.

Still free

The Eiffel Tower: The History of Paris' Most Famous Landmark

The End of World War II: The History of the Battles that Ended the Fighting in Europe and the Pacific

American Legends: The Life of Gloria Swanson


http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...=charles+river

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...=charles+river
http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...=charles+river

[GtrsRGr8]

The reason that "shrimp" is in the title is that mangrove forests are being destroyed, in part, to create shrimp farms.

Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea. By Kennedy Warne. Rated 4.5 stars, but from only 4 reviews at Amazon; rated 3.65, from 26 ratings at GoodReads. Print list price $30.00; digital list price $25.95; Kindle price now $0.00. Island Press, publisher. 200 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Let-Them-Eat-S...sts+of+the+Sea.

Book Description
What’s the connection between a platter of jumbo shrimp at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America’s Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt-water forests, but for those who depend on their riches, mangroves are indispensable. They are natural storm barriers, home to innumerable exotic creatures—from crabeating vipers to man-eating tigers—and provide food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they are being destroyed to make way for shrimp farming and other coastal development. For those who stand in the way of these industries, the consequences can be deadly.

In Let Them Eat Shrimp, Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. A tangle of snaking roots and twisted trunks, mangroves are often dismissed as foul wastelands. In fact, they are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, crabs, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities from Florida to South America to New Zealand. Generations have built their lives around mangroves and consider these swamps sacred.

To shrimp farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land on which they stand often has no title, so with a nod and wink from a compliant official, it can be turned from a public resource to a private possession. The forests are bulldozed, their traditional users dispossessed.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

The reason that "shrimp" is in the title is that mangrove forests are being destroyed, in part, to create shrimp farms.

Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea. By Kennedy Warne. Rated 4.5 stars, but from only 4 reviews at Amazon; rated 3.65, from 26 ratings at GoodReads. Print list price $30.00; digital list price $25.95; Kindle price now $0.00. Island Press, publisher. 200 pages.

Also free @ B&N (also UK), Kobo & iTunes & Google Play (all available to Canadians), as Island Press books usually are.

Nice to see finally another quality-looking (the author writes for National Geographic & Canadian Geographic and a whole bunch of other such magazines) science/nature/conservation freebie from them after the last batch at the beginning of the year.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Also free @ B&N (also UK), Kobo & iTunes & Google Play (all available to Canadians), as Island Press books usually are.

Nice to see finally another quality-looking (the author writes for National Geographic & Canadian Geographic and a whole bunch of other such magazines) science/nature/conservation freebie from them after the last batch at the beginning of the year.

Thanks for information about the author, and the "legwork" on the additional vendors for the ebook.

[ATDrake]

^

You're welcome, and thanks for posting your heads-up as well. I science freebies with good credentials, and the more places people can grab them, the merrier (which will hopefully encourage the publishers to offer more ).

If anyone's interested, here's a lengthy interview (approx 45 mins) with the author of Let Them Eat Shrimp about the book and the issues it discusses, over at Treehugger.com where this was a previous featured spotlight book of theirs:

Author Kennedy Warne Discusses the True Cost of Seafood (Video)

[koland]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Thanks for information about the author, and the "legwork" on the additional vendors for the ebook.

Thanks. EPUB at Kobo, Topaz format on Kindle.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

^

You're welcome, and thanks for posting your heads-up as well. I science freebies with good credentials, and the more places people can grab them, the merrier (which will hopefully encourage the publishers to offer more ).

If anyone's interested, here's a lengthy interview (approx 45 mins) with the author of Let Them Eat Shrimp about the book and the issues it discusses, over at Treehugger.com where this was a previous featured spotlight book of theirs:

Author Kennedy Warne Discusses the True Cost of Seafood (Video)

Excellent. At the point that I am in life now, I would rather listen to an audiobook or watch a video than read a book.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by koland

Thanks. EPUB at Kobo, Topaz format on Kindle.

Thanks to you, too.

[GtrsRGr8]

That's 92% of the regular digital price.

Sandra Day O'Connor. By Joan Biskupic. Rated 4.1 stars, from 34 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $15.99; regular(?) digital price $11.79; Kindle price now $0.99. HarperCollins e-books, publisher. 437 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Sandra-Day-OCo...QT8YBH6JKYR1SN.

Book Description
Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned. She was called the most powerful woman in America, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Then, just one year short of a quarter century on the bench, she surprised her colleagues and the nation by announcing her retirement.

Drawing on information from once-private papers of the justices, hundreds of interviews with legal and political insiders, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, Joan Biskupic examines O'Connor's remarkable career, providing an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law. The portrait that emerges is of a complex and multifaceted woman: lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. To all appearances, she was the polite lady in pearls, handbag on her arm. But in the back rooms of politics and the law, she was a determined, focused strategist. O'Connor was the feminist who, rather than rebel against the male-dominated system, worked from within -- and succeeded.

As Biskupic demonstrates, Justice O'Connor became much more than a "first." During her twenty-four-year tenure, she wrote the decisions on some of the most controversial social battles of our time. O'Connor's tie-breaking opinions on issues such as abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, and religious freedom will have a lasting effect far into the future. O'Connor also cast one of the five votes that cut off the Florida recounts and allowed George W. Bush to take the White House in the 2000 contested presidential election. With an eye to the American people and a keen sense of public attitudes, she worked behind the scenes to shape the law and transform the legal standards by which future cases will be decided.

From O'Connor's isolated upbringing on the Lazy B ranch in Arizona through her time as a state legislator to her rise as a justice -- along the way confronting her own personal challenges and crises, including breast cancer -- Biskupic presents a vivid, astute depiction of the justice -- and of the woman beneath the black robe. In so doing, Sandra Day O'Connor also provides an unprecedented look inside the exclusive, famously secretive High Court.

[GtrsRGr8]

Ninety-nine cents represents a BIG, 91% markdown from the digital list price.

A timely markdown--"The Donald" has been in the news (again), for a couple of reasons, in the last few weeks.

I notice that Donald Trump is one of the authors of this book about him. I'm sure that he will talk about himself in his usual humble, self-effacing way (hahaha).

The Whispersync audio is only $5.99.

Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life. By Donald J. Trump; Bill Zanker. Rated 4.3 stars, from 136 reviews at the present moment. Print list price N/A; digital list(?) price $10.99; Kindle price now $0.99. HarperCollins e-books, pubisher. 386 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Think-BIG-Kick...iness+and+Life.

Book Description
Donald J. Trump is an icon: the very definition of the American success story. The star of The Apprentice and developer of some of the planet's most prestigious real estate, he's been on the bottom and risen to become one of the world's wealthiest men.

Bill Zanker started The Learning Annex with $5,000 and grew it into a $5 million a year company. That was before he met Donald Trump. Thirty months later, after Zanker learned to think BIG himself, The Learning Annex is generating over $100 million a year in sales—and still growing.

Together, they're living examples of how thinking BIG and knowing when to back up your opinions aggressively—regardless of what your critics or opponents might say—can help you maximize your personal and professional achievements. For the first time ever, you too can learn Trump's secrets to thinking BIG and kicking ass! Learn:

- Momentum: the Big Mo. How to get it and how to get it back.
- Revenge: how and when to get it (and why it's so sweet).
- "I love you, now sign this!" Why contracts in business and personal life are so important.
- Real-life stories from people who've applied the think BIG formula in their own lives.

These strategies are proven and attested to by those who've learned to think BIG from Donald Trump and found success in their own lives. Bill Zanker used Donald's strategies to grow the revenues of The Learning Annex twenty times in under three years. Both of them have been down and out, and know what it's like to feel the whole world's against you—and both have risen to dizzying heights of success by thinking BIG and kicking ass! It is an attitude that can be easily learned.

[GtrsRGr8]

I wasn't familiar with this book. From looking it over a little bit, here is my "take" on it. If this is a history, it is a political history. If it is a political history, it appears to be a left-leaning history. As the title says, it is a history of "modern" Britain--it appears that that means the last 50 years or so.

A History of Modern Britain. By Andrew Marr. Rated 4.7 stars, but from only 9 reviews at Amazon; rated 3.94, from 1,099 ratings at GoodReads. Print list price $15.95; regular digital price $8.79; Kindle price now $2.99. Pan, pubisher. 672 pages. http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern...8YH2WCPCN54175.

Book Description
A History of Modern Britain confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders think they know what they are doing, but find themselves confounded. Every time, the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted.

Throughout, Britain is a country on the edge – first of invasion, then of bankruptcy, then on the vulnerable front line of the Cold War and later in the forefront of the great opening up of capital and migration now reshaping the world. This history follows all the political and economic stories, but deals too with comedy, cars, the war against homosexuals, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks, Margaret Thatcher’s wonderful good luck, political lies and the true heroes of British theatre.