Amazon’s Accidental Mystery Anthology Best-Seller

The Turkey Mystery Rhyme - a free children's book for Thanksgiving

A funny thing happened on the way to Thanksgiving. I did my traditional holiday give-away for my ebook The Turkey Mystery Rhyme, making it free for three days. But then I noticed that Amazon had included this short rhyming “mystery” for children in its free “Mystery Anthologies” category.

And that it had become one of their top 5 best-sellers!

There it was, my cartoon turkey, peeping out from its cover next to “Lust For Blood” and “Detective Riker Short Stories: Tales of the Greatest Private Eye in London.” To be clear, I did list it as a children’s mystery, but I never thought it belonged in Amazon’s “Mystery Anthologies” category. But now not only was it appearing there — it was climbing its way towards the top! And now all of those hard-boiled, murder-investigating detectives were sharing their screen with a cartoon turkey…

Free rhyming children's Turkey mystery ebook becomes a best-seller

No Mercy promised “Edge-of-the-seat dark, disturbing, police procedural murder mysteries.” The Depot investigates the “secrets of a murder that took place eighty years ago.” There’s stories about police detectives, about blackmail, and about revenge. And then, my children’s story.

     “For Thanksgiving, try this game.
     Find the guilty turkey’s name….!”

A less-ambitious crime, to be sure. (Maybe the real mystery is how Amazon categorizes the ebooks in their Kindle store?) I know there’s all kinds of mysteries in the world, but it’s still hard to see how Amazon could mistake this for an anthology. (It’s the only book on the page that’s written entirely in rhyme!) Although there is still a mystery to be solved…

     Now the farmer, laughing, said
     to the turkeys by his shed
     “Was my turkey-keeping lax?
     Which of you destroyed my axe!”

I’m chalking this up to a Thanksgiving miracle. The ebook is fun and funny, so maybe some people will overlook its odd categorization on their way to their next anthology of detective stories. So to anyone who found their way to “The Turkey Mystery Rhyme” in Amazon’s “Mystery Anthologies” section…

Now I have one more thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Happy holidays, everyone…


(And for a shortcut to this free Thanksgiving ebook,
just point your browser to…)

tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

A Funny Free eBook for Thanksgiving!

A funny turkey ebook

Yes, it’s that once-a-year tradition, sharing this funny free ebook about turkeys — mine! It’s a fun short mystery that’s written entirely in rhyme, with 12 cartoon-y illustrations that tell the story of four turkeys on Thanksgiving Day waiting for the farmer’s axe. (“But one of the turkeys has a plan to escape!” read’s the book’s description at Amazon. “Can the farmer figure out which one? And can you?”)

For a shortcut to this free Thanksgiving ebook, just point your browser to
tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

It’s called “The Turkey Mystery Rhyme,” and it was a real labor of love. (Every November before Thanksgiving, I make it available for free in Amazon’s Kindle Store.) Over the years the ebook has even had some strange adventures of its own. The day after I published it, I’d discovered that my turkeys had snuck onto Amazon’s list of the best-selling children’s ebooks about animals – and stolen the #73 spot from a book about Curious George!

And my friends surprised me one year by insisting that we all read the whole ebook out loud on Thanksgiving Day. They’d connected their widescreen TV to their computer, so it was mirroring whatever appeared on its desktop, and then they’d pulled up Amazon’s Kindle app on that computer, and led it to The Turkey Mystery Rhyme. It was a great way to get some real reactions to the story, especially since most authors never get to actually be in the room while their ebook is being read! And then we all took turns reading the rhyming story out loud.

“For Thanksgiving, try this game. Find the guilty turkey’s name…”

I remember we had a teenager in the room, and his mother asked if he knew which turkey had launched the daring plan for escape. But that mother was a sharp cookie, and she challenged one of the book’s important fictional premises.

Fearing folks on every street
hungering for turkey meat,
In the farmer’s yard’s a spread
where Thanksgiving turkeys bred.

When the daylight brightly broke
all the farmer’s birds awoke.
And, since it’s a holiday,
all turkeys can talk today…


“What?!!” she said, to laughter from the room. “Since when can turkeys talk on Thanksgiving Day?”

Everyone knows that,” I joked. “You’ve just never been on a farm…” And then we laughed some more, and continued reading…


Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Read the free rhyming Thanksgiving turkey mystery at
tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

A Funny, Free Turkey eBook for Thanksgiving!

A funny turkey ebook

Yes, it’s that once-a-year tradition, sharing this funny free ebook about turkeys — mine! It’s a fun short mystery that’s written entirely in rhyme, with 12 cartoon-y illustrations that tell the story of four turkeys on Thanksgiving Day waiting for the farmer’s axe. (“But one of the turkeys has a plan to escape!” read’s the book’s description at Amazon. “Can the farmer figure out which one? And can you?”)

For a shortcut to this free Thanksgiving ebook, just point your browser to
tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

It’s called “The Turkey Mystery Rhyme,” and it was a real labor of love. (For five days every November, I make it available for free in Amazon’s Kindle Store.) Over the years the ebook has even had some strange adventures of its own. The day after I published it, I’d discovered that my turkeys had snuck onto Amazon’s list of the best-selling children’s ebooks about animals – and stolen the #73 spot from a book about Curious George!

And my friends surprised me one year by insisting that we all read the whole ebook out loud on Thanksgiving Day. They’d connected their widescreen TV to their computer, so it was mirroring whatever appeared on its desktop, and then they’d pulled up Amazon’s Kindle app on that computer, and led it to The Turkey Mystery Rhyme. It was a great way to get some real reactions to the story, especially since most authors never get to actually be in the room while their ebook is being read! And then we all took turns reading the rhyming story out loud.

“For Thanksgiving, try this game. Find the guilty turkey’s name…”

I remember we had a teenager in the room, and his mother asked if he knew which turkey had launched the daring plan for escape. But that mother was a sharp cookie, and she challenged one of the book’s important fictional premises.

Fearing folks on every street
hungering for turkey meat,
In the farmer’s yard’s a spread
where Thanksgiving turkeys bred.

When the daylight brightly broke
all the farmer’s birds awoke.
And, since it’s a holiday,
all turkeys can talk today…


“What?!!” she said, to laughter from the room. “Since when can turkeys talk on Thanksgiving Day?”

Everyone knows that,” I joked. “You’ve just never been on a farm…” And then we laughed some more, and continued reading…


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Read the free rhyming Thanksgiving turkey mystery at
tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

Amazon Donates Children’s eBooks to Africa

Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore illustration

This is a sweet deal — in more ways than one. I was browsing the children’s picture books at Amazon, and discovered an unexpected announcement. “This holiday season, when you purchase any Amazon Children’s Publishing book for yourself, your friends or family, you’ll also be helping to make digital books available to children and young adults in Africa. Buy any Amazon Children’s Publishing book in print or ebook format between Saturday, December 1, 2012 and Monday, December 24, 2012 and we’ll donate an Amazon Children’s Publishing ebook to the Worldreader program.”

Browse the selection at tinyurl.com/KidsBookDonations

This was a surprise — and it gave me a warm feeling inside. Imagine reading The Night Before Christmas, and knowing that you’ve also introduced that same book to a far-away corner of the world. “I looked at a number of illustrated versions of this book and this particular one had the best pictures,” noted one reviewer on Amazon. “They are large and realistic, with beautiful with candy colors.”

Of course, then I worried that children in Africa might not be celebrating Christmas, and wondered if it’d be better to buy Little Lost Tiger or Hippo Goes Bananas. (Or even a humorous children’s book that’s titled The Hiccupotamus.) But the important thing is whatever book you buy, it’s ultimately helping children learn how to read. Worldreader is a non-profit that’s trying to make ebooks and Kindles available to both children and young adults in the “developing” world (primarily Africa).

I’ve always loved the story of this charity. In 2008, a man took his family on a tour of the world. While visiting an orphanage in South America, he asked what was behind the padlocked doors of a tin building. The answer was disturbing: it was books. In fact, it was the local library. The materials had become outdated, and the library fell into disuse.

And then he had an idea. Throughout the trip his own daughters had been reading ebooks on their digital reader. He got the idea of starting a charity with one simple goal: to use ebook technology to “put a library of books within reach of every family on the planet”. He named it World Reader.org, and four years later, Amazon’s helping them out. I love the idea that they’ll send these children a copy of the same ebooks that I’m reading.

There’s one important caveat. At first I thought Amazon would donate any children’s picture book to the WorldReader program, but they’re actually only donating the ones that are published by Amazon Children’s Publishing. (And the books have to be purcahsed through Amazon.com.) But there’s a lot of titles to choose from.

And it’s an easy way to feel like you’ve done something nice this holiday season!

My Free Thanksgiving Turkey eBook


I wrote a funny ebook for Thanksgiving, and I’d like to share it with all of my readers for free. Just point your computer’s web browser to TinyURL.com/TurkeyBook , and Amazon will send it to your Kindle at no charge. And if you read it on your Kindle Fire (or on one of Amazon’s apps), you’ll even be able to see the illustrations in color. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s the backstory…

After years of blogging about new authors writing exciting new ebooks for the Kindle, I’d decided last year that I had to try writing one too. So I dreamed up a wild story about four talking turkeys all awaiting the farmer’s axe on Thanksgiving Day – but one of them has a plan for escaping! To try to make it even more interesting, I included 12 different illustrations, and I even wrote the whole thing in rhyme.

“For Thanksgiving, try this game. Find the guilty turkey’s name…!”

But Amazon surprised me by publishing my book within just 12 hours from the time I’d submitted it to the Kindle Store. (I’d heard longer estimates of “24 to 48 hours.”) So I woke up the next morning to discover that somehow my turkeys had already snuck onto Amazon’s list of the best-selling children’s ebooks about animals – and they’d stolen the #73 spot from a book about Curious George!

Curious George ebook

I still get a smile when I remember that Thanksgiving. Within another hour, The Turkey Mystery Rhyme had made it into the top six on Amazon’s list of children’s ebooks about birds, one notch above a book I’d first read back in first grade! I wrote to one of my friends that “I was almost paralyzed with excitement when I finally saw it for the first time on Amazon.” And it also made me pause for a minute during the holidays, and think a hopeful thought about the future.


“I love books, And when I read books, I go to a special place. And now I’m in that special place – I’m on the other side of the page, so to speak. And that makes me feel somehow like I’ve inherited some of the importance of the other books I usually read. (Now instead of looking at other people’s books at Amazon.com and their thumbnail images, it’s my book, and my thumbnail image…)

I’ve really been struck and blind-sided by how easy it was – how it all came together, and how everything I needed was already there…”


It was the day when self-publishing first started to feel real to me – with all the big things that that implied about the future of books. And with that in mind, I ended the e-mail by saying “I’ve tried to savor this day because it will always be my only first ebook.”

So visit this URL to check out my free rhyming Thanksgiving turkey mystery…

tinyurl.com/TurkeyBook

And I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Free Magazines for your Kindle!

Kindle Magazines

This is pretty exciting. There’s more than 18 different magazines that are now available for your Kindle for a free 90-day trial! I got the news in an e-mail from Amazon, which also highlighted some discounts on ebooks. Seven thriller novels are now on sale for $2.99 or less — and there’s also eight different children’s picture books available for just $1.99 each.

“May is proving to be a great month for readers of all tastes,” Amazon bragged in an e-mail that touted all the special offers. And I have to admit that I’m impressed by how many magazines are available for the
free 90-day subscriptions. Most of them are big-name publications that have been around for decades. To browse the selection, visit tinyurl.com/FreeKindleMagazines. Here’s a list of the 18 magazines that you can read for free for 90 days on your Kindle!

   Field & Stream
   Ladies’ Home Journal
   TV Guide
   ESPN The Magazine
   Family Circle
   The American Scholar
   Outdoor Life
   More
   Every Day with Rachael Ray
   Country Woman
   Healthy Cooking
   Do It Yourself
   Simple & Delicious
   EatingWell
   Traditional Home
   Midwest Living
   Siempre Mujer
   Diabetic Living

And as an added bonus, that page also lists six more magazines that are available as free color apps for your Kindle Fire tablet (or any other Android-connected device).

   Readers’ Digest
   Vogue Magazine
   Bon Appetit
   Better Homes and Gardens
   Parents Magazine
   Fitness Magzine

It’s a great reminder that a Kindle can read magazines as well as ebooks. (Even after the 90-day trial ends, you can continue your subscription to most of these magazines for just $1.00 a month.)
This is a limited-time offer, so sign up this week if you’re interested in a free trial subscription. This offer ends on Thursday, May 31.

In the same e-mail, Amazon also called attention to a nice selection of discounted thriller novels. (For an easy-to-remember short-cut, just go to tinyurl.com/CheapKindleThrills. They’re all available for $2.99 or less. Here’s a list of the discounted thriller novels.

   Already Gone by John Rector
   The Shop by J. Carson Black
   Vaccine Nation by David Lender
   The Immortalists by Kyle Mills
   Liquid Fear by Scott Nicholson
   Resuscitation by D.M. Annechino
   A Small Fortune by Audrey Braun

And finally, Amazon’s also discounted some children’s picture books. (Each one available for just $1.99!) Just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/199KindleKidsBooks. I have to admit that I smiled at some of the silly titles. Here’s a complete list.

   There Was an Old Monkey Who Swallowed a Frog
   The Hiccupotamus
   What If Everybody Did That?
   Too Many Fairies: A Celtic Tale
   If Beaver Had A Fever
   Sneeze, Big Bear, Sneeze!
   Stars! Stars! Stars!
   Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
   Jack and the Giant Barbecue

100 More Books For Just $3.99 or Less!


America’s getting ready to enjoy a relaxing three-day weekend — and I’ve saved up a few announcements about some special ebooks to keep everyone entertained! You probably remember that every month, Amazon offers 100 ebooks for just $3.99 or less. You can browse them all at tinyurl.com/399books — and the selections for the month of May look unusually good!


All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Heriot

“Veterinarian James Herriot recalls life in England during World War II,” reads the book’s description on Amazon, “when the great forces of the modern world came even to his sleepy Yorkshire hamlet.” This heart-warming classic about the people in his village — and the animals that they love — normally costs $14.99, but for the month of May Amazon’s reduced the price to just $3.99. (It’s quite a deal, since the print edition was nearly 500 pages long!)


The Year the Music Changed by Diane Thomas

I’ve always been fascinated by the life of Elvis Presley, but it’s also inspired some very imaginative novels!. The Year the Music changed invents a new story, told with imaginary letters between a 14-year-old fan and the 20-year-old singer who was about to change the world forever. A review from Publisher’s Weekly reports that author Diane Thomas “delved into Presley biographies, communed with his fans on the Internet and produced a warm, lively and immensely readable novel that will especially touch fans of ‘the King. ‘” One Georgia newspaper even wrote that the novel “may engrave itself into the memories of more readers than “To Kill a Mockingbird.” . . . [It’s] the most satisfying novel I’ve read in many years.”


Drawn with the Sword : Reflections on the American Civil War by James M. McPherson

I was surprised to learn that the author of this book had already won a Pulitzer Prize for an earlier book about the Civil War — and, according to Wikipedia, that he’s even on the editorial board for Encyclopedia Britannica. James McPherson is considered a real authority, and when this book was first released in 1996, Publisher’s Weekly applauded its four themes — how the war started, why it ended the way it did, Abraham Lincoln’s role, and how it ultimately affected America. Plus, it ends with a rousing and thought-provoking essay about what wrong with modern historians!


What Color is My World by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

This March saw the release of a unique new book by a famous basketball player. (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still holds the all-time record for points scored during his 20-year career in the NBA — 38,387 points!) But at the age of 65, he turned his attention to a book for children about overlooked African-American inventors, both past and present. “I was surprised at how many inventors that affected our everyday life had been left out of what we learned in school…” he revealed in an exclusive interview that appears on the book’s page at Amazon.com. “I’ve said many times that if I hadn’t become a professional basketball player, I would have become a history teacher. There’s so much to learn from history.”


There’s also several cookbooks that Amazon’s offering at a big discount, including Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking and The Pharsoh’s Kitchen: Recipes from Ancient Egypt’s Enduring Food Traditions. Maybe Amazon is celebrating the arrival of spring, since they’ve also discounted an ebook called Fast, Fresh and Green, and there’s even an advice book about vegetable gardens. But of course, the book I was most intrigued by was Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations.

Maybe I should buy a copy of that for my girlfriend, since for my birthday this year, she’s promised to bake me a tasty cake!

Buy “Fight Club” for 25 cents – and more!

Ty Cobb

Amazon’s offered some great “Daily Deals” in the past — but I’m really excited about today’s. Usually they’ll lower the price of an ebook to just 99 cents, but for Thursday they’ve slashed the price even further for the modern radical novel, “Fight Club” — to just 25 cents!

You can always find the “daily deal” at tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal. But Amazon’s also slashed the price on over 100 more ebooks to just $3.99 or less for the month of March. (Browse the selection at tinyurl.com/399books, or — if you’re in England — at tinyurl.com/399booksEngland ) There’s always a new selection on the first day of the month, and I’m really excited about some of these discounted books, too. It looks like Amazon’s really put some thought into what’s happening that’s special this month.


Under the March Sun – the Story of Spring Training – $1.99
Baseball season starts at the end of March — but this is a fascinating story about that crazy other tradition that pumps money into forgotten cities where the superstars hide for their pre-season spring training. One newspaper called it “that rare baseball book that also serves as a cultural history,” even as it’s capturing the happy atmosphere of today’s super fans travelling to out-of-the-way stadiums to catch their favorite players in relaxed moments. The author, Charles Fountain, is a journalism professor, and presumably a baseball fan, and the president of the L.A. Dodgers even commended his book in a blurb, saying it “brings to life this most enjoyable time of year for every baseball fan.”


Ty Cobb – $1.99
Baseball seems to cherish its memories of past “greats,” which adds even more intrigue to this biography of Ty Cobb. (One reviewer called him simply “the most interesting baseball player of all time.”) Cobb maintained a ridiculously high batting average of .366 for over 22 years, playing mostly for the Detroit Tigers (and the Athletics, back when they were still in Philadelphia). and though he retired in 1928, that record has never been broken. But this book puts Cobb’s life into the context of the time in which he lived — and his own complicated personality, driven by an intense rivalry with Babe Ruth as well as external pressures, like the hazing he took from the Yankees over his southern upbringing. “Three weeks after his mother killed his father, Cobb debuted in center field for the Detroit Tigers,” Wikipedia notes — so his biography should be pretty interesting!


This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity – $2.99
Susan Moon, the aging editor of a Buddhist magazine, offers an “intimate and funny collection of essays on the sometimes confusing, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious condition of being a woman over sixty,” according to the book’s description on Amazon, adding that the author “keeps her sense of humor and…keeps her reader fully engaged.” It’s a serious topic handled lightly but skillfully, and “Her best writing occurs when memory, emotion, and spirit coalesce,” according to Publisher’s Weekly, “as she recovers parts of herself left behind in childhood or comes to terms with solitude.” Or, as the New York Review of Books put it, “Moon is like a Buddhist Anne Lamott–confronting her life bravely and unapologetically.”


Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance – $2.99
Of all 100 ebooks that are on sale in March, this one has my favorite title. It’s about “a zombie’s big break in showbiz,” according to Publisher’s Weekly., and it’s written by an animator for Nickeloden named Keith Graves. It’s a children’s book with an adult twist, since as Frank starts to dance, his zombie-fied body parts absolutely horrify the audience. I bet its color pictures look absolutely amazing on the Kindle Fire tablet, and it looks like good, silly fun. “Frank was a monster who wanted to dance. So he put on his hat, and his shoes made in France… and opened a jar and put ants in his pants…”


Hey Buddy: In Pursuit of Buddy Holly, My New Buddy John, and My Lost Decade of Music – $1.99
Don McLean sang of “The Day the Music Died” — the infamous 1959 plane crash that killed the rock and roll pioneer (along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper) at the age of 22. But author Gary W. Moore says that Buddy Holly reached out to him from a stage, according to he book’s description on Amazon, seizing his heart and his soul “through a song. Not a song written or performed by Buddy, but a song about Buddy performed by musician extraordinaire John Mueller. Even Buddy’s closest friends say John is Buddy reincarnated, and his resemblance and music will take your breath away.”

In this book, the author tries to understand Buddy Holly’s world, interviewing people who’d known the singer, and “Their unique and intimate stories will make you laugh, smile, cry, and think, all the while wondering ‘what if.’ What if Buddy had lived instead of perished in that terrible plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, on that winter night in 1959? What if Buddy had continued to write music into the 1960s and 70s? What if…”


Find all these books at tinyurl.com/399books

And don’t forget, for today only, you can also get Fight Club for just 25 cents at tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal

Regis Philbin vs. the eBook

It's a Book by Lane Smith

There was one more great “ebook moment” in 2010. In September, even 79-year-old Regis Philbin began discussing the end of the printed book on his morning daytime television talk show!

Today Regis Philbin announced his retirement, which makes this memory even more poignant. It all began when co-host Kelly Ripa brought out a new children’s picture book titled “It’s a Book.” She’d read its dialogue between a technology-loving jackass, and a monkey who still loves books. The confused jackass watches him reading for a minute, and then asks “How do you scroll down?”

“I don’t. I turn the page. It’s a book.”

“Do you blog with it?”
“No. It’s a book…”
“Can you make the characters fight?”
“Nope. Book.”
“Can it text.”
“No.”
“Tweet?”
“No.”
“Wi-Fi?
“No.”
“Can it do this? ‘Doot’…”
“No. It’s a book.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. It was a brand-new book, and the author had just delivered a very special version to Regis and Kelly. On the book’s inside cover, he’d suggested the book’s characters could be people on their talk show. The book-loving monkey was Regis, while the cute little mouse was Kelly, and the technology-loving donkey was Regis’s producer, a man named Gelman.

It was a special edition of the show — later, Gelman would try to teach 79-year-old Regis how to use a computer. (Regis is a notorious technophobe, possibly because he was born in 1931, back when Herbert Hoover was still President.) And yet in their conversation, Regis seemed to sense that his world had finally reached a turning point.

                        *                        *                        *
REGIS: It’s too bad about books, because just recently Barnes and Noble…

KELLY: Oh, I — they’re going to sell Barnes and Noble.

REGIS: — you know, just can’t do it any more. Isn’t that a shame, those bookstores slowly going out of business?

KELLY: I mean it’s like, to me there’s nothing better, also, than going in a library and smelling all the books and hearing the — the crinkling of the plastic covering on the b- —

REGIS: Yeah, exactly.

KELLY: I mean it’s just, I hope that we haven’t taken it too far.

REGIS: Our kids missed the big internet age when they were small, you know, and it was still books. And boy, I’ll never forget when we brought the girls here to New York, how Joanna loved these bookstores. And it was a thrill for her. I was taking — “Wanna go see a movie or something?”

“No, I wanna go to this book store.” Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue, and all those stores.

KELLY: Now she’s an author. Now she writes.

REGIS: And now she’s an author. Yeah.

KELLY: It’s funny. My son just got his, well, not just, but over the summer, his seventh grade reading list. And it’s still books! So I’m happy to say that they’re still using books.

REGIS: Yeah. I guess there’s room for both internet and books, you know. But unfortunately…

                        *                        *                        *

Ironically, Regis Philbin has written two autobiographies — neither of which is available on the Kindle!

But click here to buy “It’s a Book!”

The End of the Book as Seen by Regis Philbin

It's a Book by Lane Smith

I think this is a milestone. Friday, 79-year-old Regis Philbin discussed the end of the printed book on his morning daytime television talk show.

It began when co-host Kelly Ripa brought out a new children’s picture book titled “It’s a Book.” She read its dialogue between a technology-loving jackass, and a monkey who still loves books. The confused jackass watches him reading for a minute, and then asks “How do you scroll down?”

“I don’t. I turn the page. It’s a book.”

“Do you blog with it?”
“No. It’s a book…”
“Can you make the characters fight?”
“Nope. Book.”
“Can it text.”
“No.”
“Tweet?”
“No.”
“Wi-Fi?
“No.”
“Can it do this? ‘Doot’…”
“No. It’s a book.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. It’s a brand-new book — released just two weeks ago — and the author had delivered a special version to Regis and Kelly. On the book’s inside cover, he’d suggested the book’s characters could be people on their talk show. The book-loving monkey was Regis, while the cute little mouse was Kelly, and the technology-loving donkey was Regis’s producer, a man named Gelman.

It was a special edition of the show — later, Gelman would try to teach 79-year-old Regis how to use a computer. (Regis is a notorious technophobe, possibly because he was born in 1931, back when Herbert Hoover was still President.) And yet in their conversation, Regis seemed to sense that his world had finally reached a turning point.

*                        *                        *
REGIS: It’s too bad about books, because just recently Barnes and Noble…

KELLY: Oh, I — they’re going to sell Barnes and Noble.

REGIS: — you know, just can’t do it any more. Isn’t that a shame, those bookstores slowly going out of business?

KELLY: I mean it’s like, to me there’s nothing better, also, than going in a library and smelling all the books and hearing the — the crinkling of the plastic covering on the b- —

REGIS: Yeah, exactly.

KELLY: I mean it’s just, I hope that we haven’t taken it too far.

REGIS: Our kids missed the big internet age when they were small, you know, and it was still books. And boy, I’ll never forget when we brought the girls here to New York, how Joanna loved these bookstores. And it was a thrill for her. I was taking — “Wanna go see a movie or something?”

“No, I wanna go to this book store.” Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue, and all those stores.

KELLY: Now she’s an author. Now she writes.

REGIS: And now she’s an author. Yeah.

KELLY: It’s funny. My son just got his, well, not just, but over the summer, his seventh grade reading list. And it’s still books! So I’m happy to say that they’re still using books.

REGIS: Yeah. I guess there’s room for both internet and books, you know. But unfortunately…

*                        *                        *

Ironically, Regis Philbin has written two autobiographies — neither of which is available on the Kindle!

But click here to buy “It’s a Book!”

The Kindle, Whoopi Goldberg, and The View

Amazingly, yesterday there was a long discussion about the Kindle and the future of the book on the daytime television talk show, The View.

Whoopi Goldberg is a big fan of the Kindle, and it sounded like co-host Barbara Walters was trying to understand it. But the show’s other hosts — both mothers with young children — worried about whether a digital reader might impinge on the time they spend reading to their children. Here’s a complete transcript of the discussion between the four women.

(The other two hosts are sitcom star Sherri Shepherd and reality TV star Bethenny Frankel…)

*                        *                        *

WHOOPI: According to Amazon.com, sales of ebooks are outpacing the sales of actual hardcover books. So is the book on the way out?

BARBARA: I guess so.

BETHENNY: I don’t want to read The Runaway Bunny to Brin on a Kindle.

BARBARA: Why not?

BETHENNY: I just, you know, I…

SHERRI: It’s not the same.

BETHENNY: I like the turning of page and the colors and all that.

SHERRI: When Jeffrey and I — we do — it’s a bonding moment. At night, he knows, “turn off the TV, mommy.” He goes to get a book. We sit in the rocking chair. He likes to turn the pages. He likes to point. It’s the pictures. I think you lose that as a child. We’re so viral with the Twitter. We don’t pick up the phone any more. We’re texting. And you kind of lose that personal touch, when you don’t have the musty books and the yellow pages…

WHOOPI: Very few people —

SHERRI: Yeah.

WHOOPI: — read the Kindle to their children. Most people still read —

BETHENNY: But that’s where we’ll go.

WHOOPI: No we won’t.

SHERRI: It just seems like —

WHOOPI: And here’s the thing. Giant books — think about it. Well, maybe this isn’t your experience. I love to read, as you know.

SHERRI: Yeah.

WHOOPI: I used to carry 30 books when I travelled. And so I’d have — and I bought bags — leather bags. 30 books, yeah, ’cause I read. I go on these long trips…

BARBARA: Well, she was on a long trip on a bus.

WHOOPI: I go on these long trips, ’cause I — you know, I don’t generally fly.

BETHENNY: Well, it takes me a month to read a book, so —

WHOOPI: So I — I eat books. I love them.

SHERRI: And you know, I think another reason why it’s outselling — the Kindle — is because a book — if you go on Amazon now, a book is sixteen bucks. And if you get it on Kindle, it’s eight. So you know, I think the price, as well…

WHOOPI: And also, I think you can carry your library with you if you go somewhere. And so I think people want to be able to do that. Books will never go out of — out of —

BARBARA: No, because there is a place for them in your home.

WHOOPI: Absolutely.

BARBARA: Books look beautiful. They feel good. That’s the great thing.

WHOOPI: Unless you decide to do it — unless you decide to buy it for children.

SHERRI: We were talking about young babies and toddlers. What about for kids who are maybe preteens and teenagers — that experience of having a book. You remember going to the library? The Dewey decimal system? That whole —

WHOOPI: Let me explain to you about books. You see these kids, how many books they’re carrying?

SHERRI: Yeah. They got a big —

WHOOPI: Do you see what they’re carrying on their backs?

BETHENNY: It’s going to be expensive to buy the devices.

WHOOPI: Actually it’s not, if the schools can get behind it. Because, what you can do is you can download your textbooks. And you can have all the books that you need. It would be great for young people. And real books — I mean, as long as kids are reading Twilight, they’re not going to want to read it on the Kindle. They want —

BETHENNY: Is the bookmark over? Is that’s what’s going to happen now? The whole bookmark industry?

WHOOPI: No. You have a different bookmark for the Kindle or the iBook or whatever you’re reading. But the greatest thing is people are still reading! That’s the most wonderful…

[APPLAUSE]

SHERRI: I remember our — my dad, the salesman came, and we had an entire shelf of the Encyclopedia Britannica. And that was the thing. We loved it when we got a new Britannica.

BETHENNY: You can look smart, too. You can have all these books at your house, and people think you’re really literary when you’re not.

WHOOPI: That’s why this guy — I wonder if this — that’s why this guy got into trouble. What do you think, Bill? I mean — did you hear about this Amish teenager who, uh — who crashed his horse and buggy during a police chase?

BETHENNY: Is this The Flintstones? What are we talking about?

WHOOPI: No! He’s facing charges of alcohol possession, and second degree reckless endangerment, and overdriving an animal after leading the police on a chase that ended when the teen crashed his horse and buggy! Come on…

SHERRI: He was Amish?

WHOOPI: He was Amish. And we’re worried about where the book is going?! Pooh! “Come on, now. Come on! Come on! He’s gaining on us! Come on, Christa, come on!”

*                        *                        *

And of course, Barbara Walters put it all into perspective. Not only is she okay with the Kindle — she’s not even worried about the police pulling over the Amish horse and buggy for drunk driving.

“Unless the horse was drunk, I don’t see what’s the big deal…”

Beatrix Potter Illustrations on the Kindle

It turns out I’m not the only one excited about Beatrix Potter’s stories on the Kindle. Four different children’s stories by Beatrix Potter have turned up in the top 20 of Amazon’s list of best-selling (free) children’s books!

And I’m also not the only one who noticed that the free editions didn’t include Potter’s original illustrations…


“Sure, it’s free, but what’s the point, if the images are missing in a children’s book…”

“Instead of including the illustrations (which the Kindle can handle beautifully), there’s text, and then it’ll say [illustration] [illustration]. Really awful. No wonder it’s free….

So here’s my helpful tip for the day. You can purchase fully illustrated Kindle versions of Beatrix Potter’s fairy tales in a collection that costs just $1.00. If you ask for the sample, they’ll even send you a free, illustrated version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Just remember to stay out of Mr. McGregor’s garden…

How Winnie-the-Pooh came to the Kindle

Last Christmas, I couldn’t find Winnie-the-Pooh books for the Kindle. The only A.A. Milne story I’d found was an obscure comic mystery he’d written in 1922. But by spring, it looks like Pooh bear had magically crept out of the Hundred Acre Wood, and squeezed his way onto the Kindle, since you can now buy Kindle editions of both
Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.

And it’s not just the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. A. A. Milne also published two books of children’s poetry – When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. Many of the poems mention Christopher Robin, and there’s also a few that are specifically about Winnie-the-Pooh, as Milne explains in the book’s introduction.

Pooh wants us to say that he thought it was a different book; and he hopes you won’t mind, but he walked through it one day, looking for his friend Piglet, and sat down on some of the pages by mistake.

Best of all, they include all of the memorable original illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. Since the illustrations were already in black and white, they look great on the Kindle. And there’s something really precious about seeing those old-fashioned children’s book images on the screen of my 21st-century reading machine.

By the way, am I the only person who thinks A. A. Milne should be one of the authors included among the Kindle’s screensaver images?

Beatrix Potter on the Kindle

I’ve found all the original Beatrix Potter stories for the Kindle — and with all of their illustrations in tact!

This is a real triumph, because you can also purchase all of the stories for free — if you’re willing to forgo the illustrations. (Because many of them were published more than a century ago, I’m guessing the copyright on the texts have expired.) Surprisingly, there are illustrations in at least one of the free editions of Beatrix Potter’s books — Project Gutenberg’s free version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit — but they’re by an entirely different illustrator named Virginia Albert. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find any illustrated versions of Potter’s books that could be read on the Kindle.

Fortunately, one of the Amazon reviewers reported that, yes, the pictures do come through on the Kindle — in black and white. “This brings me back to the time I learned to love reading,” they added, and I think it is a kind of a milestone. For many people, I’m sure that among their first memories of reading are those lavishly-illustrated fairy tales by Beatrix Potter.

And now you can read them on your Kindle!

(Here’s a list of the stories included in this illustrated edition….)

The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tailor of Gloucester
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
The Tale of Two Bad Mice
The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
The Pie and the Patty-Pan
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit
The Story of Miss Moppet
The Tale of Tom Kitten
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Roly-Poly Pudding
The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse
The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes
The Tale of Mr. Tod
The Tale of Pigling Bland
Ginger and Pickles
The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse
Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes

“Books Don’t Need Batteries”

I had to laugh when I read this line in a 1998 children’s picture book.

It’s about a boy who lives in outer space. His parents leave him with a robot baby-sitter, who insists that 8:00 is always bed time. (The book’s title is Benjamin Braddock and the Robot Babysitter.) He hacks the robot’s controls, convincing it instead that 8:00 is always fun time.

And then he tries to explain to the robot what fun is…

“Books,” said Benjamin. Books are fun.

“They never need batteries, they fit in your knapsack, and when they get broken, you can fit them up with tape!”

Well, one of those things is true for the Kindle — it definitely fits in your knapsack! But it does need a battery.

And you can’t fix it with tape.