I’m enjoying a cozy weekend of reading, and I just realized something delightful. A new month has started — which means Amazon has discounted another 100 Kindle ebooks to just $3.99 (or less!) They’ve grouped their discounted books into seven different categories, including science fiction, “fiction and literature,” and a category called “general nonfiction.” And at the bottom of those pages, Amazon seems to have hidden some additional discounts, including “hard-boiled” mysteries and thrillers for just $2.99, plus a selection of 20 children’s books for just $2 each.
Here’s some of the discounted Kindle eBooks that looked especially intriguing…
West of the Tularosa by Louis L’Amour ($1.99)
He’s one of America’s best-selling authors of western fiction, and Amazon’s web page reminds you that he’s sold over 265 million books. But this month, Amazon’s releasing a fascinating 274-page collection with eight of his early western short stories (which were first published in magazines devoted to western fiction). The author later went back and re-edited some of his earlier stories (according to one reviewer on Amazon), but this book captures the way the stories appeared in their original form. It’s a great way to experience the author through eight different stories. “Each Chapter is so completely different,” one Amazon customer wrote enthusiastically, “and about the right length to read before bedtime each night…Keep it up Kindle!”
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories by Gavin J. Grant ($3.99)
It’s hard to explain the steampunk genre — but I thought Amazon gave it a good description on this ebook’s page. This book collects 14 stories in an world “where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were…” One of the stories is by Cory Doctorow, who I know as a contributor to the popular blog BoingBoing, and it’s nice to see an ebook that takes advantage of some new Kindle features. If you’re reading on a Kindle Fire (or with one of Amazon’s Kindle apps), this ebook supports Amazon’s “WhisperSync” functionality, which lets you switch instantly from this book to its audiobook version, in which every story is read out loud by its author!
Father Abraham:Lincoln’s Relentless Struggle to End Slavery by Richard Striner ($2.99)
Amazon’s included a whole section of discounted biographies and memoirs this month, including ebooks about Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and two about Abraham Lincoln. One of the Lincoln books is a new 86-page biography by Pulitizer-Prize winning author, James M. McPherson. Released on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth (in 2008), Amazon’s description calls it “the best concise introduction to Lincoln in print, a must-have volume for anyone interested in American history or in our greatest president.” But for one dollar more, you can buy Richard Striner’s 322-page exploration of one of Lincoln’s greatest accomplishments. According to Amazon, this biography will “illuminate the anger, vehemence, and sheer brilliance of candidate Lincoln, who worked up crowds with charismatic fervor as he gathered a national following…”
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Practical Guide for Improving Communication by John Gray ($2.99)
Everyone’s heard about this book, but I was surprised to learn just how popular it was. It’s sold more than 50 million copies, according to Wikipedia, and “according to CNN it was the ‘highest ranked work of nonfiction’ of the 1990s and spent 121 weeks on the bestseller list.” Amazon’s description also claims this book was “Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals,” and “has helped millions of couples transform their relationships” (adding that it’s now seen “as a modern classic.”) And this is another ebook which supports Amazon’s WhisperSync functionality, so now you can switch over from reading the text to hearing it read by the author himself!