Today's bargain book: "Mania" by Craig Larsen

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Booksprung Editor

“Mania” by Craig Larsen

Price: $0.00

Summary:

A City Gripped By Fear. . .

Seattle newspaper photographer Nick Wilder has snapped his fair share of gruesome homicide scenes. But when a serial killer dubbed the Street Butcher takes his sick crimes to new depths of depravity, Nick finds the case suddenly getting to him in more ways than one. . .

A Killer Who Knows No End. . .

With each new murder Nick is shocked by what he won’t soon forget. But the deeper he digs, the closer he gets to his own disturbing past–and the more he must risk to unmask an unpredictable, deranged psychopath. As the motives multiply and the suspects mount, the cold, stark Seattle winter is about to turn even chillier. . .


There’s a new bargain listed every day! Check out the Amazon Bargains page for past selections.
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Amazon pulls Kindle game over offensive language

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Chris Walters

The new Kindle game Every Word really means every word, even slangish, potentially offensive terms.

At his blog laughing-stalk, Erik Deckers wrote that last night he was trying to finish an Every Word game and got stuck on one final, missing term.

I was missing one 6-letter word. Not wanting to leave an incomplete board before I moved to the next level, I logged on to an online Scrabble anagram generator to see if I could find it.

The generator gave me three choices: agings, gaping, paging. The game accepted gaping and paging, but had a word in between that I just wasn’t getting.

Frustrated, he gave up and let the game show him the missing word. Shield your eyes, o reader, if you find hip-hop racial slang offensive in pictographic form when included as part of a blog post. (Just to be on the safe side, I’ll put it after the jump.) Continue reading →

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O'Reilly offering top 10 ebooks for $10 each

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Chris Walters


(Not a geek? You might still want to check out this offer–there are at least a couple of titles that might make good ebook gifts for the geek in your life.)

(Note: This offer has expired.) You may already know that I love O’Reilly Media, the company that publishes lots and lots of tech-oriented manuals and reference works. First, I love them the way you might love any company that collects knowledge, organizes it for easy access, and distributes it for mass consumption.

More important (from an ebook perspective), I love them because they’re one of those few, smart companies that are brave enough to ignore DRM hucksters who convince other publishers to lock up everything they sale, even when it hurts the paying consumer.

O’Reilly will have none of that, and for that reason, when you buy an ebook from them you get it in multiple formats and can read it on any device you like, and on as many as you want. Also, when they update the books, they’ll let you know so you can download the latest version for free.

Okay, that’s my spiel for the company. Here’s the deal. Continue reading →

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Today's bargain book: "A Little Death in Dixie" by Lisa Turner

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Booksprung Editor

“A Little Death in Dixie” by Lisa Turner

Price: $0.00

Summary:

The Blues were born out of need, anger and pride. Murder comes from those same dark places. Memphis has both. One of Memphis’ most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. Either she’s off on another drunken escapade or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day’s work for Detective Billy Able quickly grows into a complex spider’s web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets including a few of Billy’s own. With the help of Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted trail of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.


There’s a new bargain listed every day! Check out the Amazon Bargains page for past selections.
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New source of reviews for Smashwords books

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Chris Walters

Smashwords is a terrific resource for low cost ebooks to read on your Kindle. Unfortunately, since anyone can publish there, it’s no better than Amazon at protecting you from badly written nonsense, and digging through its collection for the good stuff can become tiresome.

What we need are more independent reviewers who will find the worthwhile books and bring them to our attention–people like Joanna! A frequent contributor on Teleread (where she sometimes goes by the name Ficbot), she’s just pledged on her own blog to review one Smashwords title a week for the next year:

I hope this blog will come to be a resource that will aid in this endeavour. As I build up my post count, I will prove myself to you as an avid reader, a supporter of authors great and small, and a no-BS-ing, honest reviewer who will tell it like it is: what to read out there, what NOT to read, and which books on Smashwords are solid choices for your e-library.

She started the project this past Saturday with her first review title, an historical fiction novel called “Radium Halos” about female factory workers in the 1920s.

“Major Blog News” [E-Finds via Teleread]

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Today's bargain book: "Take the Monkeys and Run" by Karen Cantwell

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Booksprung Editor

“Take the Monkeys and Run” by Karen Cantwell

Price: $0.99

Summary:

Film lover Barbara Marr is a typical suburban mom living the typical suburban life in her sleepy little town of Rustic Woods, Virginia. Typical, that is until she sets out to find the missing link between a bizarre monkey sighting in her yard and the bone chilling middle-of-the-night fright fest at the strangely vacant house next door. When Barb talks her two friends into some seemingly innocent Charlie’s Angels-like sleuthing, they stumble upon way more than they bargained for and uncover a piece of neighborhood history that certain people would kill to keep on the cutting room floor.

Enter sexy PI Colt Baron, Barb’s ex-boyfriend who would love to be cast as new leading man, filling the role just vacated by her recently estranged husband, Howard. When Colt flies in from out of town to help Barb, events careen out of control and suddenly this mini-van driving mother of three becomes a major player in a treacherous and potentially deadly FBI undercover operation. It’s up to her now. With little time to spare, she and she alone, must summon the inner strength necessary to become a true action heroine and save the lives of those she loves. The question is can she get them out alive before the credits roll?


There’s a new bargain listed every day! Check out the Amazon Bargains page for past selections.
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Today's bargain book: "Practical Gardening" by Annis Ward Jackson

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Booksprung Editor

“Practical Gardening” by Annis Ward Jackson

Price: $0.99

Summary:

A series of 14 previously published articles on gardening. These articles cover a wide variety of topics including container gardening, garden pests, herbs, hostas, garden tools and growing zones. As the title says, they contain practical advice on many aspects of home gardening.

The author has been an avid gardener for many years and conducts workshops on growing herbs and hostas. Gardening is one of the favorite pastimes of her murder mystery detective, Rachel Myers.


There’s a new bargain listed every day! Check out the Amazon Bargains page for past selections.
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Today's bargain book: "Trapped" by Jack Kilborn

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Booksprung Editor

“Trapped” by Jack Kilborn

Price: $2.99

Summary:

An original, full-length horror novel, not yet available in print, on sale for a limited time.

It was supposed to be a harmless camping trip. Six wayward teenagers who’d run into trouble with the law, and their court-appointed guardians, Sara and Martin Randhurst. Three nights on a small, deserted island off of Michigan’s upper peninsula. A time to bond, to learn, to heal.

Then Martin told a campfire story about the island’s history. Of the old civil war prison hidden in there, and the starving confederate soldiers who resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Everyone thought it was funny. They even laughed when Martin pretended to be dragged off into the woods.

But Martin didn’t come back. And neither did Sara when she went in search of him.

Then the laughter stopped.

The group soon began to realize that this deserted island wasn’t so deserted after all. And perhaps Martin’s ridiculous story had more truth to it than anyone thought.

What’s the most horrifying thing you can imagine?

This is a hundred times worse…


Originally scheduled to be released in paperback in 2010, the publisher read the first version of the manuscript and refused to release it. The author made extensive changes, rewriting much of the story. The publisher still refused.

This is a disturbing, terrifying book. You may think you’re brave enough to handle it. But you’re probably not…

Contains bonus excerpts from ENDURANCE by Jack Kilborn, and AFRAID by Jack Kilborn, as well as DESERT PLACES by Blake Crouch.

But that’s not all…

Taking advantage of ebook format and technology, the author is also proud to offer as a bonus; the entire original first draft of TRAPPED.

This ebook package contains two versions of the same book, dramatically different in parts. See what was cut. See what was changed. Read new characters, new scenes, and a different ending. Decide for yourself which version you prefer.

This is the very first time an ebook has been made available in two different versions, for one low price.


There’s a new bargain listed every day! Check out the Amazon Bargains page for past selections.
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