Kindle Daily Post

The 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Yesterday, the 2012 Pulitzer prizewinners and nominated finalists were announced. Since 1917, the awards have honored the top journalists, photojournalists, writers, poets, cartoonists and composers working in the United States. Here's how this year's awards were distributed:

 

LETTERS, DRAMA and MUSIC

Fiction – No award. As pointed out by our friends at Omnivoracious, maybe we should consider it a tie. Last year's winner was Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. This year's three-way-tie finalists were Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.

Drama - Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes

History - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by the late Manning Marable

Biography - George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

Poetry - Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

General Nonfiction - The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Music - Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts by Kevin Puts

 

JOURNALISM

Public Service - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Breaking News Reporting - The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News Staff

Investigative Reporting - Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of the Associated Press and Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times

Explanatory Reporting - David Kocieniewski of The New York Times

Local Reporting - Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff, Harrisburg, Penn

National Reporting - David Wood of The Huffington Post. First published as a 10-part series, Wood's 2012 Pulitzer Prize stories documenting the struggles of severely wounded veterans are available in Beyond the Battlefield: The War Goes on for the Severely Wounded, which includes photography and graphics from the original series as well as a forward and several new chapters.

International Reporting - Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times

Feature Writing - Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly

Commentary - Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Criticism -Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe

Editorial Writing - No award

Editorial Cartooning - Matt Wuerker of POLITICO

Breaking News Photography - Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse

Feature Photography - Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post

March's Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less

It's time to celebrate the change of seasons with a fresh list of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less. Here are some of our favorites from this month's selection:

 

Under the March Sun: The Story of Spring Training by Charles Fountain, $1.99

Spring training, baseball's annual six-week ritual, dates back nearly 150 years. In this fascinating history, the full history of spring training is revealed for the first time: from its start as a shoestring-budget road trip to burn off winter calories to today's billion-dollar-a-year business surrounding the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues of Florida and Arizona.

 

A Little Death In Dixie by Lisa Turner, $2.99

Rich with the atmosphere of the American South, this expertly plotted suspense novel tracks Detective Billy Able as he works to uncover why one of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. What starts as ordinary procedural work for Able soon morphs into a twisted trail of corruption, tragedy, and disturbing truths.

 

The Crossroads Café by Deborah Smith, $1.99

This sophisticated and poignant romance follows a beautiful Hollywood actress's escape to a secluded mountain cabin in North Carolina. A car accident has left her severely scarred, but in the Appalachians she finds unexpected love with a man who lost his family in 9-11.

 

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, $2.24

Written with refreshing irreverence, Ramit Sethi's six-week personal finance program takes a practical approach with a nonjudgmental style. The book's core centers around the four pillars of personal finance—banking, saving, budgeting, and investing—as well as the wealth-building ideas of entrepreneurship.

 

Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls) by C. C. Hunter, $2.99

After mixing with the wrong crowd, Kylie Galen gets sent to Shadow Falls camp by her mother. Kylie discovers her fellow campers aren't just "troubled," they're supernatural. The first book of this richly imagined young-adult fantasy series is filled with humor, teen angst, and a good dose of romance.

 

Be sure to browse through March's complete list of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less. We've taken care to select something for everybody, including taut thrillers, engaging romances, inspiring biographies, well-crafted cookbooks, and histories covering everything from Abraham Lincoln to the legendary punk band Black Flag.

 

Note: Deals expire on the last day of each month. Individual books may have additional territory restrictions, and not all deals are available in all territories.

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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Introducing Kindle Singles--Compelling Ideas Expressed at their Natural Length

Selected for being incisive, provocative, hilarious, or heartbreaking, Kindle Singles offer a vast spectrum of reporting, essay, memoir, humor and fiction--at a length best suited to the ideas they present. Typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words, each Kindle Single is intended to allow a single killer idea--well researched, well argued and well illustrated--to be expressed at its natural length.  Today, Amazon is introducing the first set of Singles to the Kindle Store.

Nowhere else will you find a Hollywood memoir which manages to merge sex clubs, murder and Mary Tyler Moore. You’ll also discover The Real Lebowski--an intimate profile of the Hollywood icon and Coen brothers inspiration by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Rich Cohen; The Invisible Enemy--on-the-ground reporting from inside the terrorist war in Congo by the award-winning novelist, Jonathan Littell; Lifted, Wired and New Yorker writer Evan Ratliff’s riveting yarn of a failed Swedish bank heist; and Leaving Home--Short Pieces an original offering by best-selling novelist, Jodi Picoult.

Bruce Springsteen's Promise: Two Free Essays on Kindle

Bruce Springsteen has made two free essays available for Kindle. Entitled "Thoughts on The Promise and Darkness on the Edge of Town," the essays reflect on a time of particularly prolific songwriting in the long and storied career of this American rock legend.

The first, excerpted from his 1998 book Songs, discusses the changing influences--country music, American film noir--that guided the composition of 1978's seminal Darkness on the Edge of Town. "The possibility of transcendence or any sort of personal redemption felt a lot harder to come by [after Born to Run]," Springsteen writes. "I intentionally steered away from any hint of escapism and set my characters down in the middle of a community under siege."

However, Springsteen fans have special cause for celebration with the second essay. In the run-up to the November 16 release of The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story--an album's worth of previously unreleased tracks from the Darkness sessions--Springsteen looks back on the punk culture and heady ambition that fueled this "tough music for folks in tough circumstances."

“Darkness was my 'samurai' record, stripped to the frame and ready to rumble," he writes. "I culled my music to the toughest collection of songs I had, songs that still form the philosophical core of what we do today, [but] a lot of sweet and important magic was momentarily lost, so to everything there is a season." As an introduction to The Promise's long-lost songs--"some of my old friends," he calls them--the latter essay offers an intimate glimpse into what is arguably the period of Springsteen's most inspired compositions.

The two essays are available now through November 15, exclusively on Kindle. Visit amazon.com/BruceSpringsteen for photos, video, and music from Bruce Springsteen.

   --Jason Kirk