Kindle Daily Post

The Best Books of October

October sees an impressive line-up of books that includes some of the year's best so far, including a heavy helping of memorable new novels, plus two epic history books and the posthumous work of a Nobel Prize winner, available in English at last.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The year is 1984, but not for long... Haruki Murakami's fantastical magnum opus follows two protagonists on a surreal trajectory of love, dancing with a protracted elegance that requires nearly 1,000 unforgettable pages to reach its crowning denouement.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Three college seniors at Brown University in the early 1980s populate this thoughtful--and at times disarming--novel about life, love, and discovery, set during a time when so much of life seems filled with deep portent.

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean by David Abulafia
In this expansive, detailed historical gem, David Abulafia covers the full course of human history on the Mediterranean, a captivating account of "the Liquid Continent," where trade, cultural exchange, and empire-building were as important as currents, tides, and weather.

Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
In Russell Banks's highly acclaimed new novel, an unwelcome member of society--a released sex offender--is at the center of a morally complex and thought-provoking story of secrets, illusions, and blurry truths.

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
With vivid, unforgettable prose that scorches like the desert heat, Alice Hoffman brings the Roman conquest of Jerusalem (72 C.E.) to life as four women change their very natures in order to survive--and defy--the Romans.

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Ondaatje's absorbing new novel chronicles a boy's ship passage from Sri Lanka to London. As he grows immersed in the mysteries of this floating world, he meets friends and teachers who expand his imagination. This quiet masterpiece shows an author at the height of his craft.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
A woman is forced to raise her dead sister's wild young children, who haven't spoken a word since witnessing their mother's murder. When their ne'er-do-well father is acquitted, the action in this lush and lively novel flares with sharp dialogue and the scents and sounds of the loamy Carolina backwoods.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
A series of interconnected vignettes captures the love triangle between self-absorbed writer St. John Fox, his wife, Daphne, and his imagined muse, Mary Foxe. Clever, tender, and often poignant, Oyeyemi captures the magic and heartbreak of the love story.

Into the Silence by Wade Davis
It would be tempting to call Wade Davis's magnificent true story of mountaineering an Everest of a book. But that would be misleading. It is K2: challenging, complex, and hugely rewarding once you've completed the course.

Cain by José Saramago
In his final novel, the late Nobel Laureate gives a cheeky update to a timeworn tale. After killing his brother, Cain makes a deal with God and escapes into nomadic immortality, wandering through time and interfering with legend. By turns philosophical and hilarious, the book makes a fitting coda for a superlative writing life.

Read our reviews of October's best books, and be sure to check out this month's new crop of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less. Meanwhile, have a great weekend reading.

     --Jason Kirk

A CIA Interrogator’s Memoir

Guest post by Glenn L. Carle author of The Interrogator: An Education

I spent a cold night in the desert with nomads during the time I led the interrogation of one of a suspected top al-Qa’ida detainee the CIA had captured (i.e., kidnapped). The nomads and I spoke no common language, but we could still help guide each other by the stars.  At the same time, I tried to tell Headquarters the truth I had learned—that we were harming ourselves by using interrogation methods that led Americans to accept torture as acceptable, and that shred our government of laws.  The nomad and I understood one another; but Headquarters refused to listen to what it did not want to hear.  And so, no matter what I reported, my detainee was doomed to rot in prison for eight years, uncharged and largely innocent. The cost to America was that now many Americans accept torture, and that our laws—which I had taken an oath to uphold—no longer protect us as they did before the awful attacks of 9/11. Americans would not accept this corrosion of our government and society, if they knew; but it is what has happened to us all, out of sight and beyond most people’s knowledge.

That is why I wrote my book. Not to tell a tale of daring with ninjas, interrogation cells, “black” flights, mine fields, and women with weapons strapped to their upper thighs, and cat-walking across cramped work spaces covered in the dust of interrogation cells—although all that and more happened to me. But so that Americans would understand how it feels for an average, patriotic American to be part of a secret program that undermined the values our government is charged to preserve and protect. So that every American can see with open eyes what we have done to ourselves, and avoid harming ourselves as we act to stop those who are trying to kill us. 

Glenn Carle spent 23 years as a CIA field officer, working on four continents.  His memoir, The Interrogator: An Education, details his time leading the interrogation of one of the most senior al-Qa’ida detainees the U.S. captured after 9/11.

New to Kindle: "Madboy"

Madboy is the tell-all story of the modern ad world, crammed full of humor, wit, revealing anecdotes, and accurate portrayals of advertising's most colorful characters. Richard Kirshenbaum is Long G'island's Don Draper."--James Patterson, Best-selling Author

Advertising pioneer Richard Kirshenbaum jumped into the ad business when advertising meant fame and fortune, drugs, scandals, greed and glory.

In his memoir, Madboy, Kirshenbaum dives right into the inner workings of a wildly creative and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants advertising business--the next talked-about industry of big egos and big money--and provides readers with a voyeuristic look at the ad world’s most recognized campaigns and characters plucked from the hyper-drive domain of NYC advertising in the past two decades.

Profiling the entertaining clients, frenetic pace, and up-to-the-minute creativity of the advertising industry, Madboy brings readers into the room on everything from taking the advertising off the page by hiring attractive people to drink Hennessy at bars, to creating one of the most memorable and improbable pop culture icons: Wendy the Snapple Lady.

Kirshenbaum reveals hot tips and tidbits with a tell-all flavor and self-deprecating humor that is as dramatically compelling as the broad swathe of celebrities he has worked with--from Andy Warhol to Joan Rivers to Miss America--to name a few.  Early in his career, Kirshenbaum sits down to a game-changing interview with then agency creative director, now best-selling author James Patterson.

Don’t miss the Kindle release of this must-read memoir, which reveals a remarkable combination of poise and humor, command and vulnerability--an alchemy that sets Kirshenbaum apart as a first among equals amidst some of the greatest ad minds of his time.  Those tied to the advertising world, be it on the inside or outside will appreciate this stunning inside account of its wild ride from the 80s to today.

"A shimmering piece of work, in which the flash illuminates the creative act."--Kirkus

“With Madboy, Richie Kirshenbaum puts it all together in one great book on advertising. How it should be done. How he did it. And isn’t it great fun.”--Jerry Della Femina, Chairman, Della Femina Advertising

The Life and Times of James Madison

Guest post by Richard Brookhiser, author of James Madison

James Madison, fourth president, stood just over five feet, weighed just over a hundred pounds, and was sickly all his long life (1751-1836). But he stands tall in American history because of his two children: He was the Father of the Constitution, and the Father of Politics.

Madison was a major player at every stage of the Constitution’s early life. He called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. When it met in Philadelphia, he attended every session, was one of the most frequent speakers, and took notes on everything that was said and done. He led the fight for ratification in his home state, Virginia, the country’s largest, and he helped win the fight for ratification in New York by writing (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) the Federalist Papers, the ultimate constitutional user’s manual. Once the Constitution went into effect, he steered the Bill of Rights through the Congress. He was present before, during and after the creation

But Madison also created modern American politics. He called for an aroused and enlightened public opinion, as an extra safeguard to the Constitution’s checks and balances, and he made himself an opinion leader. He and his friend Thomas Jefferson founded the first political party, the Republican Party (ancestor of today’s Democrats, not the GOP). He helped launch the National Gazette, a newspaper that was the first partisan media (ancestor of MSNBC, Fox, The Nation, The New Republic and National Review). He belonged to the first political machine, the Virginia dynasty of Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe—six back-to-back presidential terms of soul-mates and neighbors. He married the first political wife, the lovely and shrewd Dolley Madison, who kept score as she served ice cream.

Madison’s political savvy sustained him through bitter battles against the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s, and through America’s first war of choice, the War of 1812. He foresaw and warned against the threat of secession that would lead to the Civil War.

James Madison was a deep thinker and a crafty vote-getter. We live with his handiwork.

Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review, a columnist for American History, and the author of ten books, including George Washington on Leadership and What Would the Founders Do? His newest book is James Madison (Basic Books).

All-New Kindle Family: Four New Kindles, Four Amazing Price Points

We're excited to announce three all-new Kindle e-readers that are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than ever before, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more.

New Latest Generation Kindle -- Fits In Your Pocket -- Only $79
The new latest generation Kindle is for readers who want the lightest, most compact Kindle at an incredible price.  The latest generation Kindle features a new design that is 30 percent lighter at just 5.98 ounces, 18 percent smaller, and turns pages 10 percent faster.  Kindle is now small and light enough to fit easily in your pocket and carry with you everywhere, yet it still features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight. 

Kindle is available starting today at www.amazon.com/kindle.

Kindle Touch -- Touch Screen Addition to the Kindle Family -- Only $99
Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display.  Kindle Touch is also lighter, smaller, eliminates battery anxiety with extra-long battery life and holds thousands of books. 

Kindle Touch is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch and ships November 21.

Kindle Touch 3G -- New Top of the Line Kindle e-reader -- Only $149
Kindle Touch 3G is a new addition to the Kindle family for readers who want the top of the line e-reader.  Kindle Touch 3G offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch – small and light, easy-to-use touch screen, storage for thousands of books, and extra-long battery life – with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G.  Kindle's free 3G connection means you never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot – you simply download and read books anytime, anywhere in over 100 countries around the world.  Amazon pays for the 3G connection so there's no monthly fee or annual contract. 

Kindle Touch 3G is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch3G and ships November 21.

All three new Kindle e-readers also come with special offers and sponsored screensavers that appear when you're not reading.  Customers enjoy special money-saving offers delivered wirelessly, including discounts on local services, products, and experiences from AmazonLocal, Amazon's local deals marketplace.  Customers can also choose to purchase a Kindle without special offers and sponsored screensavers.


Kindle Fire -- New Class of Kindle -- Only $199
Kindle Fire is a new addition to the Kindle family that offers instant access to Amazon's massive selection of digital content, Amazon's revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processor -- all for only $199.

Kindle Fire puts Amazon's incredible selection of digital content at your fingertips – enjoy over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, and magazines in vibrant color.

Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today at www.amazon.com/kindlefire, and it ships November 15.

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Author Spotlight: Erin Morgenstern on "The Night Circus"

I have a confession to make: when I was asked to write a kindle blog post about my new novel The Night Circus, it made me think of kittens. They are the first image that comes to mind when I hear or read the word kindle. A group of kittens is properly called a kindle, after all. While it might remind other people of books or fire, I think kittens...a pile of fluffy kittens purring happily in my head. This is likely because I have a bit of a thing for collective animal nouns. A mischief of mice. A glint of goldfish. An ostentation of peacocks. They are so delightfully evocative. The best ones make you think about the animal in a different way.

But, then, I have a fondness for the unexpected. Not surprises, per se, particularly of the horrid party variety, but things that were unanticipated upon first sight or listen or taste. Deceptively vanilla cupcakes with hidden chocolate-cayenne filling. A layer of the extraordinary lurking under the familiar.

Consider the word circus. It is so often associated with elephants and clowns and rings in threes. You might see striped tents in a field and assume you know already what will be found inside. You would expect lions and tigers and possibly bears, oh my. Even though it is not an every day occurrence, there is still an assumption as to what will be seen or heard or tasted once the circus ticket is in hand.

But wouldn’t it be more delightful to find something unexpected instead? To step into a striped tent and find a maze of clouds or a garden of ice? To watch acrobats with tuxedos but no safety nets? Or perhaps a kindle of trained kittens turning somersaults in mid-air and jumping through hoops?

That’s the flavor I wanted to create with The Night Circus, a flavor that appears to be one thing but tastes like something new and different and distinct. Not bright and bombastic, but elegant and dreamlike. Le Cirque des Rêves isn’t even a proper circus. It only wears some of the trappings of a circus, with the color stripped away to give it proper evening attire. There is popcorn, of course, but there are also delicate blown-sugar flowers and mischiefs of mice crafted in chocolate.

No clowns to be found in this particular circus. Clowns rarely make for pleasant surprises. Instead there are living statues clad in love letters or covered in snow. A tattooed contortionist who folds herself into a disturbingly small glass box, though if there is a trick involved in such a feat, she will not reveal it.

There is much more, but I shall leave it to you, the reader, to discover what other wonders await you when you enter The Night Circus.

Guest Reviewer: Aimee Bender on "Lamb" by Bonnie Nadzam

Aimee Bender, the author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, reviews Lamb, by Bonnie Nadzam.

Bonnie Nadzam’s debut, Lamb, satisfies a reader on so many levels. For one, it reads like a thriller, and there’s a tense and compelling drive to the prose that turns the pages. What will happen to this older man and this girl on the cusp of adolescence as they head into the American West? How unsettled will I be? But then there’s no easy answer or moment to make it into an easy-to-dismiss kind of thriller--Nadzam makes sure to keep all the novel’s territory in a delicate, complex and unsettling moral territory. I found myself wanting to have easier answers than were offered to me, and I truly appreciated being thwarted so expertly in this way.

And Nadzam’s prose is just gorgeous--she writes about people and skies and mountains and landscapes with incredible precision and appreciation of beauty. A reader can swim in these sentences and soak up the landscape via the prose with great pleasure. Nadzam’s operating on these three levels and excelling over and over in all three--her language is fine-tuned, she’s keenly aware of plot and tension, and most of all, she refuses to compromise in terms of letting us, the readers, off the hook morally.  

This is a remarkable debut, by a writer to watch. Both Tommy and Lamb are characters who linger with the reader, and I found myself caring deeply for Tommy, whose eagerness and vulnerability soar off the page.   What helps us grow and stretches us? What goes too far? Who are our teachers and who hurts us? Can a person be both, and how?  What are the stories we tell ourselves?  All these kinds of questions hover in the air long after the last page turns.

Q&A with Theresa Weir, author of "The Orchard"

Theresa Weir is a USA Today best selling author of nineteen novels that have spanned the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, and paranormal. She spent twenty years living on a working apple farm.

Amazon.com: How did The Orchard come about?

Theresa Weir: Back in 1975 I was a young, naïve hippie. At age 21, I met and married an apple farmer with this idealized notion of getting back to nature and the land. I imagined myself barefoot with a baby on my hip, raising crops and canning all of my own fruits and vegetables. But farm life was nothing like I’d expected, and I spent the next twenty years swimming in pesticides. I was horrified by what I saw going on around me, but helpless to do anything about it.  Years later I would write The Orchard.

Amazon.com: Some have called The Orchard a modern Silent Spring. Did The Rachel Carson book have any impact on you?

Theresa Weir: While living on the farm, I attended a county fair where the local library was selling three hardcovers for 25 cents. I came home with a first printing of Silent Spring, and 2012 will mark its 50th anniversary.  I still have that copy of Silent Spring. It gave me hope that one day I’d be able to tell my own story.

Amazon.com: The Orchard opens with an incredible story. Care to expand on that?

Theresa Weir: The Orchard opens with a story I used to hear when I worked at my uncle’s bar in Illinois.
Back in the seventies, herbicide salesmen traveled to the Midwest and would put on these free feeds. Farmers would get a free lunch, listen to a sales pitch, and hopefully put in an order for chemicals for the upcoming season. At that time, one particular company encouraged their salesmen to drink the herbicide in order to demonstrate its safety. The salesmen would pour it in a clear glass and drink it. That was the kind of blind acceptance of farm chemicals that I witnessed while living on the farm, and that blind acceptance of farm chemicals still goes on today.

Amazon.com: The Orchard has an underlying environmental message. Did you set out to write an environmental book?

Theresa Weir: I suppose that was the number one purpose behind the writing of The Orchard, but at the same time I absolutely knew I didn’t want to write a dry book about the environment. I felt the best way to get a message across was to simply tell my story.

Amazon.com: You’ve written fiction for twenty-five years. How did that play into your writing of The Orchard?

Theresa Weir: That was a big concern. I wasn’t sure I could write a memoir. I knew nothing about writing nonfiction. But I leaned heavily on what I did know how to do, which was tell a story. The fundamentals of good writing are the same no matter what you’re writing, fiction or nonfiction. The big difference is that with fiction you start with a seed and build out; with nonfiction you start with a massive amount of information and keep chipping away until you hopefully have a story that makes sense.

Author Spotlight: Joe McGinniss on "The Rogue"

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. 

Or at least into the maelstrom.

My twelfth book, The Rogue:  Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, is now out from Crown.

Not for the first time, I’m expecting the publication process to be eventful.

Actually, “eventful,” is a euphemism.   What I’m expecting are vitriolic attacks from Palin supporters on my character, ethics, reporting and writing skills, wardrobe, haircut, and even the brand of dog food I feed my twelve-year old Norwegian elkhound. 

For some reason, my books seem to generate controversy.  It started with my first, The Selling of The President 1968, continued through my 1980 book about Alaska, Going to Extremes, intensified with Fatal Vision, reached tragicomic proportions with The Last Brother, my book about the mythic arc of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s career in the 1960’s (as I recall, both Russell Baker and Art Buchwald published attacks on me the same day), and took on international proportions when criminal charges were filed against me in Italy because of The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.

This pattern—and when a phenomenon has continued for more than forty years, it’s hard not to call it a pattern--has occasionally caused me to ask myself:  “What is it with you, McGinniss?   Why do you keep writing books that you know will make people angry?”

My therapist has suggested that I have a higher than average need for invigoration, and that taking risks in my professional life provides it. I’ve learned not to argue with my therapist (she’s always right), but I’d like to offer an alternative theory:  when I set out to write a book, I do so not knowing what the story will turn out to be.

I didn’t know whether Richard Nixon would win or lose the 1968 presidential election.  I didn’t know what I’d find in Alaska when I traveled there for the first time in 1975.   I didn’t know whether Jeffrey MacDonald was innocent or guilty of the murders of his pregnant wife and two little girls.  I didn’t know how I’d wind up feeling about Teddy Kennedy and the carefully constructed Kennedy myth.   I had no idea what would happen over the next nine months when I arrived in Italy, speaking not a word of Italian, in late summer of 1996.

Nor did I know how Sarah Palin would react to my moving in next door to her last summer.

My books are shaped by events that haven’t occurred when I start my work.   Nothing is predictable, thus everything is volatile.  I’ve never started a book with my mind already made up about my subject.

As Flannery O’Connor once said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

Often what I say is not what my subject was hoping to hear.

Thus, the sound and fury that often accompanies the publication of a new Joe McGinniss book. 

I don’t expect it to be any different with The Rogue.

But as Samuel Johnson once said, “I would rather be attacked than unnoticed.”

So buckle up tight and take a ride on The Rogue roller coaster with me.

--Joe McGinniss

Jacqueline Novogratz Reviews Seth Godin's "We Are All Weird"

Jacqueline Novogratz is founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture capital fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Acumen Fund has invested over $50 million of patient capital in 50 businesses that have impacted more than 40 million people in the past year alone. Any money returned to Acumen Fund is reinvested in enterprises serving the poor. Read her guest review of Seth Godin's We Are All Weird:

Seth Godin's latest book We Are All Weird is a song of freedom, an exuberant manifesto with the richness of choice that comes with wealth, the markets, the internet, our increasing connection with one another across the globe. He argues that the era of mass marketing is over (thankfully) and that as humans we seek not just to consume but to "connect," and therefore we find those who love what we love and, when it works best, create or join "tribes." We are allowed, indeed, encouraged to be individuals, to specialize rather than fit in or be "normal" and this is where richness begins. As Seth says, "Stuff is not the point." Connection, choice, pursuing what we love is.