Daily Deals Worth Reading for September 27th

If you're one of the many people eagerly waiting for the last installment of Veronica Roth's Insurgent trilogy, Allegiant, on October 22nd , than "The Transfer" and the other singles written by Roth from different points-of-view will whet your appetite. $1.99. 





This is the third in a trilogy that is pure Margaret Atwood. MaddAddam brings together the two groups from Atwood's previous dystopian books Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. This book is a new release and is a deal at $6.49. If you haven't read the previous two, they are not bargains (at $9.99 each), so get them from the library and then read this. Well worth your time, if you want to read adult Dystopian.


Vincent Zandri has done a great job hooking me with his mysteries, and I'm buying this one in the hope that it will do the same. A woman abducted as a child must face her past to solve a mystery involving an autistic child and her dead (and also abducted as a child) sister. Great reviews, so, for $1.99, I'll give The Remains a try.



 The Visible World is a wonderfully moving story told by the American-born son of Czech immigrants, telling the stories and fairytales he overhears in his boisterous, immigrant New York neighborhood. $2.51.

Good deals for Monday, September 23rd

Lately there's been a lot of Vonnegut available at unbelievable prices. "Slapstick" is a little 'unstructured' but is an interesting read. It is supposedly pretty biographical. It's the story of twins who are very 'in sync' (not like Justin Timberlake) in feelings and communication, relating to Vonnegut's own relationship with his sister, who died of cancer in childhood. $1.99.

"Descent" is a memoir by the author of "Snow Falling On Cedars" (which, if you have not read, you should), telling the story of his descent into depression following 9/11, and his slow ascent back to his family, friends and writing. $2.99.

I have not read this one yet, but I bought it when it was a little more expensive than this price. It looks very good. "The Sisterhood" is the story of a child adopted after a tragedy in South America and raised in the US by a good family. At age 19, on track to have it all, another tragedy derails her. She travels to Spain to finish her college thesis on a 16th century artist who has connections with her past. $3.99. 


A wonderful children's book by Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman from cookbook and Food Network fame. Charlie, The Ranch Dog is very cute, very loveable, and a favorite of my younger daughter. $1.99. 

Good deals for today and re-scaring myself with The Shining in anticipation of Doctor Sleep

Every day I scour Amazon for the best deals, trying to find the gems among the dirt and dust. Mind you, there are a lot of great authors writing today, and many are doing direct publishing, so I know I miss a bunch. Thinking too hard about this can make me crazy--I want to read everything worth reading, but this means sifting through the others that might not be so worth my time. But then there are those books that may hold in them lots of promise; the book might not be great, but you know that author will do well.

I'm going to take some time every few days (maybe everyday? but no promises) to highlight 'GEMS' I have found. I know there are a lot of places to find the 'deals', so I really only want to do those that are worth buying. A deal is only a deal if you're going to read it, right?



P.D. James is always a good bet, especially for $1.99. "Unnatural Causes" revolves around a famous author found dead in a lake with both hands cut off, and Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is called upon to solve the mystery. James creates a cast of unlikable authors, making you wonder WHO she's talking about.




I LOVED this book. Vincent Zandri had some set backs in his earlier career, but took to direct publishing to get his books and himself back out there. "The Innocent" is a great mystery for $1.99.







Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" is one of the best books I've read. I loved this book, and love her as a writer.  This story of a writer who returns to his 'ancestral' home of Newfoundland with his two daughters after his wife is killed, this book won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Well worth the $1.99.



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"That's your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on."

I decided to re-read The Shining in anticipation of Doctor Sleep and was pleasantly surprised. I first attempted to read this book when I was eight, at which point my mother discovered it and took it away from me in horror after nightmares kept me awake for a few nights. I went back to it in my teen years, and read it at least three more times. And then I put it away as childish.

Don't get my wrong, I love Stephen King. And The Shining was a must for a child of Colorado, growing up not far from Estes Park. The Stanley Hotel is said to be The Overlook, although it is in Estes Park and not higher up, and it is reachable in the winter. But there came a time when I believed I had outgrown that kind of scary, forgetting how psychologically scary The Shining actually is.

I re-read this just in time for the sequel Doctor Sleep, about 35 years after The Shining. And it is just a creepy-scary, just as real. Just like many books, re-reading it creates a different feeling. Reading it as a child I identified with Danny, the young son with "the shining." This time I'm a mother and a wife and I read it identifying with Wendy AND Jack. Both are flawed but wanting to be better, but sometimes the demons find you.

And, like most Americans, the movie has snuck into my thinking. I remember both Jack and Wendy differently because of the movie (which is good, but doesn't do them justice). In the movie, Jack lets the evil in easily, which doesn't happen in the book. And Wendy is a dishrag of a woman, which she definitely is not in King's original version of her.

So, this book still scared me, maybe more than in my youth, because you know, as an adult, how hard it is to keep all the demons out (although we usually don't have to deal with a possessed hotel). Even beyond that, it scared me in a things-that-go-bump-in-the-night kind of way. It made me wished I had read it just slightly slower, because I still have two days to wait for Doctor Sleep.