J K Rowling
Saturday, 25 May 2013
How much did you paY
How a third of bestselling ebooks cost MORE
than the same title in hardback
- Consumers say that electronic versions
should be cheaper because they cost nothing to produce
- Ebooks make up around 15 per cent of
books sold in the UK
HOW THE PRICES COMPARE...
The Casual Vacancy, JK Rowling, Kindle price: £11.99 Hardback: £9
Chronicles Of Downton Abbey, Kindle price: £12.99 Hardback: £10
David Mitchell: Back Story, David Mitchell, Kindle price: £12.99 Hardback price: £10
Between The Lines, Victoria Pendleton, Kindle: £12.99 Hardback: £12
The Life, Martina Cole, Kindle price: £10.99 Hardback price: £9
The Kingmaker’s Daughter, Philippa Gregory, Kindle price: £9.99 Hardback price: £8.86
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2211022/How-bestselling-ebooks-cost-MORE-title-hardback.html#ixzz2UITnYhrl
Friday, 24 May 2013
The Price of e-Books
A US judge is confident that government evidence will prove Apple knowingly participated in a conspiracy to raise the price of ebooks, ahead of a trial due to start next month.
US District
Judge Denise Cole is set to oversee the trial starting 3 June and this week
gave her views during a pretrial hearing, and although she stressed her
tentative view was not final, she believes the US government can prove Apple
engaged in a price-raising conspiracy with five book publishers.
Apple is the
sole remaining defendant in the case, after the five publishers accused of
colluding with Apple to set ebook prices all settled with the US Department of
Justice.
"I believe that the
government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly
participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of ebooks, and
that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the
agreements, will confirm this," Cote said.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/470945/20130524/apple-ebook-price-fixing-judge-comment-blow.htm
Penguin
pays $75m to settle ebook price-fixing case
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
From http://www.ereadingtrends.com/the-great-gatsby-ebook-is-free-dont-waste-money-buying-it/
The Great Gatsby eBook is
Free – Don’t Waste Money Buying It!
Published May 12, 2013
It irritates me to no end when I see big companies trying to capitalize off of a book being turned into a movie so they can rake in every little cent that they can squeeze out of consumers.
Unfortunately that is the case with The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Ever since it has been turned into a movie, ebookstores everywhere are trying to make as much money as possible off of what is a public domain ebook that is freely available (in most countries except the U.S.) to anyone who knows where to get it.
At Amazon, The Great Gatsby is currently the #1 bestseller in the Kindle store. That shows just how popular the ebook is right now. Amazon is charging $4.99, which isn’t half as bad as B&N who is selling it for a ridiculous $10.93. Sony has it for $9.62 and Kobo has it for $7.99. In my opinion that is way too much to pay for an ebook, much less one that was published in 1925 and is now in the public domain.
None of those ebookstores want you to know that you can simply go to Feedbooks.com and download The Great Gatsby for free in ePub, Mobi (for Kindle), and PDF formats. What I like about Feedbooks is their ebooks are nicely formatted, so there’s no reason to go spend $5-$10 elsewhere.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that everyone is trying to cash in on the success of the movie, but I still don’t like it. The same thing happened to George Martin’s A Game of Thrones, which used to sell for $6.99 in ebook form until HBO started airing the Game of Thrones TV series. Then it shot up to $9.99 and has remained there ever since.
The Great Gatsby eBook is Free – Don’t Waste Money Buying It! | The eBook Reader Blog.
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/5543/the-great-gatsby
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Dan Brown - Inferno
_5_15_2013_12_06_32_AM.jpg)
If you like Dan Brown – I don’t! If you have read one you have read them all.
This was obviously written with the hope it would become a movie!
Download Link
Sunday, 12 May 2013
John Sandford - Silken Prey
The behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the political class provide a grim reminder: power is not only a potent aphrodisiac it is a motive for murder. It's Davenport's job to unravel an ugly scenario of blackmail and murder without a scandal before an important election.
DownloadLink
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Jodi Picoult - Nineteen Minutes
In Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents.
Even those who were not inside the school that morning find their lives in an upheaval, including Alex Cormier. The superior court judge assigned to the Houghton case, Alex—whose daughter, Josie, witnessed the events that unfolded—must decide whether or not to step down. She’s torn between presiding over the biggest case of her career and knowing that doing so will cause an even wider chasm in her relationship with her emotionally fragile daughter. Josie, meanwhile, claims she can’t remember what happened in the last fatal minutes of Peter’s rampage. Or can she? And Peter’s parents, Lacy and Lewis Houghton, ceaselessly examine the past to see what they might have said or done to compel their son to such extremes. Nineteen Minutes also features the return of two of Jodi Picoult’s characters—defense attorney Jordan McAfee from The Pact and Salem Falls, and Patrick DuCharme, the intrepid detective introduced in Perfect Match.
Rich with psychological and social insight, Nineteen Minutes is a riveting, poignant, and thought-provoking novel that has at its center a haunting question. Do we ever really know someone?
Download link
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Helen Bryan – The Sisterhood
Menina Walker was a child of fortune. Rescued after a hurricane in South America, doomed to a life of poverty with a swallow medal as her only legacy, the orphaned toddler was adopted by an American family and taken to a new life.
As a beautiful, intelligent woman of nineteen, she is in love, engaged, and excited about the future—until another traumatic event shatters her dreams. Menina flees to Spain to bury her misery in research for her college thesis about a sixteenth-century artist who signed his works with the image of a swallow—the same image as the one on Menina’s medal.
But a mugging strands Menina in a musty, isolated Spanish convent. Exploring her surroundings, she discovers the epic sagas of five orphan girls who were hidden from the Spanish Inquisition and received help escaping to the New World. Is Menina’s medal a link to them, or to her own past? Did coincidence lead her to the convent, or fate?
Both love story and historical thriller, The Sisterhood is an emotionally charged ride across continents and centuries.
DownloadLink
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Stuart Woods - Unintended Consequences
Always nice to know you can read a book without having to have read all the others by the author.
Download Link
Thursday, 2 May 2013
Monday, 29 April 2013
David Hewson - The Blue Demon
Twenty years ago, a mysterious group called the Blue
Demon committed a series of bizarre and ritualistic crimes evoking the legacy
of the lost race of the Etruscans, and leaving in their wake a group of dead
students, a murdered couple, a cryptic message and a kidnapped child. Now, the
leaders of the G8 are descending on Rome for a summit at the Quirinale Palace.
But when a politician is found ritually murdered, seemingly by a strange young
man dressed as an Etruscan god, detective Nic Costa suspects that the old case
was never really solved. The Blue Demon appear to have returned - and planning,
under the leadership of the fanatical Andrea Petrakis, to unleash a devastating
sequence of attacks on the city. As Costa and his team start to dig deeper into
the past, they find that there are still too many unanswered questions – and
much more to the history of the Blue Demon than anyone wants to admit . . .
'Hewson is a daunting talent – a writer who is master stylist, who respects the
audience’s intelligence and who effortlessly keeps the thrills coming a mile a
minute’ Jeffery Deaver
Download Link
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Edward Rutherfurd - Paris
The
main player in the story is Paris
itself. We learn about the building of the Eiffel tower, the Moulin Rouge, the
impressionist painters and poets, the Palace of Versailles, the violence of the
French Revolution, the couture clothing industry and countless more French
associations. Paris's coat of arms contains a ship with the city's Latin
motto," Whatever the storm, the ship sails on." Your visit to Paris
will be clear sailing with splendid views.
Saturday, 27 April 2013
C J Box - Breaking Point
The thrilling new Joe Pickett novel from the New York
Times–bestselling author.
Critics called Force of Nature an“amazing” (Associated
Press), “outstanding” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), “warp speed . . . showdown
between good and evil” (The Denver Post). “This is the best Box I’ve ever read,
and I’ve read them all” (Library Journal).
Breaking Point, however, takes Joe Pickett into uncharted
territory. The question is: What will he do when he gets there?
It was always good to see Butch Roberson, Joe thought—a
hardworking, upright local business owner whose daughter was friends with his
own. Little did he know that when he talked to Butch that day in the forest,
the man was about to disappear. He was heading into the mountains to scout elk,
he said, but instead he was running. Two EPA employees had just been murdered,
and all signs pointed to him as the killer.
As the manhunt organized itself, Joe heard more of the
story—about the tract of land Butch and his wife had bought to build their
retirement home on, until the EPA declared it a wetland. About the penalties
they charged him when he balked, new ones piling up every day, until the family
was torn apart . . . and finally, it seems, the man just cracked.
It was an awful story. But was it the whole story? The more
Joe looks into it, the more he begins to wonder—and the more he finds himself
in the middle of a war he never expected and never wanted. Powerful forces want
Roberson not just caught but dead—and the same goes for anyone who stands in
their way.
Every man reaches his breaking point. Joe Pickett may just
have reached his.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
David Baldacci - The Hit
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Jeffrey Archer – Best Kept Secret
1945. The vote in the House of Lords as to who should
inherit the Barrington family fortune has ended in a tie. The Lord Chancellor’s
deciding vote will cast a long shadow on the lives of Harry Clifton and Giles
Barrington. Harry returns to America to promote his latest novel, while his
beloved Emma goes in search of the little girl who was found abandoned in her
father’s office on the night he was killed. When the General Election is
called, Giles Barrington has to defend his seat in the House of Commons and is
horrified to discover who the Conservatives select to stand against him. But it
is Sebastian Clifton, Harry and Emma’s son, who ultimately influences his
uncle’s fate. In 1957, Sebastian wins a scholarship to Cambridge, and a new
generation of the Clifton family march onto the page. After Sebastian is
expelled from school, he unwittingly becomes caught up in an international art
fraud involving a Rodin statue that is worth far more than the sum it raises at
auction. Does he become a millionaire? Does he go to Cambridge? Is his life in
danger? Best Kept Secret will answer all these questions, but once again, pose
so many more.
Harlan Coben – Six Years
In Six Years, a masterpiece of modern suspense, Harlan Coben
explores the depth and passion of lost love…and the secrets and lies at its
heart.
Six years have passed
since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six
years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college
professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six
years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.
But six years haven’t
come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s
obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the
glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the
mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with
that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a
time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.
As Jake searches for
the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual
friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has
seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who
lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he
has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.
Harlan Coben once
again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past
love, and the secrets and lies that such love can hide.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
I did not
finish this book found it to be at most mediocre
– but here is what it says in a review.
Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed
suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes
that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a
marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her
work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty
addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling
prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn. On a
warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s
fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are
being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented
McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing
himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of
his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl
perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting
pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting
parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and
inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is
he really a killer? As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon
wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister,
Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do
it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden
in the back of her bedroom closet? With her razor-sharp writing and trademark
psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark,
and ingeniously plotted thriller.
Monday, 4 March 2013
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Lawrence Block - Hit Me
A man named Nicholas Edwards lives in New
Orleans renovating houses, doing honest work and making decent money at it.
Between his family and his stamp collection, all his spare time is happily
accounted for. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he used to kill people for
a living.
But when the nation's economy tanks, taking
the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag him
back into the game. It may say Nicholas Edwards on his driver's license and
credit cards, but he's back to being the man he always was: Keller.
Keller's work takes him to New York, the
former home he hasn't dared revisit, where his target is the abbot of a midtown
monastery. Another call puts him on a West Indies cruise, with several
interesting fellow passengers-the government witness, the incandescent young
woman keeping the witness company, and, sharing Keller's cabin, his wife,
Julia. But the high drama comes in Cheyenne, where a recent widow is looking to
sell her husband's stamp collection...
In HIT ME, legendary Edgar Grandmaster and
New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block returns to one of his most
beloved characters. Welcome back, Keller. You've been missed. Aka Amazon.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Nicci French - Tuesday's Gone
In Tuesday’s Gone, a London social worker
makes a routine home visit only to discover her client, Michelle Doyce, serving
afternoon tea to a naked, decomposing corpse. With no clues as to the dead
man’s identity, Chief Inspector Karlsson again calls upon Frieda for help. She
discovers that the body belongs to Robert Poole, con man extraordinaire. But
Frieda can’t shake the feeling that the past isn’t done with her yet. Did
someone kill Poole to embroil her in the investigation? And if so, is Frieda
herself the next victim?
Monday, 18 February 2013
Monday, 11 February 2013
The Perks of being a Wallflower
From Publishers Weekly
A
trite coming-of-age novel that could easily appeal to a YA readership,
filmmaker Chbosky's debut broadcasts its intentions with the publisher's
announcement that ads will run on MTV. Charlie, the wallflower of the title,
goes through a veritable bath of bathos in his 10th grade year, 1991. The novel
is formatted as a series of letters to an unnamed "friend," the first
of which reveals the suicide of Charlie's pal Michael. Charlie's response--valid
enough--is to cry. The crying soon gets out of hand, though--in subsequent
letters, his father, his aunt, his sister and his sister's boyfriend all become
lachrymose. Charlie has the usual dire adolescent problems--sex, drugs, the
thuggish football team--and they perplex him in the usual teen TV ways. [...]
Into these standard teenage issues Chbosky infuses a droning insistence on
Charlie's supersensitive disposition. Charlie's English teacher and others have
a disconcerting tendency to rhapsodize over Charlie's giftedness, which seems
to consist of Charlie's unquestioning assimilation of the teacher's taste in
books. In the end we learn the root of Charlie's psychological problems, and we
confront, with him, the coming rigors of 11th grade, ever hopeful that he'll
find a suitable girlfriend and increase his vocabulary.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Always
make sure you have a good anti-virus program when you download anything from
the internet!!!!!
Saturday, 9 February 2013
Judith Riley - The Oracle Glass
"Absorbing and
arresting." —New York Times
"Fascinating and
factual." —Los Angeles Times
"Chilly, witty, and
completely engrossing ... great, good fun." — Kirkus Reviews
"An outstanding historical
novel of 17th–century France ... based on a real–life scandal known as the
Affaire des Poisons, this tale is riveting from start to finish." —Library
Journal
For a handful of gold, Madame
de Morville will read your future in a glass of swirling water. You'll believe
her, because you know she's more than 150 years old and a witch, and she has
all of Paris in the palm of her hand. But Madame de Morville hides more behind
her black robes than you know. Her real age, the mother and uncle who left her
for dead, the inner workings of the most secret society of Parisian witches:
none of these truths would help her outwit the rich who so desperately want the
promise of the future. After all, it's her own future she must control , no
matter how much it is painted with uncertainty and clouded by vengeance.
Download link
Download link
David Hoffman - The Dead Hand
WINNER OF
THE PULITZER PRIZE
The first full account
of how the Cold War arms race finally came to a close, this riveting narrative
history sheds new light on the people who struggled to end this era of massive
overkill, and examines the legacy of the nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons that remain a threat today.
Drawing on
memoirs, interviews in both Russia and the US, and classified documents from
deep inside the Kremlin, David E. Hoffman examines the inner motives and secret
decisions of each side and details the deadly stockpiles that remained unsecured
as the Soviet Union collapsed. This is the fascinating story of how Reagan,
Gorbachev, and a previously unheralded collection of scientists, soldiers,
diplomats, and spies changed the course of history.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat
Translated
into English by Michiel Heyns
A
paralyzed Afrikaner woman, Milla, stricken with ALS that leaves her not only
mute, but entirely dependent on her Black caretaker, Agaat. She reminisces
about her life, her abusive marriage, and the son she loves. In the hands of a
lesser writer Marlene van Niekerk's second novel, "Agaat." would
surely have descended into saccharine melodrama. Instead, with poetic prose and
a perfectly pitched narrative voice, van Niekerk weaves a complex intimacy
between these two women, whose lives have been inseparably bound by knots so
intricate they cannot even be undone by death. Agaat's attention, at times
loving and others sadistic, speaks volumes, and it is in these scenes where
"Agaat" most sings, enveloped in an achingly beautiful claustrophobia
and finely rendered.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
The Fifth Assassin - Brad Meltzer
Amazon Best Books of the Month,
January 2013: I consider myself a cagey reader, the
literary equivalent of a wizened salmon, suspicious of fakery, wary of sloppy
plotting and cliché, and ready to bail if I’m not lured in by page 50. So when
Meltzer got his hooks in me by the end of page three, and never stopped reeling
me in, I have to say I was impressed. I was also impressed that the hero of The Fifth Assassin (first
introduced in The Inner Circle) isn’t a misanthrope cop or
hard-drinking PI but a brainy archivist at the National Archives. Beecher White
is a glorified librarian, for god's sake. But with
a dash of Sherlock Holmes and a hint of Indiana Jones, White is a refreshingly
quirky pursuer of justice, and his hunt for a would-be assassin—which takes us
through history and through the secret spaces around Washington, DC—makes for a
thrilling read, as well as a nice reminder that a page-turner can be smart,
deeply researched, and just plain fun. --Neal Thompson
Monday, 21 January 2013
Life of Pi
One
boy, one boat, one tiger ...After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a
solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors
from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a
broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene
is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in
recent years.
Friday, 18 January 2013
THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK »By Matthew Quick
The Silver
Linings Playbook »By Matthew
Quick
This
book will make you happy, though, because of the way it is written. Most of the
chapter titles will make you laugh in a different way than the next. Mr.
Quick's apt use of detail, allusions, and brilliant comparisons bring the story
to life. That a chapter should be called "Like he was Yoda and I was Luke Skywalker
training on Dagobah" is a very precious thing. Meanwhile periodic
interludes such as advice from Pat's 'black friend Danny', and even the whole
introduction of the death of Veterans Stadium as a new thing, bring bits of
humor just when the story may seem to be becoming sad. The author has an eye
for quirks and intricacies of language and a gift for conveying them in a
readable yet still emotional and romantic manner. More than just the ease of
identifying with Pat, Mr. Quick's simple, declarative prose, highlighted by
brief, nostalgic-filled, almost Hemingway-like sentences, reels in the reader
Monday, 14 January 2013
Patricia-Cornwell – The Bone Bed
Patricia-Cornwell
– The Bone Bed
This
one I read and no! I did not like it. I
don’t see the point of Scarpetta’s niece taking over so much of the story… When Cornwell started out her books were worthwhile
now she obviously only writes to support her bank balance
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261843/Patricia-Cornwell-Crime-novelist-suing-financial-manager-Anchin-Block-Achin-100M.htmlce.
A
woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness
of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief
Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has
no idea why. But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to
suspect that the paleontologist’s disappearance is connected to a series of
crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace
evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age.
When
she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion
have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her
lead investigator, Pete Marino, and FBI forensic psychologist and husband,
Benton Wesley, have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta
is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and
cruel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)