FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[JoHunt]

Thomas Thompson was one of the best true crime writers of the 1970s. He was an editor of Life Magazine and also wrote non-fiction books dealing with other subjects, all fascinating reads.

Blood and Money (1976) is based on a true story of scandal and the murder of Houston socialite Joan Robinson Hill. According to his son, it's in development for an HBO miniseries. The Kindle edition is on sale today only for $0.99.

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Money-C...0991721&sr=1-1

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

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.

As someone with a humongous side-loaded library, I've got a couple of Nook and Kobo readers because Amazon doesn't put very much memory in their Kindles. I could be wrong, but Kobo is more likely to succeed than B&N because B&N has more or less admitted that they've given up on eInk readers. Kobo will price match anyone, so if they've got something, they're actually the cheapest seller because the price match is for 90% of the other guys. So I really think that if unless you've decided it's Amazon all the time, you really ought to be buying everything from Kobo especially if you have an ePub reader (which I see you probably don't).

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

As someone with a humongous side-loaded library, I've got a couple of Nook and Kobo readers because Amazon doesn't put very much memory in their Kindles. I could be wrong, but Kobo is more likely to succeed than B&N because B&N has more or less admitted that they've given up on eInk readers. Kobo will price match anyone, so if they've got something, they're actually the cheapest seller because the price match is for 90% of the other guys. So I really think that if unless you've decided it's Amazon all the time, you really ought to be buying everything from Kobo especially if you have an ePub reader (which I see you probably don't).

Oh, I much prefer Kobo over B&N now. I would buy more books from Kobo, but there's just nothing compelling me to do so. Seems like they may sell DRM-Free audiobooks; if so, that would be a plus. I guess that I use Audible because it's convenient to use and to navigate their website. Too, I've just "gotten used" to using them!

I can open ePubs just fine on Adobe Digital Editions. I don't remember if I've tried to do that on any of Kobo's ebooks recently, though. I am real fuzzy on various aspects of the ePub3 format/sub-format.

Thanks.

[bfisher]

First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I by Matthew J. Davenport is $CDN 3.99 this month at Amazon.ca
https://www.amazon.ca/First-Over-The.../dp/B00OO25VMM

This was a finalist for the 2015 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History

[AnemicOak]

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose - $1.99
Amazon US | Amazon CA

Stephen E. Ambrose’s iconic story of the ordinary men who became the World War II’s most extraordinary soldiers: Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, US Army.

They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak—in Holland and the Ardennes—Easy Company was as good a rifle company as any in the world.

From the rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the disbanding in 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. In combat, the reward for a job well done is the next tough assignment, and as they advanced through Europe, the men of Easy kept getting the tough assignments.

They parachuted into France early D-Day morning and knocked out a battery of four 105 mm cannon looking down Utah Beach; they parachuted into Holland during the Arnhem campaign; they were the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne, brought in to hold the line, although surrounded, in the Battle of the Bulge; and then they spearheaded the counteroffensive. Finally, they captured Hitler's Bavarian outpost, his Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden.

They were rough-and-ready guys, battered by the Depression, mistrustful and suspicious. They drank too much French wine, looted too many German cameras and watches, and fought too often with other GIs. But in training and combat they learned selflessness and found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They discovered that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.

This is the story of the men who fought, of the martinet they hated who trained them well, and of the captain they loved who led them. E Company was a company of men who went hungry, froze, and died for each other, a company that took 150 percent casualties, a company where the Purple Heart was not a medal—it was a badge of office.

[AnemicOak]

Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers by Cole C. Kingseed - $1.99
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Google | B&N | Kobo | eBooks.com | BAM

On the hellish battlefields of World War II Europe, Major Dick Winters led his Easy Company—the now-legendary Band of Brothers—from the confusion and chaos of the D-Day invasion to the final capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

But Winters’s story didn’t end there. It was only the beginning.

He was a quiet, reluctant hero whose modesty and strength drew the admiration of not only his men, but millions worldwide. Now comes the story of Dick Winters in his last years as witnessed and experienced by his good friend, Cole C. Kingseed.

Kingseed shares the formative experiences that made Winters such an effective leader. He addresses Winters’s experiences and leadership during the war, his intense, unbreakable devotion to his men, his search for peace both without and within after the war, and how fame forced him to make adjustments to an international audience of well-wishers and admirers, even as he attempted to leave a lasting legacy before joining his fallen comrades. Following Winters’s death on January 2, 2011, the outpouring of grief and adulation for one of this nation’s preeminent leaders of character, courage, and competence shows just how much of an impact Dick Winters left on the world.

This is a story of leadership, fame, and friendship, and the journey of one man’s struggle to find the peace that he promised himself if he survived World War II.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by bfisher

First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I by Matthew J. Davenport is $CDN 3.99 this month at Amazon.ca
https://www.amazon.ca/First-Over-The.../dp/B00OO25VMM

This was a finalist for the 2015 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History

It seems that I'm seeing more and more books lately on World War I. I think that this is a good thing. For years after World War II, it seems like the "Great War" has been overshadowed by WWII. America, and the other beliigerents, sustained an enormous amount of casualties in that war.

Too, it might be impossible to understand Germany's desire to fight another war (World War II), just 20 years later, without understanding World War I, and especially the humiliation and suffering heaped upon them by the onerous reparations that the Allies demanded, and other indignities shown to them in the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

I'm not particularly a Germany-phile, but the Allies brought World War II upon themselves to an extent. By Allies, I'm excluding the U.S., because Woodrow Wilson begged for Germany to be shown leniency. This was leniency that the other Allies were not willing to give.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

It seems that I'm seeing more and more books lately on World War I. I think that this is a good thing. For years after World War II, it seems like the "Great War" has been overshadowed by WWII. America, and the other beliigerents, sustained an enormous amount of casualties in that war.

Too, it might be impossible to understand Germany's desire to fight another war (World War II), just 20 years later, without understanding World War I, and especially the humiliation and suffering heaped upon them by the onerous reparations that the Allies demanded, and other indignities shown to them in the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

I'm not particularly a Germany-phile, but the Allies brought World War II upon themselves to an extent. By Allies, I'm excluding the U.S., because Woodrow Wilson begged for Germany to be shown leniency. This was leniency that the other Allies were not willing to give.

And the Depression exacerbated the problem.
Apache

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Apache

And the Depression exacerbated the problem.
Apache

You are always so succinct. That's good.

I take it that you mean the depression in Germany. If so, yeah, in less desperate times, groups like the Nazis probably wouldn't have had nearly the following that they did.

There are lots of causes, I'm sure.

[Apache]

Most Americans seem to think the Great Depression affected only the United States. The depression also affected Europe and the rest of the Industrialized World. And the war reparations made it worse in Germany, which made it easier for Hitler to come to power.
Apache

[Ricky D'Angelo]

archive.org has Jaques Ellul "Propaganda" in various formats. I downloaded the book to my kindle to make sure it's a full book and not just an introduction. The format is a bit "off" but readable.

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965/1973) (French: Propagandes; original French edition: 1962) is a book on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher, theologian, legal scholar, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one. It presents a sophisticated taxonomy for propaganda, including such paired opposites as political–sociological, vertical–horizontal, rational–irrational, and agitation–integration. The book contains Ellul's theories about the nature of propaganda to adapt the individual to a society, to a living standard and to an activity aiming to make the individual serve and conform.

https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512

[sufue]

A big batch of "For Dummies" titles, mostly science or math, are part of the Kindle US Daily Deal today at $3.99.

This link pulls them up, but may also have some that are normally $3.99 without the sale - I don't have time to check one-for-one, but it looks to me as if the link is producing a few more than were in the Daily Deal, so YMMV...

link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?se...price-asc-rank

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by sufue

A big batch of "For Dummies" titles, mostly science or math, are part of the Kindle US Daily Deal today at $3.99.

This link pulls them up, but may also have some that are normally $3.99 without the sale - I don't have time to check one-for-one, but it looks to me as if the link is producing a few more than were in the Daily Deal, so YMMV...

link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?se...price-asc-rank

Sorry, there are no dummies among us on MobileRead; we are all highly intelligent. So they will be of no interest to us.

For some reason, I have never "gotten into" the "for Dummies" style of writing. Honestly, I would prefer to read a good, straightforward--though one at my level--conventional textbook.

[GtrsRGr8]

Oh my. I might have to reassess my enthusiasm for Open Source.

There is an Open Source book featured at unglue.it, of a conversation with Lady Gaga, called ThoughtRave: An Interdimensional Conversation with Lady Gaga, by Robert Craig Baum. You can find it at unglue.it/work/206410.

There appears to be no digital version at Amazon, but the least expensive paper-based copy is $19.46 (New).

[ATDrake]

X-link to the DRM-free thread for the new Humble Bundle:

Humble Book Bundle Python presented by No Starch Press features an assorted of DIY computer programming titles focused around that language, ranging from kids/newbie-friendly to advanced topics, and covering how to use Python for math, games, and more. A number of repeats from previous bundles, but at least 3 new titles which are probably good value for money if you want them, considering the regular prices for these things.