Content FREE (and bargain) books for the Kindle - April 2011

[arcadata]

Bargain book:

Guardian of Lies with Bonus Material: A Paul Madriani Novel by Steve Martini is $1.99 at the US Kindle store. (The book without bonus content is $8.99)

Product Description

For a limited time, meet bestselling author Steve Martini's hero Paul Madriani in this special, discounted digital edition of Guardian of Lies, including excerpts from The Rule of Nine and Martini's forthcoming Madriani thriller, Trader of Secrets (available May 31).

In Guardian of Lies, fate has bound attorney Paul Madriani to a young Costa Rican woman accused of a horrific crime, ensnaring them both in a frightening conspiracy that ranges beyond U.S. borders. A Cold War nightmare is being reshaped for a new century—a threat too terrible to imagine yet too real to be ignored—leading Madriani, his partner Harry Hinds, and the fugitive Katia directly into the path of an unstoppable, very angry assassin. From the halls of American justice to the jungles of South America and a dark secret buried since the days of Castro's ascendance, the race is on to prevent the unthinkable—by unveiling the hidden truth protected by the "Guardian of Lies."

*Note: The cover of the book has "Free edition with bonus material" written across it, so maybe, the book was free before (?) or there are plans to make it free in the future.

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How to Make Money Marketing Your Business with Tumblr by Scott Bishop is now also free at the US Kindle store.

[koland]

From Pac-Man to Pop Music, by Karen Collins, is free for UK Kindle customers (UK link). This one is from UK publisher Ashgate, so I don't expect it to be free in the US, although it may be so later tonight or tomorrow.

Book Description
Digital interactive audio is the future of audio in media - most notably video games, but also web pages, theme parks, museums, art installations and theatrical events. Despite its importance to contemporary multimedia, this is the first book that provides a framework for understanding the history, issues and theories surrounding interactive audio. Karen Collins presents the work of academics, composers and sound programmers to introduce the topic from a variety of angles in order to provide a supplementary text for music and multimedia courses. The contributors cover practical and theoretical approaches, including historical perspectives, emerging theories, socio-cultural approaches to fandom, reception theory and case study analyses. The book offers a fresh perspective on media music, one that will complement film studies, but which will show the necessity of a unique approach when considering games music.

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Bargain book:

Mariposa (A Quantico novel) by Greg Bear is $2.87 at the US Kindle store (B&N still has it at $7.99)

Product Description
The new near-future thriller from bestselling author Greg Bear, starring the three FBI agents from Quantico

In an America driven to near bankruptcy with crushing foreign debt, the Talos Corporation stands out as a major success story—training soldiers and security forces from around the world and providing logistics and troops for nearly all branches of the United States government. But Talos has another plan in mind—the destruction of the federal system and constitutional law.

Three FBI agents are all that stands between Talos’s CEO Axel Price and the subversion of our nation. Fouad Al-Husam is working undercover in Lion City, Texas, on the Talos Campus—but he may have just overplayed his hand. Agent William Griffin will engage in a desperate diversion to try to rescue Al-Husam, and the top-secret information he literally carries in his blood.

Rebecca Rose is called into action to partner with an unlikely hero: Nathan Trace, one of a team of four who created and programmed the thinking machines that are about to help Axel Price in his plans for domination. Trace and his colleagues were caught up in a violent incident in the Middle East several years ago, and experienced Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. All of them were forcibly enrolled in a treatment program sponsored by Talos Corporation, code-named Mariposa—which supposedly cured their PTSD. But now they are beginning to notice unexpected side effects. The Mariposa subjects are being liberated from nearly all human emotions and concerns—and all mental limits—to become brilliant sociopaths. They are out of control and they must die.

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The Network Imperative: Community or Contagion? by Yoram (Jerry) Wind and Paul R. Kleindorfer is free at the US Kindle store

Product Description
This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version.

The rising importance of networks creates challenges and opportunities for business enterprises. On the one hand, networks lead to contagion and other risks, as seen in the spread of the 2008 global financial crisis. On the other hand, networks present opportunities for building community, as in the rapid rise of companies such as eBay, Google, Facebook, and other network-based enterprises. In this chapter, the authors point out that network-based models for business challenge the traditional view of capabilities and strategies that are the focus of most management thinking, making it clear that the opportunities and threats presented by networks cannot be ignored.

[koland]

Just a heads up - Network Imperative is just a sample (preface and one chapter), not an entire book.

[koland]

RX from the Garden ($9.99 US), by Kathleen Barnes, is free for UK Kindle customers (UK link). The publisher on this one is Adams Media, so there is a good chance it will be free in the US as well.

Book Description
Your backyard becomes an all-natural pharmacy!

Colds. Headaches. Upset stomach, Allergy symptoms. Depression. Circulation problems.

This timely book goes beyond using herbs as medicine; it also focuses on beneficial foods for more than 100 common ailments and shows you how to grow them.

In that way, RX from the Garden lets you circumvent expensive meds with questionable side effects by explaining what foods to eat to help you feel better. In addition to aligning health problems with natural cures, this valuable resource provides step-by-step instruction on how to easily cultivate the corresponding vegetables and herbs in your lawn, garden, or flowerbed.

According to Hippocrates, "Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food." Now you can reap health benefits for your very own backyard bounty.

About the Author
Kathleen Barnes has ten books dealing with natural health to her credit--and is a Master Gardener who grows foods and herbs organically. For nearly seven years, she wrote the weekly natural health column for Woman's World magazine. She is a frequent guest on Frankie Boyer's natural health radio show. She bills her blog, Natural Living Now (www.kathleenbarnes.com) as "your guide to a long, healthy life while living gently on the planet." Barnes has been part of the effort to raise public awareness of natural heath as an advocate and yoga teacher for more than thirty years.

About the Foreword Writer
Dr. Stephen E. Southard is a physician practicing at Massachusetts General Hospital. He practices allopathic medicine, but has a strong interest in integrative CAM: incorporating extensive dietary/supplement teaching and addressing patients about such therapies as acupuncture, homeopathic treatments, and chelation. Dr. Southard completed his undergraduate degree at Yale University in 2001 and his medical degree at Tufts University School of Medicine in 2006 after a year working for a biotech firm. In 2009, he completed his internal medicine residency.


Griselda Takes Flight ($9.49 US), by Joyce Magnin, is free for UK Kindle customers (UK link). This one is from Christian publisher Abingdon Press, so I'd expect it to be free in the US within a day.

Book Description
Now that her morbidly obese sister, Agnes Sparrow, is comfortably dieting at the Greenbrier Nursing Home, Griselda learns to fly—literally—after a pilot makes an emergency landing and creates quite a ruckus in the otherwise sleepy town of Bright’s Pond.

But Griselda’s newfound freedom—and her flight time with handsome pilot, Cliff—is hampered by other happenings in town. Like the gold digger who prances around town and is supposedly engaged to Stella Kincaid’s brother—the lottery winner who is in a coma. And there’s Ivy Slocum’s dog, Al Capone, whose adventures continue long after they should.

When Chief of Police Mildred Blessing starts investigating the gold digger, however, things really heat up—for Griselda and all the residents of the unique Pennsylvania hamlet called Bright’s Pond!


Generation Rising ($9.99 US), by Andrew C. Thompson, is free for UK Kindle customers (UK link). This one is from Christian publisher Abingdon Press, so I'd expect it to be free in the US within a day.

Book Description
Computers, mass media, consumerism, and family instability have transformed our society dramatically over the past three decades. These cultural shifts undermine the stability of real, authentic community and make it more difficult to fulfill God’s call to live in love and connection to one another. Jesus calls us to reconciliation, but life today moves toward ever-more alienation. The adults now known as Generation X had a unique firsthand experience of the cultural shifts now affecting the way the church works in the world. Growing up, Gen Xers were isolated and independent and had no common cause in terms of war or revolution, but had a common experience of life as increasingly less concrete, increasingly more detached. Because of this, Gen X Christians have a deep hunger for authentic community and the possibility of lifelong growth in grace because those things have become more and more difficult to achieve.

Generation Rising is the collaboration of twelve Gen X authors who believe passionately that the Wesleyan vision of Christian discipleship in the holy community called church is the most exciting life we can live. They offer a vision of what the United Methodist Church could be, if we will faithfully respond to the call God continues to give us, and where our very identity as disciples will never be separated from the community God calls us to join.

Contributors include: Sarah Arthur, Presian Burroughs, Jeff Conklin-Miller, Timothy R. Eberhart, Joy J. Moore, Julie O'Neal, Arnold S. Oh, Douglas Powe, Shane Raynor, Andrew C. Thompson, Eric Van Meter, and Kevin M. Watson.

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Becoming a Talent Champion: Refocusing Executives on the Five Talent Activities That Matter by Corporate Executive Board (US Kindle)

Product Description
A guide to refocusing executive on the five talent activities that matter.

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Now also free at the US Kindle store:

Let's Go Europe 2011: The Student Travel Guide by Inc., Harvard Student Agencies

Description:
From Portugal to the Ukraine from Norway down to Greece Europe is a lot to take on. Luckily the student adventurers behind Let’s Go Europe 2011 know that any traveler can handle it — with a little help.

Whether whipping through London Barcelona and Prague in five days or spending a leisurely year abroad travelers get all the info they need from Let's Go. Their wit and irreverence can brighten even the drabbest Renaissance museum — if travelers didn’t take their advice to skip it.

From German beer halls to Roman ruins Let's Go Europe 2011 is the ticket to adventure.

Generation Rising by Andrew C. Thompson

RX from the Garden by Kathleen Barnes

[greencat]

With the opening of the Amazon.de Kindle store has come the opportunity for free books. Now my German is a little rusty so hopefully I've got this right.

You can browse a complete list of Kindle free books here:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/search?node=...iscounterde-21

The top 100 free bestsellers (German and English) can be found here:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/bestsellers/...iscounterde-21

or you can subscribe to an RSS feed here:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/rss/top-free...iscounterde-21

Mostly public domain at the moment - although a few english language time limited freebies (which are free elsewhere have crept in).

Just want the English language free Kindle books? Browse from here:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/search?node=...iscounterde-21

There is also an english language only bestselling free books list:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/bestsellers/...iscounterde-21

and the associated RSS feed:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/rss/top-free...iscounterde-21

[djb132]

Originally Posted by arcadata

Bargain poetry book:

The Poets' Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family by John Lithgow is $2.99 at the US Kindle store

Does anyone know if this include the MP3 files that accompany the hardcover? I assume not, but it would be nice

David

[koland]

It would have to be an audio/video enhanced edition (for iPad and iPod only), to include any audio.

One I saw today was printed on recycled paper, despite being an ebook edition.

Obviously, the publishers just cut and paste the descriptions, without bothering to even read them.

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Cooking with Yashim: Turkish Recipes and a Preview of An Evil Eye by Jason Goodwin (US Kindle Pre-order)

Product Description

Detective Yashim is more than a sleuth—he’s also a great cook. And as the Financial Times says, "What is there not to love in a detective who enjoys cooking as much as he enjoys eating?"

Cooking with Yashim presents a selection of authentic Turkish recipes to celebrate the publication of An Evil Eye, the fourth novel in the series by Edgar Award winner Jason Goodwin.

Like a turban glimpsed on the street, a draft of sweet coffee, or the slender shadow of a minaret, Yashim’s dishes help to re-create the flavors of 19th-century Istanbul—its abundance of seasonal vegetables, fresh fish drawn from the waters of the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara, the ubiquitous soups and grilled lamb, the yogurt, and the spices that scent the air of the Egyptian bazaar.

Goodwin's collected recipes from his previous novels The Janissary Tree, The Bellini Card, The Snake Stone, and An Evil Eye for the first time in this exclusive ebook, complete with an excerpt from Yashim's latest mystery.

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Love a la Carte by Jeffrey Stepakoff (US Kindle pre-order)

Product Description

A romantic short story from the author of FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA and THE ORCHARD (coming out July, 2011).

In THE ORCHARD (July, 2011), Grace Lyndon is a rising ingenue in the world of perfumes and flavors; a stiletto-wearing, work-a-holic in Atlanta, she develops aromas and tastes to enthrall the senses. Dylan Jackson is a widowed single father whose heart and hands have been calloused in the fields of his North Georgia apple farm. When Grace happens to taste an apple picked from Dylan’s trees, it changes both their lives forever.

In LOVE A LA CARTE, Dylan cooks a romantic dinner for Grace—stuck all evening at work. By the end of the delicious evening, Grace realizes that she’s beginning to fall for the handsome and caring Dylan…

[koland]

The Janissary Tree, by Jason Goodwin, is currently marked down to $2.99 on Kindle and at B&N and Kobo.

Book Description
When Jason Goodwin explored the Ottoman Empire in Lords of the Horizons, The New York Times Book Review hailed it as “a work of dazzling beauty…the rare coming together of historical scholarship…with luminous writing.” Now he returns to Istanbul, with a delicious mystery—The Janissary Tree.

It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the Sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Lastname, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.

He leads us into the palace’s luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years, they were the empire's elite soldiers, but they grew too powerful, and ten years ago, the Sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback?

The Janissary Tree is the first in a series featuring the most enchanting detective since Precious Ramotswe of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Splendidly paced and illuminating, it belongs beside Caleb Carr's The Alienist and the historical thrillers of Arturo Perez-Reverte.