FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

If you missed any, check Gutenberg (and Amazon)

https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search...sher=palatine*

Thanks.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 from various HarperCollins imprints in Canada & the US (should be available at all the usual retailers):

• The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by bestselling author Bill Bryson (Wikipedia), his popular book about the past history and various quirks of the language to the present day, which has its own Wikipedia entry.
• Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States collected by the highly influential late African-American novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston (Wikipedia). Wikipedia says these were originally collected during the 1920s and then posthumously published from a manuscript discovered in the Smithsonian archives.

Also @ $1.99 (couponable/VIP-eligible @ Kobo), a whole bunch of biographies from various publishers, apparently as leftover promo for International Women's Day a couple of weeks ago (some of these were featured during Kobo's Women's Day sale, and I picked up a few then but was expecting the prices to bounce back up like they did for most of the other publishers' titles).

From Algonquin Books:

Notorious Victoria: The Uncensored Life of Victoria Woodhull - Visionary, Suffragist, and First Woman to Run for President by Mary Gabriel. IIRC, Victoria Woodhull (Wikipedia) had a rather interesting and controversial life, being an early advocate of free love back when it was a lot less acceptable.

From Bloomsbury:

• Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life by Janet Todd, about the pioneering proto-feminist author (Wikipedia) who was incidentally also the mother of the author of Frankenstein, another pioneering work.
• Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life by Georgina Ferry, about the inventor of protein crystallography (Wikipedia), who was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
• The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas by Sally Denton, about the Broadway actress turned Congresswoman (Wikipedia), who opposed Richard Nixon.
• Victoria of England, a vintage biography by the late poet and critic Edith Sitwell (Wikipedia), who lived during part of her reign, originally published in 1936.
• Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand, about a Punjabi princess (Wikipedia), who in addition to being one of Queen Victoria's goddaughters, was also Exactly What It Says In The Title.
• Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox by Lois Banner, about the eponymous actress who needs no explanatory linkage.
• Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter by Susan Nagel, about the only survivor of the immediate royal family (Wikipedia), who seems to have an Anastasia-like substitution myth surrounding her.

[Little.Egret]

Hourly History shorts, free

King Louis XIV: A Life From Beginning to End

James Monroe: A Life From Beginning to End


https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search...Hourly+History

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=sear...Hourly+History

https://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-...Hourly+History

[Section8]

The omnibus of James MacGregor Burns' 3-volume American history trilogy The American Experiment is on sale for $2.99:

James MacGregor Burns’s stunning trilogy of American history, spanning the birth of the Constitution to the final days of the Cold War

In these three volumes, Pulitzer Prize–* and National Book Award–winner James MacGregor Burns chronicles with depth and narrative panache the most significant cultural, economic, and political events of American history. In The Vineyard of Liberty, he combines the color and texture of early American life with meticulous scholarship. Focusing on the tensions leading up to the Civil War, Burns brilliantly shows how Americans became divided over the meaning of Liberty.

In The Workshop of Democracy, Burns explores more than a half-century of dramatic growth and transformation of the American landscape, through the addition of dozens of new states, the shattering tragedy of the First World War, the explosion of industry, and, in the end, the emergence of the United States as a new global power.

And in The Crosswinds of Freedom, Burns offers an articulate and incisive examination of the US during its rise to become the world’s sole superpower—through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the rapid pace of technological change that gave rise to the “American Century.”

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CLVB9UQ
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...can-experiment

[GtrsRGr8]

Moved to Kobo Discounts and Bargains thread.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

This applies to fiction, as well, but I'm putting it in "Non-Fiction" because that's my fave. If it is legal to cross-post, and someone wants to do it, please do.

If there happens to be anyone who does not have a Kobo account yet, you may be able to get a $5 credit "today" for signing up.

You can sign in with Facebook, Google (Google+, too? I dunno), or register with Kobo with your email addy.

This is contingent upon you getting a popup about it, as I just did, when going to Kobo just now. It wasn't even their homepage.

ADDENDUM: Sorry. In retrospect, I guess that I should have posted this under the "Kobo Discounts and Bargains." Or, I could have made a non-sticky thread. Again, if it's legal to cross-post and someone wants to do it, please be my guest.

Just post it where it belongs(Kobo deals) and delete the text here.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Just post it where it belongs(Kobo deals) and delete the text here.

Thanks.

[bfisher]

On sale at Amazon.ca today for $CDN 2.99
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches by S.C.Gwynne
https://www.amazon.ca/Empire-Summer-.../dp/B003KN3MDG

This was a Pulitzer finalist in 2011. I haven't read it (yet); I read his excellent biography of Stonewall Jackson , so I expect this book to be high quality.

[Little.Egret]

Free

A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell

It’ll have to be head first. We’ll hold your thighs. Go down and see if it’s possible to give an injection. Can you grip the torch with your teeth?’

Frances Faviell lived in Chelsea before and during the London Blitz, having became a Red Cross volunteer when World War II began. Chelsea was particularly heavily bombed and the author was often in the heart of the action, witnessing or involved in fascinating and horrific events through 1940 and 1941. This is her memoir, last reprinted in 1959.


https://www.amazon.com/Chelsea-Conce...dp/B01LZFVO4O/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chelsea-Con...dp/B01LZFVO4O/

https://www.amazon.ca/Chelsea-Concer...dp/B01LZFVO4O/

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors, free

Pyrrhus of Epirus: The Life and Legacy of One of the Ancient World's Most Famous Generals

Famous, in case you don't know, for "Pyrrhic Victory"

Still free

Nippur: The History and Legacy of One of the Ancient Sumerians' Oldest Cities

The Mormon Wars: The History of the Mormons' Conflicts across the Frontier in the 19th Century

Jim Beckwourth: The Life and Legacy of the Former Slave Who Became One of America's Most Famous Mountain Men


https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search...ld-title=-kids

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=sear...ld-title=-kids

https://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-...ld-title=-kids

[ATDrake]

For some reason, there are a lot of interesting-looking biographies on sale this month. I think the ones from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (couponable/VIP-eligible in Canada but not the US) probably expire at the end, and the ones from HarperCollins are always rotated on an unfathomable sporadic schedule.

@ $1.99 from HarperCollins:

• The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley, about the US president's nature conservation efforts
• Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto, about the classic Hollywood actress
• The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by award-winning classic actor Sidney Poitier (Wikipedia)
• Just Kids by Patti Smith (Wikipedia), a memoir by the highly-influential rock musician
• Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir by Steven Tyler of Aerosmith
• Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II by the late Louis Zamperini (Wikipedia) whose story was the inspiration for the film Unbroken
• Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography by the late Huston Smith (Wikipedia) who apparently wrote one of the classic comparative religions texts which is still in use in universities today, and is incidentally also on sale as:
• The World's Religions, Revised and Updated: A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith; preface says this is a 40th anniversary edition (circa 1992)

Also in terms of comparative religion from HC @ $1.99:

• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: Revised and Updated Edition by Sogyal Rinpoche, which quotes praise in its blurb from Smith
• God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter & Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't by Boston University professor Stephen Prothero (Wikipedia), and again, Huston Smith is invoked in the blurb
• The Great Divorce by the late C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame, who is public domain in Canada but not the US, IIRC

@ $1.99-$2.99 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Canadian prices start at $2.99, US price varies per book):

• J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter. This is US-only, as HarperCollins has the rights in Canada and prices it around $12 CAD.
• Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" by Corey Olsen, some kind of chapter by chapter guide cum literary criticism. There's also a freebie (not available in Canada) Reader and Educator Guide to "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings"
• The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown, about Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir (Wikipedia), an early Vinland settler who, among other things, gave birth to the first European child born in the North Americas, and apparently made a pilgrimage to Rome in her old age. I bought this during a previous sale last year, and what I've read of it is actually pretty interesting, mixing archaeological reconstructions as well as literary analysis to show how the world she lived in functioned and how she developed a strength of character that ended up doing her numerous deeds.
• Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd, about the 17th century German naturalist and scientific illustrator (Wikipedia)
• The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici by Elizabeth Lev, for the 15th century figure whose Badass of the Week entry (warning for language) probably can't be topped as an introduction to who she was and what she accomplished
• The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star by Tom Clynes about child prodigy turned nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson (Wikipedia). Blurb says this is a 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist.
• The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by National Book Award winner Timothy Egan (Wikipedia) about colourful 19th century figure Thomas Francis Meagher (Wikipedia)
• The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen by feminist philosopher Susan Bordo (Wikipedia) of the University of Kentucky, which looks like it takes an interesting approach, as much an historiography of Anne Boleyn biographies as one in itself

Not a biography, but this also looked interesting @ $2.99 from HMH:

Braving Home: Dispatches from the Underwater Town, the Lava-Side Inn, and Other Extreme Locales by Jake Halpern (Wikipedia), about people who chose to remain in extreme and pretty much abandoned environments

[Dngrsone]

Many of these are also discounted at Amazon.com

The Amazon version of the Patti Smith book warns that it may not contain all the pictures, though (not that pictures are always well-implemented in kindle books anyway).

I'm tempted by the Tolkien bio, but I acquired JRR Tolkien: The Making of a Legend by Colin Duriez a year and a half ago and enjoyed it very much... don't know if this book would add much new content.

I'll grab the Patti Smith, the Viking Woman, and Steven Tyler.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Bargain @ $1.99 from various HarperCollins imprints in Canada & the US (should be available at all the usual retailers):
<snip
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by bestselling author Bill Bryson (Wikipedia), his popular book about the past history and various quirks of the language to the present day, which has its own Wikipedia entry.

Amazon has matched.

A bestseller there. A near bestseller at Kobo.

I was going to check all of the titles that you posted, but I just won't have time to do it. Anyway, I hope the above info is helpful.

Thanks for your post!

[ATDrake]

^

Pretty much all of them should be matched, since HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the rest usually have their books discounted in all the stores, which is nice of them. The only tricky ones are HMH, since they're couponable and Kobo Canada's pre-discounting can lead to unusual (but favourably lower) prices when combined with the VIP membership's auto-10% off.

A few more possibly last-day bargains, if anyone's interested (should be available at all the regular Canada & US retailers):

@ $1.99 from Algonquin Books (couponable):

• The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms & From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden by nature writer Amy Stewart (Wikipedia). I have some of her science books from previous sales and they're pretty decent from what I've read of them.
• Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by San Francisco chef Donia Bijan, a memoir about her childhood with her family fleeing the Iranian revolution in 1978 and settling in the US, being educated in cookery in Paris, and reclaiming her cultural roots through traditional food. Recipes included.
• Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court a memoir by highly successful college basketball coach Roy Williams (Wikipedia) with Tim Crother

@ $1.99 from non-discountable publishers (mostly HarperCollins):

• Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose by writer and critic Constance Hale (Wikipedia). This is the updated and revised 2013 edition to her grammar/style guide. I've gotten the previous version out from the library before, and while I don't think I managed to finish before I had to return it, what I recall of the advice seemed pretty solid. From Crown Publishing.
• Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions by theoretical physicist Lisa Randall (Wikipedia), meant to be a layperson-accessible introductory text
• Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers by author and journalist Simon Winchester (Wikipedia). This is one of his locational history/influence of things. I have a few other books of his which I really ought to get around to finishing, and he seems to be pretty decent.
• The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by cultural historian Tilar J. Mazzeo (Wikipedia), a biography of the 19th century figure Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin (Wikipedia) who made the titular champagne brand a great success after her husband's death
• Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by former Wall Street Journal journalists Bryan Burrough (Wikipedia) and John Helyar (Wikipedia), an exposé of the titular company, which has its own Wikipedia entry which says it was also adapted into an HBO TV movie.
• Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History by Joseph Telushkin (Wikipedia; himself also a rabbi), about the late 20th century Orthodox Jewish rabbi (Wikipedia)
• How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster, himself a former literature professor now retired from the University of Michigan-Flint
• The Egg and I by the late Betty MacDonald (Wikipedia), a vintage humorous memoir of life adapting to becoming a chicken farmer, originally written in 1945 and with its own Wikipedia entry. The author is public domain in Life+50 countries.
• Tao Te Ching: A New English Version a new translation of the Chinese philosophy/spirituality classic by Stephen Mitchell (Wikipedia). This is apparently somewhat controversial, according to the criticism section in his entry, but it's cheap in case you were morbidly curious.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

^
<snip>
Pretty much all of them should be matched, since HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the rest usually have their books discounted in all the stores, which is nice of them. The only tricky ones are HMH, since they're couponable and Kobo Canada's pre-discounting can lead to unusual (but favourably lower) prices when combined with the VIP membership's auto-10% off.
<snip>

Probably most people already knew the general "rules," but if I had, I had forgotten them. Part of the reason is that I very rarely buy from Kobo these days. I was into the Kobo couponing thing pretty big until about 3 years ago, but it quit being fun, so I quit. Seems like in the end I wasn't saving much money anyway.

Now, I almost am afraid to buy from Kobo, because if they go belly-up, I've got a pretty large library with them to worry about. But Kobo is owned by Rakuten now, and it seems like they may be on a solid financial footing. Of course, I guess that they could always "spin it off" and let it die.

Thanks for your additional posts. I was not aware of some of them.