Friday's Freebie...

If you love reading and have a Kindle or the Kindle app then this is for you!  Get a free book every day if you want at eBook Daily.  I have found a few books already that I can't wait to read, and these are not the books you usually find for free, these are new and current in a variety of genera like romance, mystery, science fiction and biography, there are even self improvement and children's books.  Its free to join and free to download the books. 

Have a great Friday!

C.Q.

Friday's Freebie...

I have a couple of freebies today that you may have a harder time getting but are so worth it if you qualify.  The first one is a Kindle copy of the book Super Duper Totally Authorized Top Secret Recipes by Todd Willber if you are an Amazon Prime member this book is totally free to borrow and download to your Kindle or Kindle app. The thing to remember is that you can borrow the book free of charge, but you must return it before you download another or you will be charged the $9.99 for the book. This is a great way to find recipes I enjoy and write them down.  I love having Prime, the free shipping more than pays for the membership for me, but in addition to that you get a free Kindle loaner ebook each month and unlimited free streaming video.

The next offer is for a free Blockbuster Express DVD Rental Code, just text one of these keywords to 39777:  BASEBALL, BILLY, CATHERINE, CHEF, CLOONEY,  DENIRO, DEPP, EDGAR, EMILIO, FARIS, GANG, GERE, GOSLING, HOLMES, HUGH, ITALY, JUSTIN, KERIA, KUMAR, LAW, MAMA, OLSEN, PERLMAN, POLICE, RACHEL, SCARY, SCOTT, SETH, SHAW, STEVE, TATUM, TAYLOR, TERROR, VIRUS, WEDDING, ZANE.

Hope you are all looking forward to a great weekend!

C.Q.

Sunday's media madness...

I have a love for reading, its something I grew up with, and am thrilled with the advent of e-books.  It means my book shelves can be cleared of the books I won't read again.  Books I look at kind of like the 1/2 hour sitcom on TV; a lot of fun but not a lot of substance.  I do however have a few authors I will only buy as real books, one being James Patterson.  A big part of that is the large collection of his books built up over the years by my parents and passed on to me after my mom was gone.  Today's book is Private by James Patterson.

"The police can't help you Former Marine helicopter pilot Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily--and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases. The press will destroy you Jack is already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend's wife, Jack's former lover, has been killed. It nearly pushes him over the edge. Instead, Jack pushes back and devotes all of Private's resources to tracking down her killer. Only one place to turn: Private But Jack doesn't have to play by the rules. As he closes in on the killer and chooses between revenge and justice, Morgan has to navigate a workplace love affair that threatens to blow the roof off his plans. With a plot that moves at death-defying speeds, Private is James Patterson sleekest, most exciting thriller ever."

For those of you who like the feel of a book in your hand, you can find the hard cover version at Buy.com used for $1.01 plus $3.99 shipping, or new at Bobbis Bookstore for $5.00 plus $4.49 for shipping.  In paperback you can find it used at Thriftbooks.com for $3.95 with free shipping, or new at eCrater for $6.20 with $1.99 for shipping.  You can download a digital audio copy of the book for $18.89 at We Read For You or you can find it on CD at the Barns and Noble Marketplace for $9.50 with $3.99 shipping.  It can also download it to your Nook for $14.99 or you Kindle for $9.99.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

C.Q.

Friday's freebie...

I love to read and when you can do something you love for free that's an added bonus.  Today I have two great freebies. The first is the Kindle version of A Stingray Bit My Nipple!: True Stories from Real Travelers and it is available for download to your Kindle or iPad app for free.  This book is put out by the editor of Budget Travel Magazine and is a look at readers stories of the weird and funny things that have happened while on vacation.  It also has photographs that readers have sent in as proof that going on vacation really can be stranger than fiction.

The next book is by one of my favorite authors, Jess Lourey.  You may recognize the name from the post I did for her new book last Sunday.  Because her series is called the Murder-by-Month Mystery series Barnes and Noble has made her book June Bug as one of the free Nook download books for the month of June.  "Local legend claims that a diamond necklace was lost nearly a century ago in nearby Whiskey Lake, not far from the present-day Shangri-La resort. Mira, a part-time reporter, goes fishing for the story behind the legend. Diving into the lake only gets her into a terrifying tango with a waterlogged corpse. And so begins the treasure hunt. Buoyed by frozen Nut Goodies and a diminutive circus performer, Mira embarks on an exhilarating search for the jewels that puts her face-to-face with menacing forces that threaten to tear the small town apart."

Today is also the last day to get in on the Swap: think about where you live and with a budget of at least $10 purchase something that represents where you are, package it up with a postcard from your city or state and mail it off to a person that I pair you up with.  It should be a lot of fun!

Have a great day everyone!

C.Q.

Hey! Hay! Hay! Garden the easy way...

Gardening is a fantastic way to save money through the summer as well as putting stuff up for the winter months, but want if you live in an area that has no place for planting or soil that is to hard to work with?  Maybe you just want to put an attractive edge around your driveway?  Here is a great idea that my friend Mr. B from One Mixed Bag sent me last night, he is a master gardener and knows how much I love to dig in the dirt and so he thought I might like this idea.  Its a pretty simple an fun way to plant , its also great for folks that have a bad back or a hard time bending or sitting on the ground.  The first thing you will need are square hay bales, you can typically find these at your local feed store or if you live in the country you can often find local farmers advertising that they have hay on the area stores cork boards and community news papers, some local garden center may even give away free bales. 

The average dimension of a small square hay bale is 14" x 18" so you can measure out how many you need.  The next step is to lay them out where you want them with the string side running around the bales, not touching the ground or it will rot and the bale will come undone in mid summer.  Then add a nice layer of compost to the top and water it down.  When you have this step completed the next thing to do is water your future garden for the next 10 days to "cook" the hay.  OK so what the heck does that mean?  Well in a nut shell you are starting the compost cycle, with the compost material on the top and the water it will start breaking down the bales and they will get warm, you will be able to tell when the process slows down because the bales will get cooler, usually around 10 days.  There are a couple schools of though at this point, you can either add fertilizer when you start the cooking process or add it when you plant so each plant gets exactly what it needs to grow, the choice is yours.

After the 10 days you are ready to plant, make sure you grow plants that will work in your climate and keep in mind where you have planted, for example, while Zucchini would be a great plant for this application growing it along your driveway is not the best choice because it like to send out long runners.  If you are looking at food planing think about root crops like Carrots, Beets or Parsnips in places where you don't want runners.  If you want to plant flowers with your root crops consider fun edible ones like Violet, Marigold or Nasturtium.  For areas where you have space you can plant any number of things, Pumpkins, Beans, Cucumbers, Corn, anything you can think of, the sky's the limit.  Your hay bales are also great for herbs, especially the varieties that tend to over take a garden, such as all the  Mints, Borage and Comfrey.

If you would like more information there is  a wonderful web site dedicated just to hay bale gardening, they also have a book for sale called The Guide to Straw Bale Gardening which is available in PDF for $9.99 through Pay Pal, it's located at the bottom of their first page.

Have a great weekend everyone!

C.Q.

Sunday's media madness...

My friends know my two biggest reality TV musts are Top Chef and Project Runway, I love Chef Tom Colicchio of Top Chef and Tim Gunn of Project Runway, their insights are great and the stories they can tell about things within their respective industries is very eye opening!  While both have books out I have totally fallen in love with Tim Gunn's latest, Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work, released earlier this month.  This book has some great stories from the fashion industry, many involving names you know, plus a lot of inside information on both Project Runway as well as his now defunct show Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, including why it is no longer on the air, you may be surprised.  I am also impressed with his emphasis on manners in the book, its is chalk full of great reminders for us all.  Here is the book information from Amazon:

Product Description:
On the runway of life, Tim Gunn is the perfect life coach. You’ve watched him mentor talented designers on the hit television show Project Runway. Now the inimitable Tim Gunndivadom as he describes Vogue’s André Leon Talley being hand-fed grapes and Anna Wintour being carried downstairs by her bodyguards. And you’ll get Tim’s view on the backstabbing by one designer on Project Runway and how it brilliantly backfired. Then there are his down-to-earth guidelines for making life better—for yourself and others—in small and large ways, especially in an age that favors comfort over politeness, ease over style. Texting at the dinner table? Wearing shorts to the theater? Not in Tim’s book. Living a well-mannered life of integrity and character is hard work, he admits, but the rewards are many: being a good friend, being glamorous and attractive, and being a success— much like Tim himself! He is never one to mince words. But Tim Gunn is always warm, witty, wise, and wonderfully supportive— just the mentor you need to design a happy, creative, and fulfilling life that will never go out of style.

About the Author:

Beloved pop culture icon Tim Gunn is best known as co-host of the twelve-time Emmy-nominated reality show Project Runway. He also hosted two seasons of his own former Bravo makeover series, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.
 
I personally downloaded a copy from Amazon to my Kindle so I could take it with me where ever I go, this version was $9.99 directly from Amazon, Barns and Noble has the e-book available for down load to iPad, iPod, iPhone, Android, PC, Blackberry, Mac and the Nook for $9.99.  If you are a member of The Book of the Month Club you can order the book for $9.95 with free shipping, if not you can find the hardcover selling at Amazon for $14.03, if you don't order enough for the free shipping the final cost will be $18.02, if that is the case then go to The Book Depository, they have the hard cover version for $17.99 with free shipping.  If you know someone who is a huge fan and are looking for a terrific gift idea there is a seller with 4 autographed copies on eBay, the asking price for them is $42.95 + $7.50 for expedited shipping.
 
I hope you are all having a great weekend!
 
C.Q.

Sunday's media madness...

I love to read, many of you know that, you probably also know that like everything else in my life I have very eclectic taste in my books, old or new, fact or fiction, love story or murder mystery I adore them all. What some of you may not know is that I really do have a favorite genera, it combines my love for reading with the foodie in me, making me a sucker for the "culinary mystery". These books typically revolve around great food as well as a succulent mystery. A couple of years ago when I got my new Kindle and was looking for books to download to it I found an author named Cleo Coyle and fell in love with her very strong female character Clare who runs a coffee house with her ex-husband. The characters are as rich and robust as the coffee that is served up in these books. The author has written these books so well that I feel I know these people and I can almost hear the little bell on the coffee shop door jingle and smell the fresh coffee every time I open the cover of one of her books. I read all the books in the series in a month and could hardly wait for more, now the newest installment in the series, Roast Mortem, is set to be released August 3rd, 2010. If you own a Kindle and want to download it the cost of the book through Amazon is $11.99, for those of you with a Sony e-Reader you can download it for $11.99 at Barns & Noble, if you would prefer to have a hardcover copy for your bookshelf then Barns & Noble should have it in store for $16.83 and Amazon will deliver it to your door for $16.47 with free shipping if you meet the $25.00 minimum purchase requirement.

Here is the product description from Amazon to give you a little information about the book: "After local firefighters pull Clare out of a blazing café, she happily comes to their rescue by teaching them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But matters really heat up when somebody is torching cafes around the city and firefighters begin to die in suspicious ways...

Believing the two events are related, Clare investigates, staking out a five-borough bake sale and sniffing out clues in the pizza ovens of Brooklyn. When her detective boyfriend, Mike Quinn, is pulled into the fire of a false accusation, Clare is desperate to put out the flames. But will she be able to come to Mike's rescue before someone tries to extinguish her?"

Cleo Coyle also has a great web site of her own where you can find anything from information on her books (she writes two series, the Coffee House books as well as the Haunted Bookshop novels), to where to find the best cup of coffee almost anywhere, and for those of you who love having a little "extra" with your mysteries check out the Mystery Lovers' Blog for a ton of information with different authors, including Cleo Coyle.

I hope you all are having a nice relaxing weekend.

C.Q.

Sunday's media madness...

Today I am writing about the next book I plan to start, most likely later today. It was written by one of my dearest friend's brother-in-law as told to him by his grandfather. I can't imagine the horrors of war, the uncertainty of being a POW and the isolation a person must feel when they are finally allowed to come home. The book is called "1219 Days in Hell" and documents the story of Merle E. Tucker's time in the in the army, from enlistment at Fort Snelling in Minnesota to the time spent at a POW camp.

I can honestly say this is a book that I am looking forward to reading with trepidation, its hard to read about war, even harder still when its a real story and the long term effects can be seen in black and white. Its convenient to peek in on the news clips and think "that's just awful" then go back to making dinner. The past is not so far removed from our present situation in the Gulf that this will give you a second thought on what you see every night on the TV.

I am thankful to Helen Tucker, Merle's wife and Randy Cane, Merle's grandson for writing this book, hearing stories of things that happened so someone so close can be difficult at best. I still have nightmares about some of the stories my father told me about his time in the Pacific during WW11.

You can see further information on the book, some excerpts and a scrapbook at the Merle Tucker site. If you have a kindle you can download the book through Amazon for $3.99. If you don't have a Kindle you can still download it via Amazon's free reading apps that will work with iPhone, Windows, Mac, Blackberry and iPad.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

C.Q.

Free eBooks and a valuable lesson

Recently I had two things happen, one good and one not so much, both of these events prompted today's blog topic. At the beginning of the month I was finally able to purchase my iPod Touch, this got me thinking about one of my friends daughters who was over during the summer and was reading a book on hers. I did a little research and found that you can download a very nice free eReader at the iTunes store called Stanza, its put out by Lexcycle. I preferred this one because you have to pay extra for the dictionary in a couple of the other ones. When you want to download a book it is very easy and very quick, just tap on the get books button and you have your choice of either traditional book stores or free books. In the free books category you can choose from quite a few different places to find books, one of the best is Project Gutenberg. My choices for my first books were Walden, Great Expectations (a childhood favorite) and a book called Wit'ch Fire by James Clemens.

I also have an original first generation Amazon Kindle, not as fancy and tricked out as my friend Bernie's new one, and I have a few friends now that have Barns and Noble's Nooks (which have color) and Sony readers. If you are thinking about getting one of these devises they are wonderful but it can be confusing to know what will work for you, Wikipedia has a great page comparing all the different models out there so you can make the best choice for you're needs. All of these ereaders will download free books, its just a matter of knowing where to find them. The Project Gutenberg library supports many different formats and will work with almost any ereader. If you have a Kindle then you can check Amazon directly for free books that work with their ereader. The Baen Free Library has a wide selection of Science Fiction available for many ereaders. Another great site for downloads is Manybooks, they have a wide variety of books to choose from and there is a little something for everyone and download to most ereaders. If any of you are trying to learn another language (I am trying to learn French) then one of the best ways to stay immersed is to read a classic in another language, I just downloaded "Le avventure d'Alice nel paese delle meraviglie", we know it as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and although it is a children's classic, because I know the story, it will help me with the French words and sentence structure. If you like romance books Harlequin offers a small selection free ebooks downloadable in PDF format on the computer or directly to Stanza on your Blackberry, iPhone or iPod. One of the other wonderful sites I found was Bartleby, you can search for almost anything in any number of different ways. This site has a lot of neat stuff so be sure to take your time here.

On to the second occurrence that was not so good but did teach me a very good lesson. I enjoy the books (both series) by Laurell K. Hamilton and she recently just released her most recent in the Anita Blake series. It was set to be in stores last Tuesday but when I went to Barns and Noble it had not been on their trucks delivery. They took my name and assured me it would be in on Wednesday. Sure enough; Wednesday morning I had my confirmation email, the book was in come and get it, so like one of Pavlov's salivating dogs off I went. Because I had a gift certificate I decided to browse a little in the music section and picked up a copy of the Mamma Mia soundtrack I had been wanting, usually I would check the prices before I buy something but what the heck, I had a gift certificate. Because things tend to stick in my brain I later thought I would compare the price of my new CD to the prices at Amazon and Deep Discount just to make sure I got a good deal, or at least an average one, so I pulled up the Barns and Noble web site and looked up the CD and was VERY surprised to see that the price on line was LOWER (by almost $5.00) than the price in the store, OK, now a little irritated I decided to see about the book, and sure enough, that was less on line as well ($3.00). I called to check with the store and they KNOW about this problem, she offered to take the items back and re-order them using BN.com, but I had already put the CD in my iPod. Just the simple act of checking the on line price of a store against the in store price can save you a chunk of cash, so remember to call the store to get a price before you head out, you may be better off staying home and shopping in your nightgown.

Have a great weekend everyone!

C.Q.