Kindle eBooks for $3.99 or Less!

Amazon Kindle 399 ebook sale

Every month Amazon discounts over 100 Kindle ebooks to just $3.99 or less. And this month, they’ve put together an unusually good selection of ebooks — many priced at just $1.99. But in addition, Amazon’s also introducing a brand new kind of discount. Now you can also purchase the audiobook edition of many of these ebooks for just $3.99. Then you can switch instantly between the written and spoken versions of the ebook when you’re reading on a Kindle Fire tablet (or a smartphone)!

For a shortcut, just point your browser to
tinyurl.com/399KindleEbooks

Here’s some of the most interesting deals…


Stardust by Neil Gaiman ($1.99)

Set in the 19th-century, Neil Gaiman’s 1998 novel is “an utterly charming fairy tale in the tradition of The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story,, ” according to the book’s description at Amazon. A young man has to cross the wall that separates his British town from the magical land of the faeries, “in pursuit of love and the utterly impossible. ” This story was originally published as a graphic novel with some lavish illustrations, but even this text-only version still fills 368 pages. And best of all, for another $3.49 you can also get the audiobook version — that’s read by Neil Gaiman himself!


Fire in the Hole by Elmore Leonard ($1.99)

There’s nine great short stories in this collection from the master of crime fiction — and each one features a female protagonist. (It’s original title was “When the Women Come Out To Dance”…) “These nine stories are the great Elmore Leonard at his vivid, hilarious, and unfailingly human best,” reads the book’s description at Amazon, noting how this collection “once again illustrates how the line between the law and the lawbreakers is not as firm as we might think.” It’s been 16 weeks since writer Elmore Leonard died at the age of 87, and this book is now sporting a new cover to highlight its special distinction. Its title story became the basis for the TV series “Justified” on the FX network — now heading into its fourth season — and tells the story of how U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens deals with an old friend who’s now living outside of the law!


In One Person by John Irving ($1.99)

John Irving wrote some of the most famous novels of the last 50 years — everything from The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire to The Cider-House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. But this time he’s written a more poltical story, according to the book’s description on Amazon, which calls it “precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel… brilliant, political, provocative, tragic, and funny!” And for another $3.95, you can purchase the audiobook edition, and hear the entire book — all 488 pages — read by a professional narrator.


Endless Night by Agatha Christie ($1.99)

This isn’t just any Agatha Christie mystery. ” It was one of her favourites of her own works ,” according to Wikipedia, “and received some of the warmest critical notices of her career upon publication.” A young man wandering “Gipsy’s Acre” — a stretch of rustic land said to be cursed — meets and falls in love with an attractive American woman. But before long he’s confronting a gauntlet of eccentric characters, in an unusual Agatha Christie mystery that one Amazon reviewer called “one of the most original books she’s written… A few very well placed surprises catch you off your guard!”


Remember, for a shortcut, just point your browser to
tinyurl.com/399KindleEbooks

Elmore Leonard on the Kindle

Elmore-Leonard

Everyone I know loves Elmore Leonard’s books. He wrote wonderful crime stories that were full of lively characters — and many of his novels were adapted into some very popular movies. (Like Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk, Out of Sight, 3:10 to Yuma, and even Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.) On Tuesday, his agent announced to the world that Elmore Leonard had finally passed away at the age of 87. But fortunately, you can still read a lot of his best novels on your Kindle!

In fact, four of Leonard’s novels are actually available for less than $4.00 in the Kindle Store. (The Bounty Hunters, The Law at Randado, Forty Lashes Less One, and Escape from Five Shadows.) Nine more books have been priced between five and six dollars — including Out of Sight (which you may remember as the 1998 movie starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez). Four more novels are available in the six-dollar range, and there’s even a three-novel collection that you can purchase for just $9.99 — the “Elmore Leonard Classic 3-Book Collection,” which bundles together Get Shorty, Tishomingo Blues, and Killshot.

In fact, every Leonard novel in the Kindle Store is currently priced at less than $11.00. I have to admit that I’m especially intrigued by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (which Amazon describes as ” the perfect writer’s – and reader’s – gift.”) And Be Cool — the sequel to Get Shorty — is priced at just $9.78. For a shortcut to all of Amazon’s Kindle ebooks by Elmore Leonard, just point your web browser to:

tinyurl.com/KindleElmoreLeonard

On Tuesday, the Washington Post ran a fascinating article describing just how much fun the author had when he was writing his book. “He thinks of, say, ‘two guys in a room, talking,’ usually about some criminal endeavor, and lets them ‘audition’ for leading roles. He shapes them by intense research – i n 1978, he hung out with the Detroit police’s homicide squad, an experience that shaped the rest of his writing – and then lets them wander deeper into trouble.

“If any passage sounds like ‘writing,’ he rewrites it. This nets two to four pages a day. The next morning, he’ll read over those pages and ‘add cigarettes and drinks and things like that’ and press forward…”

One of my favorite books by the author — which had one of his most intriguing titles — was When the Women Come Out to Dance. Published in 2002, it was a collection of nine different stories, each one about a female character who confronts the author’s trademark mix of challenging plot twists and some very untrustworthy people, according to the book’s review at Amazon. “In this collection of new and recently published short fiction, Leonard demonstrates the superb characterizations, dead-on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name.” But I like how their review acknowledged that Elmore Leonard always seemed to have a real sympathy for every character — even the ones who aren’t helping the detective solve his case. “Once more this master of crime illustrates that the line between the law and the lawbreakers is not as firm as we might think.” (It’s available as a Kindle ebook for just $8.99).

Ironically, I used to always get Elmore Leonard mixed up with James Ellroy — since both men wrote crime stories. Confusing things even further, on Saturday — and Saturday only — Amazon’s offering a discount on James Ellroy’s first novel. (Brown’s Requiem has been reduced in price to just $1.99.) “In honor of the two year anniversary of Kindle Daily Deals, more than 65 of our most popular titles are $2.99 or less,” Amazon explained on their special daily deal web page.

I guess it just goes to show you that there’s a lot of great authors in the world — and a lot of wonderful ebooks waiting in the Kindle Store.