FREE/BARGAIN — Fiction (everything else)

[Kieran Seymour]

A couple of James Herriot books are going cheap at Amazon UK at the moment.

(5/6) All Things Wise and Wonderful - 99p
Omnibus of Vets Might Fly and Vet in a Spin

The third collection of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small.

Training as an RAF pilot in the smoke and bustle of London is a far cry from James Herriot’s day job as a country vet in the Yorkshire Dales. And while he is keen to serve Queen and country, James cannot help but miss his life in Darrowby – despite frequent arguments between his colleagues, bad-tempered cattle and equally irritable farmers, and the continuing saga of Cedric the flatulent dog. But most of all he misses his wife Helen; pregnant with their first child. The question is constantly hanging over him – will he be going to war? And when will he get to go home?

(7) The Lord God Made Them All - £1.19

The fourth volume of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small.

Finally home from London after his wartime service in the RAF, James Herriot is settling back into life as a country vet. While the world has changed after the war, the blunt Yorkshire clients and menagerie of beasts with weird and wonderful ailments remain the same. But between his young son, Jimmy, trailing him around aping his every move, stubborn farmers refusing to try his ‘new-fangled’ treatments and a goat that has eaten 293 tomatoes, Darrowby is far from quiet. And with another baby on the way, life is about to get even more chaotic...

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by sufue

You don't have to get emails - you can just check it regularly...

I just check my eReaderIQ notifications each morning, and depending on how busy I am, I might check them in the evening if I'm at the computer anyway.

I prefer the email. I wouldn't remember to keep up with them.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

It's been many years since I read the book, but I do remember being amazed at Tan's ability to tell 4 distinct stories, but not have the characters be confusing for the reader.

We enjoyed the movie version as well. I've read other books by Amy Tan as well and liked them too.

The Kindle book is still on sale for $1.99

It's become popular in some circles to knock on Amy Tan. I've read the criticisms and think they are off base. She's a terrific storyteller who is popular and gets knocked in part for her popularity.

(How many times do I need to use 'popular' in a single post?)

[Deskisamess]

Pearl S. Buck

Amazon has many Pearl S. Buck books on sale today.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Pearl S. Buck

Amazon has many Pearl S. Buck books on sale today.

Thanks for that. I picked up all three of the $1.99 books, and I've never read Pearl S. Buck.

Here are the three that are $1.99:

East Wind: West Wind: The Saga of a Chinese Family

The Patriot

China Sky

[ZodWallop]

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is $1.20 at Amazon (though regular price is only $1.99)

[ZodWallop]

Steinbeck's Travels With Charley is $1.99 at Amazon.

I suppose this should be non-fiction. But when I think of Steinbeck I think of fiction.

In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante.

His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York.

Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life—a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South—which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand—Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade.

[ZodWallop]

John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick is $2.99 at Amazon.

In a small New England town in the late 1960s, there lived three witches Alexandra Spoffard, sculptress, could create thunderstorms. Jane Smart, a cellist, could fly. The local gossip columnist, Sukie Rougemont, could turn milk into cream.

Divorced but hardly celibate, content but always ripe for adventure, our three wonderful witches one day found themselves quite under the spell of the new man in town, Darryl Van Horne, whose hot tub was the scene of some rather bewitching delights.

To tell you any more, dear reader, would be to spoil the marvelous joy of reading this hexy, sexy novel by the incomparable John Updike.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Steinbeck's Travels With Charley is $1.99 at Amazon.

I suppose this should be non-fiction. But when I think of Steinbeck I think of fiction.

Thank you. I don't keep track of the non-fiction but this was an instant buy for me.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Thank you. I don't keep track of the non-fiction but this was an instant buy for me.

You and me both. Steinbeck is my very favorite!

I've already read (and own) just about all of his books and story collections. But when a Steinbeck e-book goes on sale, I snap it up.

[Kieran Seymour]

Roald Dahl's The Complete Short Stories: Volume One: 1944 - 1953 is a 99p Daily deal at Amazon UK.

The Complete Short Stories of Roald Dahl in the first of two unsettling and sinister volumes.

'They are brutal, these stories, and yet you finish reading each one with a smile, or maybe even a hollow laugh, certainly a shiver of gratification, because the conclusion always seems so right' Charlie Higson, from his introduction.

Roald Dahl is one of the most popular writers of the modern age, effortlessly writing for children and adults alike. In this, the first of two volumes chronologically collecting all his published adult short stories, we see how Dahl began by using his experiences in the war to write fiction but quickly turned to his powerful and dark imagination to pen some of the most unsettling and disquieting tales ever written.

In 27 stories, written between 1944 and 1953, we encounter such classic tales as 'Man from the South', featuring a wager with appalling consequences; 'Lamb to the Slaughter', in which a wife murders her husband yet has a novel idea for throwing the police off the scent; and in 'The Sound Machine', the horrific truth about plants is revealed.

Enter the sinister, twisted world of Roald Dahl: whether you're young or old, you'll never want to leave.

[GeoffR]

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is currently free at Australian and New Zealand retailers (except Google Play NZ).

[ZodWallop]

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale goes on sale at the drop of a hat (bonnet?) and what do you know? It's on sale again. $2.99 at Amazon.

When the US becomes a totalitarian monotheocracy, Offred faces a chilling fate…

[ZodWallop]

Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here is on sale for $1.99 at Amazon.

A new president gains power, becoming a dictator in the name of protecting the people from biased press, socialism, and crime.

Any similarity to real-world events is purely intentional.

[ZodWallop]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon. I've read some Gabriel Garcia Marquez and think he's a terrific writer. But somehow I've missed his two masterpieces, this and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.