Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free e-book selections and/or very inexpensive selections for this week include three old-time whodunits, a science fiction classic, the diary of a WWI nurse, and a novel that that critics have praised as one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. Enjoy!

The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allan Poe. MYSTERY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.

"C. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mysterious brutal murder of two women. Numerous witnesses heard a suspect, though no one agrees on what language was spoken. At the murder scene, Dupin finds a hair that does not appear to be human...." - ManyBooks.

The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams. THRILLER. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.

"The Man with the Clubfoot is one of the most ingenious and sinister secret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned of regaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser. Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secret service work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discover the whereabouts of his brother." - ManyBooks.

A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.

"...a wonderful scientific romance that perhaps can be best described as early science fiction melded with an epic dose of romantic adventure. A Princess of Mars is the first adventure of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who unexpectedly find himself transplanted to the planet Mars. Yet this red planet is far more than a dusty, barren place; it's a fantasy world populated with giant green barbarians, beautiful maidens in distress, and weird flora and monstrous fauna the likes of which could only exist in the author's boundless imagination." - Amazon.com Review.

Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915, by a World War I nurse. MEMOIR. Download site: ManyBooks. Also available in the Amazon Kindle Bookstore. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.

"In August 1914, the diarist left England for Havre, on the staff of a general hospital. She gives a detailed record of her experiences, including days at Havre waiting for orders, work on ambulance trains bringing wounded from Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, and St. Eloi, and later, duty with a field ambulance, involving frequent movings and alarms, and billets in towns that were under shell-fire." - ManyBooks.

The Eye of Osiris, by R. Austin Freeman. MYSTERY. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.99.

"Before Bones, before CSI, before Quincy,M.E. there was Dr. John Thorndyke. In The Eye of Osiris, John Bellingham, noted Egyptologist vanished not once but twice in the same day. Two years later Dr, John Thorndyke must unravel the tangled claims on his estate and solve the riddle of the missing man. Is the dismembered body who's various remains start appearing at sites across the landscape that of John Bellingham? If so, how did he die, who killed him, and as important to Dr. Thorndyke's clients, when was he killed? Using the latest techniques of Edwardian forensic science, Dr. John Thorndyke must answer these questions..." - Publisher.

Middlemarch, by George Eliot. NOVEL. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.prc). Price: Free.

"Middlemarch is considered to be George Eliot's greatest work and, in the opinion of many, is one of the greatest English novels of the 19th century. At the time it was published, in 1872, Eliot was universally acclaimed as the greatest living English novelist - the older writers of the Victorian era, such as Dickens and the Bronte sisters were dead, and the younger generation, such as Thomas Hardy, had not yet achieved fame. In Middlemarch, Eliot shows her mastery of the multi-plot novel, in which a number of different stories are interwoven. She interweaves the stories of various friends, acquaintances, and relations in the fictional town of Middlemarch in early 19th-century England." - MobileRead.

Reggie truly couldn't understand the appeal of  the Kindle

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free and inexpensive e-book selections for this week include vintage pulp fiction, two young adult fantasy novels, science fiction from Philip K. Dick, a classic novel from the first American novelist to be awarded the Nobel Prize, a guide to e-book publishing and a novel set in the Swiss alps in the post WWI period.

The Ghost Strikes Back, by G. T. Fleming-Roberts. PULP FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .mobi for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The man in the rain was the most unprepossessing individual I had ever seen. He wasn’t just thin, he was gaunt - almost starved looking. He was all but chinless. His eyes were protruding and glittering. He was rigged out in a seedy looking cutaway coat and baggy striped trousers. An almost colorless fuzz adorned one-third of his peaked cranium, noticeable only when he removed his black fedora hat. He stepped out of the shadows of the dark area way at the stage door entrance as Merry White and I approached. In the drizzle of that rainy spring evening..."

The Witness for the Defense, by A.E.W. Mason. MYSTERY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: .azw for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The 'witness for the defense' perjures himself and saves a woman (whose love he had won seven years before and sacrificed for personal ambition) from conviction of the shooting of her husband, a secret and cruel dipsomaniac. He loses track of her for some time but then finds that he must renounce her again, unwillingly this time, as her love has been given to the man who has married her secretly in spit of his realization of the truth long before she confesses it." - ManyBooks.

Death (and Further Adventures) of Silas Winterbottom: The Body Thief, by Stephen Giles. YOUNG ADULT. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $1.94.

"And you thought your family was strange. I am dying... I might get the chance to know you before death takes me... I would like you to be my guest at Sommerset... I have enclosed a check for $ 10,000... Should you accept my offer... Uncle Silas has always been greedy, evil, insulting, and extremely rich! But a dying uncle with a vast fortune is definitely one worth getting to know. Even if it means spending 2 months on his secluded island home with a houseful of suspicious servants and a hungry pet crocodile. But what is Uncle Silas really up to? Will Adele, Milo, and Isabella outlive Uncle Silas to inherit his money? And just who is that mysterious 'guest' in his basement?" - Amazon.

Second Variety, by Philip K. Dick. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: .azw for Kindle. Price: $0.00
"The claws were bad enough in the first place - nasty, crawling little death-robots. But when they began to imitate their creators, it was time for the human race to make peace—if it could!" - ManyBooks.

Dodsworth, by Sinclair Lewis. NOVEL. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .mobi for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Touring Europe with his beautiful but spoiled wife Fran, millionaire Sam Dodsworth, known as the American Captain of Industry, witnesses the clash of American and English cultures at the same time his marriage falls apart.
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature..."

In the Mountains, by Elizabeth von Arnim. GENRE. Download site: GirleBooks. Format: Kindle/Mobipocket PRC. Price: $0.00.

"First published in 1920, the story is written in first person as a journal. Our narrator is a tired English woman who, after WWI, escapes ambiguous personal troubles in London and seeks refuge at her chalet among the Swiss Alps. As she starts to gain strength, two English women, also of ambiguous personal circumstances, show up literally on her doorstep. The hostess takes them in, and they embark on a strange and endearing path to helping each other." - GirleBooks.

The (almost) Complete DIY Guide to eBook Publishing, by Coral Russell. NONFICTION. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"I emptied my brain and computer into this eBook of all the current information on Independent eBook Publishing. The eBook is 6969 words long (I couldn't have planned that better if I wanted to o.~) and has literally 1000 links. Sections are on my blog at alchemyofscrawl.blogspot.com and I would love comments, questions, ideas, debate. I have been reviewing Indie Authors and enjoyed so many great stories!" - Author.

Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula, by Elise Stokes. YOUNG ADULT. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $2.99.

"Fourteen-year-old Cassidy Jones wakes up the morning after a minor accident in the laboratory of a world-renowned geneticist to discover that her body has undergone some bizarre physical changes. Her senses, strength, and speed have been radically enhanced. After exploring her newfound abilities, Cassidy learns that the geneticist, Professor Serena Phillips, is missing and that foul play is suspected. Terrified that her physical changes and Professor Phillips' disappearance are somehow connected, Cassidy decides to keep her strange transformation a secret. That is, until she meets the professor's brilliant and mysterious fifteen-year-old son, Emery..." - Amazon.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

This week's free and inexpensive selections include thrillers by E. Phillips Oppenheim and L. Ron Hubbard, two romance novels - one harking back to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and the other a modern "facebook" dalliance, science fiction by Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Buchan, a mystery featuring one of the first forensic scientists of modern times and the diary of a World War I battlefield nurse.

Rearview Mirror, by Lorene Haupt. NOVEL. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.99.
Elise Brody thought that her college fling with Drew Wilkins would always remain part of her past after he left Ann Arbor for California. But thanks to Facebook, they have been electronically reunited. Unfortunately, they are both married. Their online flirtation feels safe until Elise finds out that Drew will be coming home. How will she react when he becomes more than just a reflection in her rearview mirror?

The Gap in the Curtain, by John Buchan. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .mobi for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The most unusual and thought- provoking of Buchan's supernatural works is the novel The Gap in the Curtain (1932), which deals with fate and free will. Building on Dunne's theory of serial time, Professor Moe works out a technique for visualizing the future - in this case a newspaper of a year hence. The characters, who are types of our civilization, scramble about trying either to fulfill or to ward off what has been seen..." - Sullivan, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural.

Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915, by Anonymous. BIOGRAPHY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle. Also available in the Amazon Kindle Bookstore. Price: $0.00.
"In August 1914, the diarist left England for Havre, on the staff of a general hospital. She gives a detailed record of her experiences, including days at Havre waiting for orders, work on ambulance trains bringing wounded from Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, and St. Eloi, and later, duty with a field ambulance, involving frequent movings and alarms, and billets in towns that were under shell-fire." - ManyBooks.

The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Held captive by grotesque bodiless heads, Princess Tara of Helium was rescued by a warrior who dared not reveal his name. But escape led the daughter of the Warlord of Mars into even more loathesome peril - as the prize in a bloody game of living chess." - Amazon.

The Vanishing Man, by R. Austin Freeman. MYSTERY. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.99.
"The Vanishing Man (published in the U.K. as The Eye of Osiris) by R. Austin Freeman (a.k.a. Clifford Ashdown) is an ingenious and entertaining detective romance, graced with the charm of Old London and featuring Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke. Thorndyke was described by his author as a 'medical jurispractitioner' - originally a medical doctor, he turned to the bar and became one of the first (in modern terms) forensic scientists. His solutions were based on his method of collecting all possible data (including dust and pond weed) and making inferences from them before looking at any of the protagonists and motives in the crimes (it is said that Freeman himself conducted all experiments mentioned in the stories). It is this method which gave rise to one of Freeman's most ingenious inventions — the inverted detective story, where the criminal act is described first and the interest lies in Thorndyke's subsequent unravelling of it." - Amazon.

The Iron Duke, by L. Ron Hubbard. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $3.19.

"Blacky Lee is a man wanted by nearly every government in Europe, who happens to be the spitting image of a leader in the Balkan kingdom of Aldoria. With nowhere else to hide, the enterprising Lee flees to Aldoria and attempts to make the most of his mistaken identity in a startling tale of intrigue, humor and romance." - Amazon.

The Double Traitor, by E. Phillips Oppenheim. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Oppenheim tells a good story - a little romance, a little adventure - turn of the century tales of success and failure, gain and loss. A best-selling British author, E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) published over 150 books and countless magazine stories between 1884 and 1946. While most often identified as a mystery writer, Oppenheim's novels range from spy thrillers to romance. All of them have, however, an undertone of intrigue." - Amazon.

The Doctor's Wife, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. ROMANCE. Download site: GirleBooks. Format: Mobipocket/Kindle PRC. Price: $0.00.
"First published in 1864, The Doctor's Wife uses the concept of the serialized sensation novel to create stories within stories within stories. A reworking of Madame Bovary, the heroine is Isabel Sleaford who is married to an adoring, if boring, physician. He does not share Isabel’s taste for literature, but she is content until she meets her intellectual equal in the author of her favorite book of verse. As Isabel's life begins to take on complications worthy of her literary heroes, she begins to find what it is like to grow into a mature woman." - GirleBooks.

Reggie truly couldn't understand the appeal of  the Kindle

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free e-book selections for this week include a book by Edna Ferber that you may not have heard of, a novel set during WWI, the letters of a woman homesteader, a thriller linking lost prophesies of Nostradamus with a modern day terrorist plot, a classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an old-fashioned tale for children, and an epistolary novel that draws you into the mind of a young German woman.

Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney, by Edna Ferber. NOVEL. Download site: GirleBooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney was first published in 1913. It chronicles the adventures of perhaps the only a successful traveling saleswoman in literary history, a stellar employee of T. A. Buck’s Featherloom Petticoats. Emma is the divorced mother of a 17-year-old son Jock, who also makes a few appearances. The title refers to the only consistently good road food, in Emma's opinion: roast beef." - GirleBooks.

The Secret Battle, by A. P. Herbert. NOVEL. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.00.
"...first published in 1919. The book draws upon Herbert's experiences as a junior infantry officer in the First World War, and has been praised for its accurate and truthful portrayal of the mental effects of the war on the participants. It was one of the earliest novels to contain a detailed description of Gallipoli, or to challenge the Army's executions of soldiers for desertion." - Wikipedia.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. CORRESPONDENCE. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day as house-cleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scotch cattle-man, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell the story of her new life in the new country. They are genuine letters, and are printed as written, except for occasional omissions and the alteration of some of the names." - Publishers Note.

Quatrain, by John Medler. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.99.
"In 1557, Nostradamus published his famous prophetic opus entitled Les Propheties - a collection of four-line, rhyming verses called 'quatrains.' The original set was supposed to have 1,000 prophecies. However, only 942 have survived. 58 quatrains have been lost in the annals of time...until now. Can a cynical college professor and his two rebellious teenagers find the missing 58 quatrains of Nostradamus in time to stop a terrorist attack on the United States, and will anyone believe them?" - Amazon.

The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. NOVEL. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922. The novel takes place following the First World War. American society enjoyed prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers. After its republishing in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is today widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Great Gatsby has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world, and is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." - Wikipedia

The Joyous Story of Toto, by Laura E. Richards. CHILDREN'S FICTION. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw.) Price: $0.00.
"Toto was a little boy, and his grandmother was an old woman (I have noticed that grandmothers are very apt to be old women); and this story is about both of them. Now, whether the story be true or not you must decide for yourselves; and the child who finds this out will be wiser than I. Toto's grandmother lived in a little cottage far from any town, and just by the edge of a thick wood; and Toto lived with her, for his father and mother were dead, and the old woman was the only relation he had in the world..."

Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther: Being the Letters of an Independent Woman, by Elizabeth von Arnim. NOVEL. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw.) Price: $0.00.
Elizabeth von Arnim (1866 – 1941), was an Australian-born British novelist. In 1944 her book Mr. Skeffington was made into a movie starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther is an epistolary novel, a story of love and loss told from the woman's point of view.
"This enchanting novel tells the story of the love affair between Rose-Marie Schmidt and Roger Anstruther. A determined young woman of twenty-five, Rose-Marie is considered a spinster by the inhabitants of the small German town of Jena where she lives with her father, the Professor. To their homes comes Roger, an impoverished but well-born young Englishman who wishes to learn German: Rose-Marie and Roger fall in love. But the course of true love never did run smooth..." - Amazon.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: An Eclectic Selection (22 Oct 2010)

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

E-book selections for this week include a thriller, a satire written in 1907 and eerily topical today, a collection of true detective stories, science fiction by Robert Sheckley and Noel Miller Loomis, speculative "webfiction" and - for chess buffs - a classic by world chess champion J. R. Capablanca.

The Abigail Affair, by Timothy Frost. Print length: 420 p. THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $.0.99.

"Toby Robinson is 22 and broke. He lands a job as junior steward on a Russian billionaire's yacht in the Caribbean, and feels his luck is about to change. It is, but not in the way Toby hoped. On his first night aboard he is framed for a brutal murder. His attractive crewmate Julia seems to be the only one his side. But can he trust her? With his mobile phone confiscated, armed only with a winning smile and a flair for mixing cocktails, can Toby clear his name, stay alive - and foil the sinister international conspiracy that threatens to entangle him?" - Amazon.

Alice in Blunderland, by John Kendrick Bangs. SATIRE. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.mobi). Price: Free.
Excerpt: “Yes,” said the Hatter. “The March Hare and the White Knight and I. We’ve started a city... Everything in town belongs to the People - streetcars, gutters, pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canary birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, umbrellas, bakeries, cakeries, steakeries, shops - you can’t think of a thing that the city don’t own. No more private ownership of anything from a toothbrush to a yacht, and the result is we are all happy.”
“It sounds fine,” said Alice. “Though I think I should rather own my own toothbrush.”
“You naturally would, under the old system,” assented the Hatter. “Under a system of private ownership, owning your own teeth, you’d prefer to own your own toothbrush, but our Council has just passed a law making teeth public property. You see we found that some people had teeth and other people hadn’t, which is hardly a fair condition under a Republican form of Government. It gave one class of citizens a distinct advantage over other people and the Declaration of Independ­ence demands absolute equality for all. One man owning his own teeth could eat all the hickory nuts he wanted just because he had teeth to crack ’em with, while another man not having teeth had either to swallow ’em whole, which ruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn’t fair.”
“I see,” said Alice.

True Detective Stories from the Archives of the Pinkertons, by Cleveland Moffett. New York, G. W. Dillingham Co., 1897. MYSTERY/DETECTIVE. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free.
Recounts the Northampton Bank Robbery, the Susquehanna Express Robbery, the Pollock Diamond Robbery, the Rock Island Express, the Destruction of the Renos and the American Exchange Bank Robbery.

Nine Men in Time, by Noel Miller Loomis. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free. First published in 1953 in Science Fiction Stories magazine.
"The idea of sending a man back in time to re-do a job he's botched, so that a deadline can still be met - added to the thought of duplicating a man so there'll be two doing the same work at the same time - adds up to a production-manager's dream. But any dream can suddenly shift into a nightmare..." - ManyBooks.

Ask a Foolish Question, by Robert Sheckley. SCIENCE FICTION/SHORT STORY. Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: Free. First published in 1953 in Science Fiction Stories magazine.
"It's well established now that the way you put a question often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the type of answer possible. So ... a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations." - ManyBooks.

Other Sides: 12 Webfiction Tales, by Ergofiction. SHORT STORIES/SPECULATIVE FICTION. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Kindle. Price: Free.
"The advent of digital publishing has seen the rise of a new breed of writers: independent, experimental and unfettered by convention. This brand new anthology features a small sampling of these very writers, in a speculative fiction collection that will capture the imagination and dazzle the senses. The storytelling genius in this collection is most evidenced by its memorable characters: a young woman haunted by her ex-boyfriend’s sweater, time travelers with a suspicious interest in babies, a gender-changing alien desperate to heal a loved one… In these stories, fourteen independent authors display the imagination, insight and wonderful originality that characterizes the unique world of online fiction." - Feedbooks.

Chess Fundamentals, by José Raúl Capablanca. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, c1921. NONFICTION. Download site: Project Gutenberg. Format: Kindle. Price: Free.
One of the few books written by the great Cuban chess champion, Chess Fundamentals - despite the title - is not for beginning chess players but is rather a semi-introductory book designed for those serious about improving their chess game. It has been called "one of the jewels of chess literature".  Project Gutenberg offers both illustrated (with chessboard diagrams) and non-illustrated Kindle editions.

Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (26 Sept 2010)

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free or inexpensive e-book selections for this week include science fiction and fantasy with more than a touch of humor, a lot of dogs (some of whom are detectives), a larger than life barbarian - but aren't they all - and a coming-of-age novel narrated by a boy growing up in a dog zoo in Florida.

The Eye of Wilbur Mook, by H. B. Hickey. FANTASY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .mobi for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
When the world's most cowardly man met the world's bravest - history was changed. Wilbur Mook , a timid greeting card writer, reluctantly accompanies a strange old man named Merlin back in time to the days of knights and other scary characters. Originally published in Amazing Stories magazine, November, 1948.

The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis. MYSTERY. Download site: Amazon. Format: .AZW for Kindle. Price: $0.99.
"Doan, the 'hero' of this story is a small-time detective with a dry, sardonic wit, and a huge Great Dane (Carstairs - don't call him a 'pet') in these absolutely delightful series of humor-tinged mysteries. Great fun that shouldn't be missed! In this adventure, the duo travel to Mexico during World War 2, along with an heiress, a revolutionary, an artist, and more than a few mysteries. Complex characters and good, sometimes surreal humor." - Amazon.

Vengar the Barbarian (The King, His Son, Their Sorcerer and His Lover), by Chris J. Randolph. FANTASY. Download site: Amazon. Format: .azw for Kindle. Price: $0.89.
"Welcome to the Hyperbolic Age, a prehistoric era when men were mighty, women were buxom, and neither could be trusted in the dark. Into this melodramatic yet somehow lost epoch strides a mighty figure, a king cursed to never again remember his homeland who wanders the thousand and one kingdoms in search of what he's lost. His name is Vengar, and he's a barbarian. Shudder with terror as our hulking hero faces unearthly creatures from the furthest reaches of possibility. Thrill as he seduces luscious ladies and wages war against vile sorcerers, and shake your head in dismay as he makes far too many decisions with that certain part of the male anatomy. When Vengar comes to the sandstone city of Tensara, a mysterious maiden begs him to rescue her sister from a wicked sorcerer. He accepts the mission but it quickly turns into more than he bargained for, leaving him tangled up in a dastardly plot to start a civil war. At roughly 30 pages, The King, His Son, Their Sorcerer and His Lover is a ton of fun in a bite-size package. 'The perfect afternoon read,' says the author's mother, and we think you'll agree." - Amazon.

Dogland, by Will Shetterly. FANTASY.  Download site: ManyBooks. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.00.
"The Nix family has arrived. And Latchahie County will never be the same. In an effort at improving his family's lot, the Nixes have moved to rural Florida to open Dogland: a combination zoo, restaurant and motel. But it isn't long before Nix and his clan of eccentric supporters run afoul of unsympathetic locals. The problem? Luke Nix has hired Ethorne Hawkins. Hawkins is black. And it's 1959."

In Dog We Trust: A Steve and Rochester Mystery, by Neil S. Plakcy. MYSTERY. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $2.39.
"After a bad divorce and a brief prison term for computer hacking, 42-year-old Steve Levitan has returned to his home town of Stewart’s Crossing and taken a part-time job as an adjunct professor of English at his alma mater, Eastern College. While walking around his gated community, he becomes friendly with his next-door neighbor, Caroline Kelly, and her golden retriever, Rochester. When Caroline is shot and killed while walking Rochester, Steve becomes the dog’s temporary guardian. Together, these two unlikely sleuths work to uncover the mystery behind Caroline’s death." - Amazon.

Danger in Deep Space, by Carey Rockwell. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .mobi for Kindle. Price: $0.00.
"The book you hold in your hands - second in the Tom Corbett series by 'Carey Rockwell' - is something special. Oh, it was a work made for hire, and after it had its day, even the author (whoever he was in real life) forgot he'd done it. But believe it or not, this book is really pretty neat. It's the tale of three young space cadets of the Solar Guard: it starts with space maneuvers and a mock attack, and run through complications on places like Venus and Tara. Cool stuff! Read it now!" - MobileRead.