Each month Amazon picks 100 Kindle ebooks to sell at a special discount — and there’s still a few days left to browse November’s deals. You can find all 100 ebooks at tinyurl.com/399books — and when December starts, there’ll be 100 more discounted ebooks at the same URL.
As always, Amazon’s discounting books from seven different genres, so there’ll be a nice variety to choose from. And it looks like this month, Amazon’s discounted some ebooks about business and investing. (I don’t remember ever seeing these discounts before on Amazon’s business ebooks!) Plus, there’s some additional discounts on “popular romances” at the bottom of the page, including holiday-themed ebooks like Kissing Under the Mistletoe and Christmas on Mimosa Lane.
Here’s some of the November discounted ebooks for November that I thought looked especially intriguing.
SuperFreakonomics ($3.79)
It’s a sequel to the wildly successful “pop economics” book Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Their original has sold over 4 million copies, and according to the new book’s description at Amazon, “fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.” It’s hard to resist the book’s tantalizing topics, like “What’s the best way to catch a terrorist? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?” Amazon’s description promises that the two authors “mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else… By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.”
Ali in Wonderland – Enhanced Edition with Audio/Video ($3.99)
Ali Wentworth has written an “addictively funny and warm memoir,” according to Amazon’s description of the book — and what a life she’s led. Her mother was the White House social secretary for President Ronald Reagan’s wife Nancy, but Ali “rebelled against her blue-blood upbringing, embracing Hollywood, motorcycles, even a few wildly inappropriate marriage proposals.” She eventually became a comedic actress — Ali started her career doing sketch comedy in Los Angeles with Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow. And though her wild life story usually costs $25.99, Amazon’s selling it in November for just $3.99. (They’re billing it as a special “enhanced edition” with 25 audio clips of the author herself telling the stories, but there’s a disclaimer that says those clips are only available if you’re using the Kindle apps for the iPad, or the iPhone or iPod Touch!)
Overconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet ($2.99)
A surprising book offers a fresh perspective about the world of today by William H. Davidow, a former senior executive at Intel, who warns that the online world’s “overconnection” could have very bad consequences not just economically and politically, but also on our everyday lives. The book’s gotten some great reviews — James Fallow wrote that it “has the wonderful effect of explaining seemingly unrelated problems in a way that instantly makes sense once it is pointed out, and that also suggests feasible corrections,” calling it “clear, original, and worth being widely read.†And a Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor named David M. Kennedy has emphatically declared that Overconnected was “a bold and brave book.”
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope ($2.99)
A former reporter for the Associated Press teamed up with a young African named William Kamkwamba to tell a fascinating story. At the age of 15, in impoverished Malawi, young Kamkwamba decided to try to build a windmill for his village using discarded junk and some borrowed textbooks. It’s an inspiring story — Amazon picked it as one of the best books of the month when a reprint was released in 2009. Kamkwamba explains that the windmill “meant more than just power, it was freedom,” and the book’s publisher even boasts of an endorsement from former Vice President Al Gore, who described the book as “a moving and exciting story”.
Plus, this book comes with “Whispersync for Voice” capabilities — so you can switch from reading the ebook to listening to the audiobook edition on your Android or iOS smartphone. (The audiobook edition is sold separately, but the reduced price is reduced to $9.95 when you buy the discounted ebook.) And the audiobook/ebook combo can also be combined on any Kindle Fire tablet for “Immersion Reading”, so each word is highlighted as it’s being read in the audiobook.
Remember, you can find all 100 ebooks at tinyurl.com/399books
and when December starts, there’ll be 100 more discounted ebooks at the same URL!