FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - 2016

[GtrsRGr8]

I make this post with one reservation: the book is getting to be a little long in the tooth, having been published in 2006 (one evidence of this is that the stores are now known as "Walmart" and no longer "Wal-Mart" (the corporation is still known as "Wal-Mart Stores, Incorporated, however)). But, that shouldn't affect the strength (or weakness) of the argumentation.

I've given the ratings, as I usually do for books that are sold (not given away only). However, I would not put much stock in them. This is a very polarizing subject--people feel strongly one way or the other about the issue, there are few people in the middle. The ratings details at both Amazon and GoodReads reflect this!

Title: The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy.
Format(s): Pdf.
Author(s): Richard Vedder; Wendell Cox.
Publisher: AEI [American Enterprise Institute] Press
Pages: xvi + 210.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): 3.5 stars, but from only 10 reviews; rated 3.33, but from only 9 ratings, at GoodReads.
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at (or through Amazon) if available there: $3.99 (Used--"Acceptable" paperback) (including shipping).
Book Description (Amazon):
The activities of Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers have become rallying cries for both sides of the political aisle. This book is aimed at those involved in debates over Wal-Mart's impact on worker wages, labor issues, and health-insurance and land-use policies.

The Wal-Mart Revolution provides useful facts about the company, the U.S. retail industry, labor economics, health-care policy, and land-use realities in America today. Economist Richard Vedder and public-private partnerships expert Wendell Cox painstakingly analyze available evidence before concluding that the economic transformation in American retailing which is personified by Wal-Mart has largely been good for Americans and the economy. Wal-Mart's basic business strategies have had a profoundly positive impact on America's productivity, wages, consumer prices, and other key economic variables.

Though the book was written without any cooperation from Wal-Mart, Vedder and Cox address several criticisms often lobbed at the company and demolish them one-by-one:

• Wal-Mart workers are paid fairly―given their level of skills and experience, and compared to other retail firms, Wal-Mart employees do well
• Wal-Mart's fringe benefits―health-care coverage, retirement benefits, and more-―are similar to those of other retail firms, and very few Wal-Mart workers go without health insurance
• Big boxes mean big business: communities with new Wal-Mart stores typically enjoy increased employment and incomes after the store opens
• Wal-Mart benefits the poor, in particular, in the form of lower prices and new job opportunities
• Attempts to keep Wal-Mart out of communities through zoning restrictions, mandatory health insurance, or special high minimum wages hurt citizens, especially those with lower incomes.
Comments: I believe this to be a legal free download, based upon the fact that it is posted on the publisher's webpage, without any restrictions that I could find. In fact, a link to it is given on at least one of the organization's other publications (http://www.aei.org/publication/the-w...olution/print/).
URL: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploa...4444796470.pdf.

[bartveld]

Originally Posted by Mort1997

Free on Amazon UK - The Battle of Hurtgen Forest by Charles Whiting

Thanks for this!

[GtrsRGr8]

This information may have been posted by someone in the past. But I think that it would be worthwhile to post it again.

This will be of interest mainly to IT people and perhaps their non-IT supervisors and/or managers.

O'Reilly Media has about 60 free ebooks listed at Amazon. They are technical to very technical in nature. Here's a link to all of O'Reilly's ebooks at Amazon, sorted by price, low to high.

Some, maybe all, of these books will also be available free at O'Reilly's website in pdf and/or ePub formats, as well as the mobi format. I haven't been able to find a dedicated free ebook webpage at O'Reilly. If you think that you're interested in any of the titles shown at Amazon, but in pdf or ePub format, I suggest that you scan the list of free O'Reilly books at the webpage at Amazon that I just gave the URL for. If you find at one or more books that you think that you might be interested in, then go to O'Reilly's website and do a search for the title(s).

[GtrsRGr8]

Yes, this is an exhibition catalogue. Sometimes they don't get much respect. But this one is really nice. The exhibition seems to have featured much better than average ancient Egyptian works. The book's packed with beautiful photos and there's lot of excellent text, too, to help you make sense of it all. No wonder it has such fantastic ratings.

The National Gallery of Art, the publisher and one of the venues of the exhibition, is graciously providing the pdf of this book free. Wow.

Title: The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt.
Format(s): Pdf.
Author(s): Erik Hornung; Betsy M. Bryan (editors).
Publisher: The National Gallery of Art.
Pages: xvi + 240.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): 4.6 (5); 4.18 (11) at GoodReads.
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at (or through Amazon) if available there: $4.61 (Paperback, Used--"Very Good").
Book Description (from the second Foreword):
The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt presents the largest collection of objects ever to leave Egypt for a single North American exhibition. Highlighting masterpieces from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum, and other collections in Egypt, the exhibition includes several works that have not been on display in public before and many that have never been shown outside Egypt.
Comments: I believe this to be a legal free download due to the fact that the publisher, The National Gallery of Art, offers it for free on their website and provides the link to it.
URL: http://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngawe...mmortality.pdf.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Yes, this is an exhibition catalogue. Sometimes they don't get much respect. But this one is really nice.

I, for one, love exhibition catalogs, and other museum publications. NGA has more free PDFs.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I, for one, love exhibition catalogs, and other museum publications. NGA has more free PDFs.

Then, you might enjoy participating in the thread Deals, Freebies, and Resources>>Open/Free University/Academic Presses, whose initiator's post reads:

Open/Free University/Academic & Other High Quality Presses That Provide E-Books
I hope that this forum will eventually join the sticky posts in the Deals, Freebies, & Resources forum. This thread’s purpose is to list academic and other high-quality publishers that has many of their e-books downloadable for free.

[sufue]

Two other books by Ernle Bradford have just gone on sale as US Kindle Countdown deals at $0.99 for another 6 1/2 days. I haven't read either of these two, but as I mentioned in another post, I have read and very much enjoyed The Great Seige: Malta 1565, so am going to give these two a chance, especially the Gibraltar one, which has a recommendation from the Economist. (And since I'd love to visit Gibraltar someday...)

Gibraltar: The History of a Fortress
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ACB7B3K

Spoiler:

Since ships first set sail in the Mediterranean, The Rock of Gibraltar has been the gate of Fortress Europe.

In ancient times, it was known as one of the Pillars of Hercules, and a glance at its formidable mass suggests that it may well have been created by the gods.

Sought after by every nation with territorial ambitions in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Gibraltar was possessed by the Arabs, the Spanish, and ultimately the British, who captured it in the early 1700s and held onto it in a siege of more than three years late in the eighteenth century.

The fact that that was one of more than a dozen sieges exemplifies Gibraltar’s quintessential value as a prize and the desperation of governments to fly their flag above its forbidding ramparts.

Bradford uses his matchless skill and knowledge to take the reader through the history of this great and unique fortress.

From its geological creation to its two-thousand-year influence on politics and war, he crafts the compelling tale of how these few square miles played a major part in history.

Ernle Bradford's books have been widely praised.

'A gripping story' - The Economist.

Ernle Bradford (1922-1986) was an historian who wrote books on naval battles and historical figures. Among his subjects were Lord Nelson, the Mary Rose, Christopher Columbus, Julius Caesar and Hannibal. He also documented his own voyages on the Mediterranean Sea.

A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B7VES4Y

Spoiler:

Before Columbus, before Vespucci, before Drake, there was Henry the Navigator.

Pirate hunter, intrepid explorer, ship designer, and much more, Henry was one of the great innovators in the age of discovery.

Born in 1394, he was the third son of King John I and Queen Philippa. Following his mother’s death, Prince Henry along with his older brothers, Edward and Peter, and their father, set out to conquer Ceuta.

However, King John I and Edward were too grief-stricken to embark upon the expedition. Twenty-one year old Henry was unmoveable. After convincing his father and brother that they should follow their mother’s wishes and set sail, the journey commenced.

Ceuta was successfully attacked and captured. Rendering the pirate haven a useless trading post. However, Ceuta’s capture enable this to become the first European base to be established in Africa.

A period followed where occupation and colonization of the island began. This was the beginning of the discovery of Africa …

The scope of Henry’s contribution to our world is often overshadowed by other figures. But Bradford brings the gripping tale of this pioneer to light, putting into perspective the work of Henry the Navigator.

In his lifetime, Henry helped break the sea barriers that separate the continents. Rising above scorn and ridicule, he initiated an era of audacious exploration to lands most didn’t believe existed. His courage and forward thinking would forever change the course of history.

Ernie Bradford was born in 1921. He joined the Navy on his eighteenth birthday and served in the Mediterranean fleet, and later on Arctic convoys. He was a dedicated writer and sailor, an international authority on antique jewelery, and the author of many books on this subject, and on Mediterranean history. He was also the author of several accomplished biographies. He died in 1986.

Originally Posted by itisbomb

The Great Siege: Malta 1565
by Ernle Bradford

is $1.99 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Siege-Ma...at+siege+malta

Below is the blurb:
Suleiman the Magnificent, the most powerful ruler in the world, was determined to conquer Europe. Only one thing stood in his way: a dot of an island in the Mediterranean called Malta, occupied by the Knights of St. John, the cream of the warriors of the Holy Roman Empire. A clash of civilizations the likes of which had not been seen since Persia invaded Greece was shaping up. Determined to capture Malta and use its port to launch operations against Europe, Suleiman sent an armada and an overwhelming army. A few thousand defenders in Fort St. Elmo fought to the last man, enduring cruel hardships. When they captured the fort, the Turks took no prisoners and mutilated the defenders’ bodies. Grand Master La Vallette of the Knights reciprocated by decapitating his Turkish prisoners and using their heads to cannonade the enemy. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked, none given.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by sufue

Two other books by Ernle Bradford have just gone on sale as US Kindle Countdown deals at $0.99 for another 6 1/2 days. I haven't read either of these two, but as I mentioned in another post, I have read and very much enjoyed The Great Seige: Malta 1565, so am going to give these two a chance, especially the Gibraltar one, which has a recommendation from the Economist. (And since I'd love to visit Gibraltar someday...)

Gibraltar: The History of a Fortress
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ACB7B3K

A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B7VES4Y

Both 99P in UK

Gibraltar: The History of a Fortress
link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01ACB7B3K

A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator
link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01B7VES4Y

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I, for one, love exhibition catalogs, and other museum publications. NGA has more free PDFs.

Gr8! I'm glad to know that someone enjoys them (like I do). Even if I know of just one person who likes them, I'll keep posting them. There are lots of free ones out there to post.

There was a method to my madness about posting just one of NGA's exhibition catalogues (that's the way that they spell it). I have this theory that if you post a website with lots of choices of free ebooks, people feel overwhelmed and end up not looking through them at all. So, I've decided to post, as much as practical, just one at a time. One major exception is a book in a series--I'll post a link to the whole series (although sometimes I'll post the individual books instead).

I don't mind anyone following up one of my single-book posts with a post of the whole collection--there are plenty of other free ebooks to post and, too, I will still post one of the books in the collection later, on occasion, because of what I wrote in the first and second sentence of the previous paragraph.

Thanks.

[GtrsRGr8]

Own and run a blog? Run one for some other person or your company? Thinking about starting a blog?

Regardless of which one of the above situations is true with you, you may find this ebook helpful. I'm a non-blogger, but I will say that it seems to be loaded with all kinds of helpful information.

The book is published by an outfit called The Blog Studio, which designs and builds blogs, among other things, for businesses.

The information in this book may be a little bit dated, with it having been published in 2007. However, it is the most recent version.

Title: The Guide to Business Blogging.
Format(s): Pdf.
Author(s): Peter Flaschner.
Publisher: The Blog Studio.
Pages: 18.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): N/A.
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at (or through Amazon) if available there: N/A.
Book Description (from the Introduction):
We blog people tend to get a bit caught up in the IMPORTANCEan d POWER of blogs. We get all evangelical and somewhat nutty discussing the potential blogs have for businesses and the people who run them. The reason we do this is pretty simple: we’ve seen it work. And like true belivers everywhere, we want to tell everyone we meet about our brilliant find.

So I’ve decided to go ahead and just write this thing. This guide is aimed at a reader who is contemplating entereing the business blogging fray. If you’re already blogging, you may find the content useful, but I’m not aiming directly at you. Regardless of your experience, the resources and links at the end of the guide will be helpful (and dare I say it - fun).
Comments: This is version 2 of the book. I believe that this is a legal free download because it was offered as a free download on the business' website (at http://www.theblogstudio.com/guide/) and they provided a link for it.
URL: http://theblogstudio.com/guide-to-bu...logging-v2.pdf.

[GtrsRGr8]

This book will be of interest mainly to academics/scholars.

Coming from the Association of American Medical Colleges, as it is, this book is written with the medical professional in mind. However, it looks like most of the information in it would be of value to anyone doing reviews for peer-reviewed journals.

Many, maybe most, of the AAMC's free ebooks are free to their members only. They kindly have made this one available free to non-members too.

Title: Review Criteria for Research Manuscripts.
Format(s): Pdf.
Author(s): Durning, Steven J.; Carline, Jan D. (editors).
Publisher: Association of American Medical Colleges.
Pages: xii + 81.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): No ratings yet at Amazon or GoodReads. Book was published less than a year ago.
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at (or through Amazon) if available there: $18.85 (New Paperback).
Book Description (Amazon):
High-quality reviews are vital both for ensuring the excellence of published scholarship and as a way to provide authors with important feedback to use to improve their scholarship. The importance of the reviewer’s guide to faculty development cannot be overestimated.

This completely updated, expanded second edition is written to support our growing community of medical education scholars. As dissemination of scholarly work in medical education continues to evolve, review guidelines for different types of work are needed. This edition includes new chapters on reporting qualitative findings, reviewing literature reviews, and reviewing reports on innovations.

This guide intends to:
- Familiarize our reviewers with the purposes of review, approaches to or best practices for reviewing, and criteria for superlative research.
- Help reviewers organize and communicate their recommendations effectively to Academic Medicine and other journals.
- Help researchers by explaining the criteria used to evaluate their submissions
- Improve peer review and the quality of published research
- Peer review is a time-consuming and imperfect process, but can result in a radically improved research report that ultimately has a substantial impact on our thinking about difficult problems.

This updated guide will contribute to our efforts to improve peer review and improve the quality of published research.
Comments: I believe this to be a legal free download, because it is offered for free on the publisher's, the Association of American Medical College's, website (https://members.aamc.org/eweb/Dynami...2-E6E1A6F0D421
URL: https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload...anuscripts.pdf (direct link).

[GtrsRGr8]

RosettaBooks is having what they are calling a "Spring Reads" sale. It's on biographies and memoirs (and books similar to those, I've discovered, G).

I posted one of them (Kurt Vonnegut's Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons) on the Audiobooks thread, because it had a great Whispersync Deal. I wasn't planning on posting the rest of the titles, but no one else has, and I'm feeling guilty (it doesn't take much for me to get that way, as you are about to find out) for not posting it. So, here is some information about the sale.

There are 11 of them. They are all $2.99 or less; the majority are $1.99.

Here's a quick rundown of the titles, with the books prices:
Being James Dean, by Paul Alexander. $1.99.
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, by Kurt Vonnegut. $1.99.
Winston S. Churchill: Youth, 1874-1900, by Randolph S. Churchill. $2.99.
Capote, a Biography, by Gerald Clarke. $2.99.
To Be Loved, by Berry Gordy. $1.99.
Lawrence and the Arabs, by Robert Graves. $1.99.
The Way I Was, by Marvin Hamlisch. $1.99.
The Magnificent Elmer: My Life with Elmer Bernstein, by Pearl Bernstein Gardner. $1.99.
The Boer War, by Winston S. Churchill. $1.99
Sir Arthur C. Clarke: Odyssey of a Visionary, by Neil McAleer. $1.99.
I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life, by Donald C. Farber.

A head's up: In addition to Vonnegut's book, Lawrence and the Arabs and The Magnificent Elmer both have great Whispersync deals on them.

Go here to find out more about the deals, including how to purchase.

The sale ends on March 24.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

RosettaBooks is having what they are calling a "Spring Reads" sale. It's on biographies and memoirs (and books similar to those, I've discovered, G).

I posted one of them (Kurt Vonnegut's Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons) on the Audiobooks thread, because it had a great Whispersync Deal. I wasn't planning on posting the rest of the titles, but no one else has, and I'm feeling guilty (it doesn't take much for me to get that way, as you are about to find out) for not posting it. So, here is some information about the sale.

There are 11 of them. They are all $2.99 or less; the majority are $1.99.

Here's a quick rundown of the titles, with the books prices:
Being James Dean, by Paul Alexander. $1.99.
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, by Kurt Vonnegut. $1.99.
Winston S. Churchill: Youth, 1874-1900, by Randolph S. Churchill. $2.99.
Capote, a Biography, by Gerald Clarke. $2.99.
To Be Loved, by Berry Gordy. $1.99.
Lawrence and the Arabs, by Robert Graves. $1.99.
The Way I Was, by Marvin Hamlisch. $1.99.
The Magnificent Elmer: My Life with Elmer Bernstein, by Pearl Bernstein Gardner. $1.99.
The Boer War, by Winston S. Churchill. $1.99
Sir Arthur C. Clarke: Odyssey of a Visionary, by Neil McAleer. $1.99.
I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life, by Donald C. Farber.

A head's up: In addition to Vonnegut's book, Lawrence and the Arabs and The Magnificent Elmer both have great Whispersync deals on them.

Go here to find out more about the deals, including how to purchase.

The sale ends on March 24.

£1.38 in UK except the by Randolph S. Churchill. is £8.99

[GtrsRGr8]

This is a WarGameVault Deal of the Day. The deal ends in about 12 hours from now. Sorry not to give you more notice--I don't check my email until fairly late in the day (note to self: start checking it earlier).

The lowest price at Amazon is $16.99 for the Kindle mobi. This deal is only $8.99 for two format ebooks (i.e., you get both when you purchase)--the pdf and the ePub. I don't see anything on the book's webpage stating whether or not the ebooks have DRM; it may be on a webpage of general information.

Title: American Military Transport Aircraft Since 1925.
Format(s): Pdf, ePub (both).
Author(s): E.R. Johnson.
Publisher: McFarland.
Pages: ? + 488?
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): 4.8 (8); 3.0 (1) at GoodReads.
Price: $8.99.
Lowest Price at (or through Amazon) if available there: $16.99 (Kindle mobi).
Book Description (from WarGameVault):
Without the support of airlift, the modern American military machine would be brought to a standstill.

Since World War II--beginning with the Cold War and continuing up to the present day--the U.S. armed forces have come increasingly to rely upon airlift for mobility. The power to rapidly move and thereafter support a military operation--anywhere in the world, at any time--has become a foundational element of American defense policy.

This work provides the reader with a comprehensive historical survey--including technical specifications, drawings, and photographs--of each type of fixed-wing aircraft used by U.S. military forces over a nearly 90-year period to carry out the airlift mission.
Comments:
URL: http://www.wargamevault.com/product/...925?src=DotDem.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

This is a WarGameVault Deal of the Day.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I don't see anything on the book's webpage stating whether or not the ebooks have DRM; it may be on a webpage of general information.

Wargame Vault ePubs don't have DRM. Some PDFs have "social DRM" (name & order number added to the bottom of every page - example attached), at the publisher's discretion. Those that have it will be labelled "Watermarked PDF" under File Information. The link you posted doesn't have that note, so won't be watermarked.