Amazon Kindle Best Sellers Week 18

Water for Elephants is a historical novel by Sara Gruen. Gruen originally wrote the novel as part of National Novel Writing Month. The story is told as a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a "ninety or ninety-three year-old" man who lives in a nursing home. Jacob is told what to eat and what to do. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself.

Best-selling author Michael Connelly, whose character-driven literary mysteries have earned him a wide following, breaks from the gate in the over-crowded field of legal thrillers and leaves every other contender from Grisham to Turow in the dust with this tightly plotted, brilliantly paced, impossible-to-put-down novel.

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen (in a nice twist, Cohen's gun, given to Dad then bequeathed to his son, plays a key role in the plot). But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life."

Louis Roulet, Mickey's "franchise client" (so-called becaue he's able and willing to pay whatever his defense costs) seems to be the one his father warned him against, as well as being a few rungs higher on the socio-economic ladder than the drug dealers, homeboys, and motorcycle thugs who comprise Mickey's regular case load. But as the holes in Roulet's story tear Mickey's theory of the case to shreds, his thoughts turn more to Jesus Menendez, a former client convicted of a similar crime who's now languishing in San Quentin. Connelly tellingly delineates the code of legal ethics Mickey lives by: "It didn't matter...whether the defendant 'did it' or not. What mattered was the evidence against him--the proof--and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt." But by the time his client goes to trial, Mickey's feeling a few very reasonable doubts of his own.

ina Fey’s new book Bossypants is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation. Some of the funniest chapters feature the differences between male and female comedy writers ("men urinate in cups"), her cruise ship honeymoon ("it’s very Poseidon Adventure"), and advice about breastfeeding ("I had an obligation to my child to pretend to try"). But the chaos of Fey’s life is best detailed when she’s dividing her efforts equally between rehearsing her Sarah Palin impression, trying to get Oprah to appear on 30 Rock, and planning her daughter’s Peter Pan-themed birthday. Bossypants gets to the heart of why Tina Fey remains universally adored: she embodies the hectic, too-many-things-to-juggle lifestyle we all have, but instead of complaining about it, she can just laugh it off.

Nora Roberts Passes 1 Million Kindle Books Sold

Roberts becomes the third author in the "Kindle Million Club," joining Stieg Larsson and James Patterson

Nora Roberts has become the third author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the third member of the "Kindle Million Club." As of yesterday, Nora Roberts has sold 1,170,539 Kindle books under her name and her pseudonym J.D. Robb. The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, was the first author to hit the 1 million mark. James Patterson, author of more than 65 books that span the genres of suspense, fantasy, romance, historical fiction and children's, was the second author to join the Kindle Million Club.

"Nora Roberts has been a bestseller at Amazon for 15 years so this accomplishment is no surprise," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We're happy to welcome Nora Roberts to the Kindle Million Club, joining Stieg Larsson and James Patterson."

Roberts, who wrote the "In Death" series under the pseudonym J.D. Robb, is the author of more than 200 novels. Her many books include "The Search," "Northern Lights" and the popular The Garden Trilogy. Her novels have won numerous awards, including the Golden Medallion Award, RITA Award and Quill Award. One of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2007, Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. The New Yorker recently called her "America's favorite novelist."

Amazon to Introduce Free Kindle Apps

New tablet computers coming in 2011 will have access to Amazon's free "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" apps that let readers choose from over 775,000 Kindle books and read them across the most popular devices and platforms

Amazon announced that Kindle apps will also be tailored specifically for Android and Windows based tablets to enable customers to access the Kindle Store, and with it the largest selection of the books people want to read. Like all Kindle apps, the new Kindle apps built for Android and Windows tablet computers will let customers "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"--on Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices. For more information about the free Kindle apps, go to www.amazon.com/kindleapps.

"Kindle is light weight, easy on the eyes with a paper-like Pearl e-ink display, and has a full month of battery life. It's purpose-built for reading. Many people are buying both a Kindle and an LCD tablet computer," said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle. "We're very excited to support the upcoming Android and Windows LCD tablet computers with free Kindle apps that we'll tailor for the particular devices. Our Whispersync technology makes it simple to move back and forth between devices. Read on your Kindle, read on your tablet, read on your phone. We'll keep track of your last page read, and make it easy."

The Kindle Store offers the largest selection of books people want to read, including 100 of 110 New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases from $9.99. Millions of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read. Kindle books offer readers many additional unique advantages, including:

* "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" apps let you sync and read your books, last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across Kindle devices and the most popular devices and platforms
* Amazon's Worry-Free Archive automatically backs up your books and highlights online in your Kindle library where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly anytime on any Kindle device or app
* Amazon.com customer reviews, personalized recommendations and editorial reviews
* Instant 1-click buying using your Amazon account information

Week 50: Amazon Kindle Bestsellers top5

1. John Grisham: The Conession

"The Confession is the kind of grab-a-reader-by-the-shoulders suspense story that demands to be inhaled as quickly as possible. But it's also a superb work of social criticism in the literary troublemaker tradition of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle....Brilliant"--Washington Post

"Grisham is the master of the legal thriller."--USA Today

“The secrets of Grisham’s success are no secret at all. There are two of them: his pacing, which ranges from fast to breakneck, and his Theme—little guy takes on big conspiracy with the little guy getting the win in the end.” —Time magazine



2. Laura Hillenbrand: Unbroken - A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Eight years ago, an old man told me a story that took my breath away. His name was Louie Zamperini, and from the day I first spoke to him, his almost incomprehensibly dramatic life was my obsession.

It was a horse--the subject of my first book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend--who led me to Louie. As I researched the Depression-era racehorse, I kept coming across stories about Louie, a 1930s track star who endured an amazing odyssey in World War II. I knew only a little about him then, but I couldn’t shake him from my mind. After I finished Seabiscuit, I tracked Louie down, called him and asked about his life. For the next hour, he had me transfixed.


3. Tom Clancy: Dead or Alive

  For years, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the west and has eluded capture by the world's law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir and they will bring him in...dead or alive.

4. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

As the finale to Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - a familiar evil lies in wait for Lisbeth Salander, but this time, she must do more than confront the miscreants of her past; she must destroy them. Much to her chagrin, survival requires her to place a great deal of faith in journalist Mikael Blomkvist and trust his judgment when the stakes are highest. Larsson's mastery of the unexpected is why millions have fallen hard for his work.








5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 
This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. 

Oprah's New Book Club Selections Free on Kindle

The 65th Oprah Book Club pick is a Charles Dickens double-header reports the Amazoniacs. The selections are "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," and Amazon.com have announced that  announced that both are available on Kindle for free, along with millions of other out-of-copyright works. These free Kindle books can be read on the bestselling $139 Kindle (www.amazon.com/kindle) with new, high-contrast Pearl e-ink or on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Android-based devices, PC, and Mac using free Kindle reading apps (www.amazon.com/kindleapps).

"We've found that customers love to discover--or rediscover--classic books on Kindle and we're sure these Dickens books will find new readers as an Oprah's Book Club selection," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "Millions of free, out-of-copyright books are available to read on Kindle, including these two classic Dickens books."

There is also a Penguin edition available in the Kindle store for $7.99. The Penguin edition includes illustrations of 18th century fashion and culture in Dickens' Victorian world, information about the early reception for both "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," a filmography of Dickens' novels, further reading about the author as well as what informed the thematic elements of these classic novels.

Amazon allows Kindle ebooks to be gifted

Amazon has announced that you can now gift someone a Kindle book, and that you don't even have to worry if that person has a Kindle or not.
The only requirement is an Amazon account for you and an email address for the recipient. The ebooks can be read from Kindle apps on iPhones, iPads, Android and Blackberry phones and both Macs and PCs. All Kindle apps are free.

"We are thrilled to make it easier than ever for our customers to give their favorite Kindle book to a friend or family member as a gift," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "We're making this functionality available in time for the holidays to offer an easy, stress free holiday shopping option for anyone - not just Kindle owners."

To give a Kindle Book as a gift, customers simply choose a book in the Kindle Store, select "Give as a Gift" and send their gift to anyone with an email address. Notifications of Kindle Books gifts are delivered instantly via e-mail and the recipient redeems the gift in the Kindle Store to read on any Kindle or free Kindle app.

Amazon Windowshop - Amazon.com for iPad

Amazon.com has launched Amazon Windowshop, a complete rewrite of Amazon.com specifically for the iPad. Amazon Windowshop's intimate and fluid user interaction is made possible by the iPad's responsive, multi-touch interface. Amazon Windowshop sets a new bar for e-commerce, and many Amazon customers may prefer Amazon Windowshop even when a large screen web interface is readily available. On the backend, everything remains the same - 49 fulfillment centers with millions of in-stock items that ship with Amazon's customary low prices and fast delivery. But on the front end, customers will experience a new Amazon.com.

"Amazon Windowshop is a top-to-bottom rewrite of Amazon.com - designed and built without compromise just for iPad," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "Try it. I think you'll find it's an amazing new way to shop Amazon's millions of items. Same selection, same low prices, same fast delivery, same benefits of your Amazon Prime membership - just a completely new, fluid interface designed specifically for lean-back, touch screen tablets."
This new experience is designed to make exploring everything from textbooks and jeans, to video games and golf clubs, easy, fun, fast and incredibly useful for iPad owners. Amazon Windowshop is now available for free on the App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Amazon announces 14-day Kindle ebook lending

Amazon will be introducing a 14-day lending feature for Kindle ebooks later this year, the Kindle team announced yesterday. User won’t be able to read ebooks while they’re lent out. The feature won’t be available for all ebooks either, as it will be entirely up to publishers and rights holders to enable it.

Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

New Amazon Kindle DX: Sharper screen, sharper price

Shipping as of July 7th, the price for a new Kindle DX will fall by nearly $100, to $379 from $489. It also now comes in a hep new color (do college kids still say “hep”?), graphite (which looks more like charcoal to me), but for US models only and is touting better screen contrast.

Of course, the recent 2.5 upgrade made file management a little easier, but there seems to be no progress on the features that the DX’s target audience, academia, was most interested in, like annotating and a touch screen.

"With 50 percent better contrast and darker fonts, you'll find it easier than ever to read wherever you happen to be, whether it's outside in bright sunlight or under the low light of your living room", said Steve Kessel, senior vice president, Amazon Kindle.

Amazon launches iPhone-optimized Kindle eBook store

Following on the release of Amazon’s Kindle for iPhone application, Amazon has launched an iPhone-optimized Kindle eBook webstore. The new Kindle website is now more iPhone friendly, offering users a slick interface and more than 280,000 eBook titles to flick through.

The new Kindle store site has a search box and several default ways to filter ebook content, including books by category, NY Times best sellers, Kindle top sellers, new & noteworthy, and recommendations for you. You can also access and change your 1-click settings and manage your account.

Amazon Unveils Kindle 2

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos displayed the Kindle 2 at a recent New York press conference. The device has a 6-inch, 600 x 800 pixel display that provides 16 shades of gray, an upgrade from its predecessor that only displayed four. The company claims that pages refresh 20 percent faster in the new version of the device, and the Kindle 2 is available for preorder and costs about $360.

The power charger is also smaller. What's more, you can charge the device using a micro USB cable. As before, you can shop for books directly from the wireless Kindle Store, using Amazon's Whispernet. With 2 gigabytes of internal memory, you can store more than 1,500 books. The original had 256 megabytes of internal storage (about 200 books). But the original also had an SD memory card slot. There's no such slot on Kindle 2.

Kindle 2 also can read out loud, even the voice is robotic and nowhere near the quality of a book recorded.

Wall Street sees big sales for Amazon Kindle

Amazon.com has steadfastly refused to disclose details on the sales of its popular e-book reader known as the Kindle, which hasn't stopped Wall Street analysts from trying to pinpoint the number anyway.

A pair of analysts issued reports late Monday with their estimates, which put Kindle sales for last year somewhere between 374,000 units and 500,000 units. Analyst Mark Mahaney of Citigroup says this would put the device ahead of the early sales of the popular iPod digital music player.

Amazon launched the Kindle in December 2007 and quickly sold out its initial production run. The device was also sold out in the recent holiday shopping season. The company has long refused to disclose specific sales figures for the Kindle, and a spokesman would not comment on the latest estimates for the device.

E-Book Devices: Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader—an embedded system for reading electronic books (e-books)— it uses an electronic paper display, reads the proprietary Kindle (AZW) format, and downloads content over Amazon Whispernet.



Specifications
Display: 6" diagonal E-Ink® electronic paper display, 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 4-level gray scale
Size (in inches): 7.5" x 5.3" x 0.7"
Weight: 10.3 ounces
Internal memory: 256 MB with 180 MB free
Expansion Memory: Officially up to 4GB SD, although SDHC tested to 16 GB.
Wireless: EVDO with no subscription required
System requirements: None, because it doesn't require a computer

The internal memory of the Amazon Kindle can hold approximately 200 non-illustrated titles. Users can download content from Amazon in the proprietary Kindle format (AZW), or load unprotected Mobipocket (PRC, MOBI) or plain text content. It also supports audio in the form of MP3s and Audible 2, 3, and 4 audiobooks, which must be transferred to the Kindle over USB or on an SD card. It does not fully support Portable Document Format (PDF), but Amazon provides "experimental" conversion to the native AZW format.[12] Users may also convert PDF files to supported formats using third-party software.

Using the experimental web browser, it is possible to download books directly on the Kindle (.mobi, .prc and .txt).

Ebook Formats: AZW (Amazon Kindle)

With the launch of the Kindle eBook reader, Amazon.com created the AZW format. It is based on the Mobipocket standard, with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a Dollar sign) and its own DRM formatting. Because the eBooks bought on the Kindle are delivered wirelessly over EvDO (the system is called Whispernet by Amazon), the user does not see the AZW files during the download process.

AZW files can only be obtained from the Amazon web site. As of November 2007 there are 90,000 eBooks available in this format.