FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[Courant]

Zen and the Samurai Sword by Anthony Cummins for $1.99 on Amazon

This unique book combines Japanese warrior techniques with ancient Zen practices for mental clarity and physical agility, giving readers a Samurai edge that will carry them through life.

Embark on a warrior’s quest to achieve the Zen-like state of a samurai

Sharpen your mind, hone your senses, gain physical agility and reach peace through 100 key lessons in this unique book, as leading expert on Japanese military arts Antony Cummins brings ancient wisdom into the modern world.

Combining esteemed philosophy, practical sword skills and traditional calligraphic practices – with a dash of the science behind Zen – this book will arm you with the spiritual weapons to engage in the fight to come: the conflict within your own mind.

Antony Cummins is the founder of the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team, which has previously published The Book of Ninja and The Book of Samurai (Watkins). Antony also works as a consultant and co-presenter on high-end documentaries on Japan that are distributed by National Geographic, and is the Official Tourism Ambassador for Wakayama. He has been recognised by peers as a leading expert in the discovery of military arts of medieval Japan. His most recent book was How to be a Modern Samurai (Watkins).

[Cactus Chef]

Man and His Symbols by Carl G. Jung is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

The landmark text about the inner workings of the unconscious mind—from the symbolism that unlocks the meaning of our dreams to their effect on our waking lives and artistic impulses—featuring more than a hundred updated images that break down Carl G. Jung’s revolutionary ideas

“What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society.”—The Guardian

“Our psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is limitless.”

Since our inception, humanity has looked to dreams for guidance. But what are they? How can we understand them? And how can we use them to shape our lives?

There is perhaps no one more equipped to answer these questions than the legendary psychologist Carl G. Jung. It is in his life’s work that the unconscious mind comes to be understood as an expansive, rich world just as vital and true a part of the mind as the conscious, and it is in our dreams—those personal, integral expressions of our deepest selves—that it communicates itself to us.

A seminal text written explicitly for the general reader, Man and His Symbols is a guide to understanding our dreams and interrogating the many facets of identity—our egos and our shadows, “the dark side of our natures.” Full of fascinating case studies and examples pulled from philosophy, history, myth, fairy tales, and more, this groundbreaking work—profusely illustrated with hundreds of visual examples—offers invaluable insight into the symbols we dream that demand understanding, why we seek meaning at all, and how these very symbols affect our lives. Armed with the knowledge of the self and our shadow, we may build fuller, more receptive lives.

By illuminating the means to examine our prejudices, interpret psychological meanings, break free of our influences, and recenter our individuality, Man and His Symbols proves to be—decades after its conception—a revelatory, absorbing, and relevant experience.

[Cyclops]

Any natural history titles?

[Loosheesh]

Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts is $1.99 at Amazon US.

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the acclaimed author of Churchill and The Last King of America—winner of the LA Times Book prize, finalist for the Plutarch prize, winner of the Fondation Napoleon prize and a New York Times bestseller

“A thrilling tale of military and political genius… Roberts is an uncommonly gifted writer.” —The Washington Post

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.

[salty-horse]

Maintenance: Of Everything - Part One is $2 on Amazon.com (only)

The first in-depth exploration of maintenance—and a powerful argument for its civilizational importance—from the author of How Buildings Learn and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Maintenance is what keeps everything going. It’s what keeps life going. Yet it’s also easy to shirk or defer—until the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops. The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional.

The first in a multi-volume work, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One offers a comprehensive overview of the civilizational importance of maintenance. The book begins with a dramatic contest of maintenance styles under life-critical conditions: the Golden Globe around-the-world solo sailboat race of 1968. It goes on to explore the insights that can be gleaned from vehicle maintenance, from the zeal of motorcycle maintainers to the maintenance philosophies that fought for dominance of the auto industry to the state of electric vehicle manufacturing today, with absorbing detours into the evolution of precision in manufacturing, the enduring importance of manuals, sustainment in the military, and the never-ending battle against corrosion.

Maintenance: Of Everything is a wide-ranging and provocative call to expand what we mean by “maintenance”—not just the tiresome preventative tasks but the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. It invites us to understand not only the profound impact maintenance has on our daily lives but also why taking responsibility for maintaining something—whether a motorcycle, a monument, or our very planet—can be a radical act.

[salty-horse]

Israel: What Went Wrong? by Omer Bartov is £2 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

A leading genocide scholar explores the history of Zionism, Israel’s lurch towards extreme oppression and violence, and why it stands accused of crimes against humanity

Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.

In Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov explores the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel – whose establishment in 1948 received international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust – now faces accusations of war crimes and genocide.

What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the widespread support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens?

The result is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today’s debates over Zionism, genocide, and the future of Israel with rigour and depth.

[salty-horse]

Ungrounding by Eyal Weizman is £2 in the UK (Amazon only ATM, but price-matchable on Kobo)

A devastating, meticulous account of the history of Israel’s destruction of Gaza from an acclaimed architect and investigator

'Urgent and essential' DAVID WENGROW
'Extraordinary' ILAN PAPPÉ

Eyal Weizman is one of the world’s leading experts on the relationship between violence, conflict and the environment, both built and natural. As director of the organisation Forensic Architecture, he and his team of interdisciplinary researchers document acts of state crimes and human rights violations around the world. Since 2023, the group has worked to produce evidence for the International Court of Justice’s genocide case against Israel.

In Ungrounding, Weizman draws on that research to bring us on an eye-opening journey across time and into the 'deep cartography' of the area extending from Gaza’s subterranean tunnels through to its militarised topography, its unique soil, settlements and barriers. He catalogues, in unflinching and forensic detail, the Israeli campaigns of violence and displacement that have reshaped the region in an effort to make Gaza and its surrounding areas unliveable.

Taking us through the broader geographic and historical context, from the Nakba in 1948 to the present day, Ungrounding establishes that architectural and territorial analysis is key to understanding the relationship between coloniser and colonised – and how Israel’s actions after 7 October escalated into violence so extreme and so far-reaching as to, Weizman argues, meet the definition of genocide.

Deeply informative and profoundly affecting in its scope and precision, and illustrated with dozens of original images, maps and diagrams*, Ungrounding* is an essential document of atrocity in our time.

[salty-horse]

Completing the trilogy of new books by jews with a non/anti-Zionist slant:
Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The dramatic story of the Jewish Bund—a revolutionary movement from a vanished world—and its radical vision of solidarity in an age of division.

“Molly Crabapple beckons readers through a portal to an irresistible, lost world, one bound together by passion, solidarity, and a burning hunger for justice.”—Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of No Logo and Doppelganger

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Sam Rothbort created “memory paintings” with the hope of resurrecting the vanished world of his shtetl childhood. Decades later, his great-granddaughter, the award-winning artist Molly Crabapple, discovered these paintings and one stood out: a girl, her dress the color of sky, hurling a rock through a cottage window. Itka the Bundist, Breaking Windows.

Itka is how Crabapple met the Jewish Labor Bund. Once the most influential Jewish political force in eastern Europe, the Bund was secular, socialist, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist. The Bundists fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but “here where we live.”

In the first popular history of the Bund, Crabapple re-creates their extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of insurgent poets and antireligious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades. The Bundists live deeply within this violent, volatile, and somehow hopeful period, as their stories interweave with the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust. The Bund’s rise and fall raises the vital question: What can we learn from a movement that, for all its toughness, imagination, and moral clarity, was largely destroyed?

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message—that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

[salty-horse]

Wild Faith by Tal Lavin is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

**The acclaimed author of Culture Warlords investigates the rise of the Christian Right over the last half-century that lays out the grim vision evangelicals are enforcing on our democracy.

All across America, a storm is gathering: from book bans in school libraries to anti-trans laws in state legislatures; firebombings of abortion clinics and protests against gay rights. The Christian Right, a cunning political force in America for more than half a century, has never been more powerful than it is right now—it propelled Donald Trump to power, and it won’t stop until it’s refashioned America in its own image.

In Wild Faith, critically acclaimed author Tal Lavin goes deep into what motivates the Christian Right, from its segregationist past to a future riddled with apocalyptic ideology. Using primary sources and firsthand accounts, Lavin introduces you to “deliverance ministers” who carry out exorcisms by the hundreds; modern-day, self-proclaimed prophets and apostles; Christian militias, cults, zealots, and showmen; and the people in power who are aiding them to achieve their goals. Along the way, he explores anti-abortion terrorists, the Christian Patriarchy movement, with its desire to place all women under absolute male control; the twisted theology that leads to rampant child abuse; and the ways conspiracy theorists and extremist Christians influence each other to mutual political benefit.

From school boards to the Supreme Court, Christian theocracy is ascendant in America—and only through exploring its motivations and impacts can we understand the crisis we face. In Wild Faith, Lavin fearlessly confronts whether our democracy can survive an organized, fervent theocratic movement, one that seeks to impose its religious beliefs on American citizens.

[isarl]

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking by Gianaclis Caldwell is $2 in the US and Canada (Kobo, Amazon)

This comprehensive, user-friendly cheese making guide features delicious recipes, inspiring photos, and practical techniques for cheese enthusiasts from the avid home hobbyist to the serious commercial artisan.

Let acclaimed cheesemaker Gianaclis Caldwell be your mentor, guide, and cheering section as you follow the pathway to a mastery of cheesemaking. With thorough explanations of the art and science that allow milk to be transformed into epicurean masterpieces, this all-inclusive cheese making book offers in-depth guidance on making artisan cheese on a small scale.

This extensive guide to cheesemaking includes:
• Detailed information on equipment and setting up a home-scale operation
• Extensive process-based recipes
• Everything you want to know about affinage (aging)
• How to use oils, brushes, waxes, infusions, and other creative flavoring techniques
• Beautiful inspirational photographs
• Profiles of other cheesemakers
• In-depth appendices for quick reference in the preparation and aging room

Every serious home-scale artisan cheesemaker—even those just beginning to experiment—will want this book as their bible to take them from their first quick mozzarella to a French mimolette, and ultimately to designing their own unique cheeses. Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking will also prove an invaluable resource for those with, or thinking of starting, a small-scale creamery.

[bookmarked]

If you missed it last time, it's on sale again for $2.99.

Originally Posted by bookmarked

The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians by David M. Rubenstein is on sale for $1.99

Co-founder of The Carlyle Group and patriotic philanthropist David M. Rubenstein takes readers on a sweeping journey across the grand arc of the American story through revealing conversations with our greatest historians.

In these lively dialogues, the biggest names in American history explore the subjects they've come to so intimately know and understand.

-- David McCullough on John Adams
-- Jon Meacham on Thomas Jefferson
-- Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton
-- Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin
-- Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln
-- A. Scott Berg on Charles Lindbergh
-- Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King
-- Robert Caro on Lyndon B. Johnson
-- Bob Woodward on Richard Nixon
--And many others, including a special conversation with Chief Justice John Roberts

Through his popular program The David Rubenstein Show, David Rubenstein has established himself as one of our most thoughtful interviewers. Now, in The American Story, David captures the brilliance of our most esteemed historians, as well as the souls of their subjects. The book features introductions by Rubenstein as well as a foreword by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead our national library. Richly illustrated with archival images from the Library of Congress, the book is destined to become a classic for serious readers of American history.

Through these captivating exchanges, these bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors offer fresh insight on pivotal moments from the Founding Era to the late 20th century

[bookmarked]

The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump by Peter Wehner is on sale for $2.99.

The New York Times opinion writer, media commentator, outspoken Republican and Christian critic of the Trump presidency offers a spirited defense of politics and its virtuous and critical role in maintaining our democracy and what we must do to save it before it is too late.
"Any nation that elects Donald Trump to be its president has a remarkably low view of politics."

Frustrated and feeling betrayed, Americans have come to loathe politics with disastrous results, argues Peter Wehner. In this timely manifesto, the veteran of three Republican administrations and man of faith offers a reasoned and persuasive argument for restoring "politics" as a worthy calling to a cynical and disillusioned generation of Americans.

Wehner has long been one of the leading conservative critics of Donald Trump and his effect on the Republican Party. In this impassioned book, he makes clear that unless we overcome the despair that has caused citizens to abandon hope in the primary means for improving our world—the political process—we will not only fall victim to despots but hasten the decline of what has truly made America great. Drawing on history and experience, he reminds us of the hard lessons we have learned about how we rule ourselves—why we have checks and balances, why no one is above the law, why we defend the rights of even those we disagree with.

Wehner believes we can turn the country around, but only if we abandon our hatred and learn to appreciate and honor the unique and noble American tradition of doing "politics." If we want the great American experiment to continue and to once again prosper, we must once more take up the responsibility each and every one of us as citizens share.

[bookmarked]

The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2026 by Sarah Janssen is on sale for $1.99.

The World Almanac® is America’s bestselling reference book of all time, with more than 83 million copies sold. For more than 150 years, this compendium of information has been the authoritative source for school, library, business, and home. The 2026 edition of The World Almanac reviews the biggest events of 2025 and will be your go-to source for questions on any topic in the upcoming year. Praised as a “treasure trove of political, economic, scientific and educational statistics and information” by The Wall Street Journal, The World Almanac and Book of Facts will answer all of your trivia needs effortlessly.

[salty-horse]

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This: National Book Award by Omar El Akkad is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values.

"[A] bracing memoir and manifesto." —The New York Times

"I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. I found hope here, and help, to face what the world is now, all that it isn’t anymore. Please read this. I promise you won’t regret it." —Tommy Orange, bestselling author of Wandering Stars and There There

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • PALESTINE BOOK AWARD WINNER • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM**

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.

[issybird]

In a "limited time deal", the Penguin History of the World is 99¢ at Kindle, down from $15.99. Not price-matchable at Kobo.

https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Histo...dp/B00ADNPDEM/