FREE/BARGAIN - Audiobooks - 2016

[skinmaan]

I haven't found a lot of "traditional" freebies lately (i.e. beyond the "usual suspects"). I suppose that shouldn't surprise me; there's usually a lull until Sync and JIAM kick in. I did just find out about another type of "freebie" over at The Ebook Reader. It's a rental, but I got the hint y'all might be interested in that sort of thing.

Apparently, if your library is a member of Overdrive, you can rent "An American Sniper" by Chris Kyle in either ebook or audiobook editions. That's not all that unusual, but for the month of March, you can rent it as if your library has an infinite number of copies - no waiting lists or limited copies. This is something Overdrive does from time to time (I just learned) as a part of something called "The Big Library Read." I suppose that is the next generation of "The Big Read," which was an international effort to encourage reading.

I don't know if it is just some libraries, or all Overdrive libraries. I don't know if it is US only or international, or somewhere in between. I do know that it ends at the end of March, so if you're interested don't wait - the Ides of March are already past.

Enjoy!
skinmaan
Your audiobook bloodhound

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by skinmaan

I haven't found a lot of "traditional" freebies lately (i.e. beyond the "usual suspects"). I suppose that shouldn't surprise me; there's usually a lull until Sync and JIAM kick in. I did just find out about another type of "freebie" over at The Ebook Reader. It's a rental, but I got the hint y'all might be interested in that sort of thing.

Apparently, if your library is a member of Overdrive, you can rent "An American Sniper" by Chris Kyle in either ebook or audiobook editions. That's not all that unusual, but for the month of March, you can rent it as if your library has an infinite number of copies - no waiting lists or limited copies. This is something Overdrive does from time to time (I just learned) as a part of something called "The Big Library Read." I suppose that is the next generation of "The Big Read," which was an international effort to encourage reading.

I don't know if it is just some libraries, or all Overdrive libraries. I don't know if it is US only or international, or somewhere in between. I do know that it ends at the end of March, so if you're interested don't wait - the Ides of March are already past.

Enjoy!
skinmaan
Your audiobook bloodhound

I didn't see anyone post anything about this . . . . March is National Reading Month. Sometimes it's called National Reading Awareness Month.

I suppose that that is the reason for the promotion of which you spoke. I've noticed some other activities, etc. this month tied to it, but not many.

C'mon, MobileReaders! Where's our partying spirit?! It's National Reading (Awareness) Month!!!!

[GtrsRGr8]

I just made a post on the Non-Fiction thread in which I gave some information about a Whispersync deal on a book called The Nuremberg Trials. The ebook and audiobook are highly rated. The audio is just short of 26 hours long. The whole deal is only $5.48.

[GtrsRGr8]

I know, there's a gazillion different audiobooks of the classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I don't know if the following one sets itself apart from all of the rest, but by the way that Open Culture describes it, it sure seems to.

Here's the blurb from Open Culture:
Three years ago, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read, promising a full audio book of Herman Melville’s influential novel, with famous (and not so famous) voices taking on a chapter each. When we first wrote about it here, only six chapters had been unveiled, but boasted actors like Tilda Swinton (reading chapter one), author Nigel Williams, and poet and journalist Musa Okwonga.

We’re glad to say the project, created out of a 2011 conference by artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare, has reached its successful conclusion. And they’ve certainly called on an impressive roster of celebrity readers: Stephen Fry, Neil Tennant, Fiona Shaw, Will Self, Benedict Cumberbatch, China Miéville, Tony Kushner, John Waters, Simon Callow, Sir David Attenborough, even Prime Minister David Cameron. Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver finishes off the whole project, reading the Epilogue.

All 135 chapters are available to be listened to in your browser, downloaded on iTunes, streamed on SoundCloud, or even heard as a podcast. However, do check them out online, as each chapter comes with a work of art each created by 135 contemporary artists such as Matthew Barney, Oliver Clegg, and Matthew Benedict. (See David Austen’s work above.) The project is a mammoth undertaking befitting such a monumental book, and if you’ve never read it this just might be the way to go.

As I stated in the title to this post, the audiobook is free.

Here's the dedicated webpage for this audiobook, at Open Culture.

[tubemonkey]

Audible Daily Deal -- exp 18 Mar @ 11:59pm ET


$3.95 -- The Girl Who Wrote in Silk -- Kelli Estes / Emily Woo Zeller --> 12.4 hrs / 4.2 stars


Note: also available as a Whispersync deal for $3.95, if you already own or borrow the Kindle ebook.

Genre: Fiction > Historical > Asian

The smallest items can hold centuries of secrets.

Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.

Inspired by true events, Kelli Estes' brilliant and atmospheric debut serves as a poignant tale of two women determined to do the right thing and the power of our own stories.

[tubemonkey]

Nook Daily Find -- exp 18 Mar


$5.99 -- The Royal We -- Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan / Christine Lakin --> 17.9 hrs / 4.3 stars


Note: also available as a Whispersync deal for $3.99, if you already own or borrow the Kindle ebook.

Genre: Fiction > Contemporary > Women

"I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they'll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next."

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love - her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself - will have been for nothing.

[GtrsRGr8]

The audio, alone, at Audible is $34.95.

Title: Speaks the Nightbird: A Novel (Matthew Corbett Book 1).
Genre: Fiction (Historical Novel/Horror).
Author(s): Robert R. McCammon.
Price: $5.98 ($1.99 ebook (marked down) + $3.99 Whispersync audio).
Regular Price of Audio, by Itself, at Audible: $34.95.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews: 4.5 stars/304 reviews (Amazon).
Audio Rating/Number of Ratings: 4.2/4063 ratings.
Pages/Audio Length: 500/30 hours and 47 minutes.
Narrator(s): Edoardo Ballerini.
Audible URL: http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-...ook/B007SY95MK.
Amazon URL (can get the whole Whispersync deal here): http://www.amazon.com/Speaks-Nightbi...dp/B00F9H59Z0/.
Comments:
Book Description (Amazon):

Came the time when the two travellers knew night would catch them, and shelter must be found.

God and Satan are at war in the colonial Carolina town of Fount Royal, and even the citizens suspect that a witch is behind the tragedies that have plagued the town. The chief suspect is the beautiful and haunted widow Rachel. Traveling judge Isaac Woodward and his bright young clerk Matthew Corbett arrive to conduct a trial—and uncover the true evil at work in Fount Royal.

[tubemonkey]

Audible Daily Deal -- exp 19 Mar @ 11:59pm ET


$3.95 -- Elephant Company -- Vicki C Croke / Simon Prebble --> 9.7 hrs / 4.5 stars

Genre: History > Military > WWII

Title: Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II

J. H. "Billy" Williams always had an affinity for animals. So, when he responded to a job offer with the East India Company to work with logging elephants his family wasn't surprised, though they were worried. He had already come back from World War I in one piece; would he be so lucky with India? Not only did he find his calling with the elephants in India, Billy and his elephants became war heroes.

At the onset of World War II, Williams formed Elephant Company and was instrumental in defeating the Japanese in Burma and saving refugees, including on his own "Hannibal Trek". Billy Williams became a media sensation during the war, telling reporters that the elephants did more for him than he was ever able to do for them, but his story has since been forgotten. Part biography, part war story, and part wildlife adventure, Croke delivers an utterly charming narrative and an important, little-known piece of the legacy of World War II. Vicki Constantine Croke has been covering pets and wildlife for more than two decades. She has anchored NECN-TV's The Secret Life of Animals and wrote the Boston Globe's "Animal Beat" column for 13 years.

[tubemonkey]

Nook Daily Find -- exp 19 Mar


$5.95 -- Saint Brigid's Bones -- Philip Freeman / Fiona Hardingham --> 6.6 hrs / 4.1 stars

Genre: Mysteries & Thrillers > Suspense

Title: Saint Brigid's Bones: A Celtic Adventure

In an evocative Celtic novel set in a time when druids roamed the land, lively young Sister Deirdre embarks on a mission to find the stolen bones of her convent's patron saint.

In ancient Ireland, an island ruled by kings and druids, the nuns of Saint Brigid are fighting to keep their monastery alive. When the bones of Brigid go missing from their church, the theft threatens to destroy all they have worked for. No one knows the danger they face better than Sister Deirdre, a young nun torn between two worlds.

Trained as a bard and raised by a druid grandmother, she must draw upon all of her skills, both as a bard and as a nun, to find the bones before the convent begins to lose faith.

[tubemonkey]

Audible Daily Deal -- exp 20 Mar @ 11:59pm ET


$2.95 -- Prime Suspect #1 -- Lynda La Plante / Davina Porter --> 8.2 hrs / 4.2 stars

Genre: Mysteries & Thrillers > Suspense

Series: Jane Tennison, book 1 of 3

In the dark night of the soul…

If Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison hadn't been a woman, she might not have noticed the victim's shoes…and that they didn't match the size given on the info sheet now so obviously misidentifying the dead blonde as a hooker named Della Mornay. Being so thorough, so good at the details, made Jane a top investigator; being a woman made the boys in the squadron want to see her fall on her face. But Jane Tennison was determined to catch the madman stalking women in London's street shadows. She had a prime suspect, and she needed to make the charges against him stick. She also needed to keep her own secret in check: she couldn't let anyone see that she was falling apart inside, as her obsession with cracking this case and breaking out from under the heel of the station house boy's club took over life, destroying her relationship with the man she loved, pushing her closer and closer to the dark urges of a killer…

[tubemonkey]

Nook Daily Find -- exp 20 Mar


$4.99 -- The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick / Jeff Cummings --> 10.0 hrs / 3.4 stars


Note: also available as a Whispersync deal for $3.49, if you already own or borrow the Kindle ebook.

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy > Sci-Fi: Classic

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.

[tubemonkey]

Last Day -- Downpour

• $1.95 -- Rental of the Week --> Dianetics: Evolution of a Science -- details --> exp 21 Mar
• $3.95 -- Deal of the Week --> The Star Beast -- details --> exp 21 Mar
• SALE -- other Weekly Deals (7 titles) -- details --> exp 21 Mar

[tubemonkey]

Last Day -- Penguin Random House

• FREE -- A Tale of Two Cities -- details --> exp 21 Mar

.

[tubemonkey]

Audible Daily Deal -- exp 21 Mar @ 11:59pm ET


$3.95 -- Menagerie -- Rachel Vincent / Gabra Zackman --> 11.0 hrs / 4.6 stars

Genre: Fantasy: Paranormal

Series: Menagerie Series, book 1 of 2

When Delilah Marlow visits a famous traveling carnival, Metzger's Menagerie, she is an ordinary woman in a not-quite-ordinary world. But under the macabre circus black-top, she discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. Captured and put on exhibition, Delilah is stripped of her worldly possessions, including her own name, as she's forced to "perform" in town after town. But there is breathtaking beauty behind the seamy and grotesque reality of the carnival.

Gallagher, her handler, is as kind as he is cryptic and strong. The other "attractions" - mermaids, minotaurs, gryphons, and kelpies - are strange, yes, but they share a bond forged by the brutal realities of captivity. And as Delilah struggles for her freedom, and for her fellow menagerie, she'll discover a strength and a purpose she never knew existed.

[tubemonkey]

Nook Daily Find -- exp 21 Mar


$7.95 -- Son of the Wilderness -- Linnie Marsh Wolfe / James Armstrong --> 14.0 hrs / 4.0 stars

Genre: Biographies & Memoirs > Environmentalists & Naturalists

Title: Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir

This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Muir, the rugged individualist and passionate protector of the wild who saw that the encroachment of civilization into nature would threaten civilization itself.