Kindle Daily Post

UNO Comes to Kindle E-Readers

For more than 40 years the family card-game UNO has captivated friends and family members around the world with its fast and fun action, rule variations, and portability. It's an undisputed classic game for all ages that never grows old and consistently inspires big smiles and bursts of raucous laughter.

Now, UNO has been faithfully reproduced for play on Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle DX, and second generation Kindle devices.

Instead of the game's traditional card colors of red, blue, yellow, and green, UNO for Kindle features four easy-to-see patterns customized exclusively for the Kindle e-ink displays. In addition to the four different patterns, UNO for Kindle cards are numbered from 0 to 9, just like in the original card version of the game.

For the uninitiated, play begins when you place a card from your hand into the discard pile to match either the color or the number laid down on the pile by the previous player. The first person to get rid of all their cards is the winner.

A selection of special cards keeps the game play fresh and adds an element of surprise; whenever a Wild, Reverse, Skip, Draw Two, or the dreaded Draw Four Wild card is laid down, fortunes quickly turn! Just as someone thinks they're about to win the game, the momentum can suddenly swing against them. Another hallmark rule twist is the need to call out "Uno!" when you're down to one card. If not, you'll be forced to draw two cards.

UNO for Kindle lets you pick up and play a round right from your Kindle's main menu with the choice of either "Quick Play" or "Tournament Mode." Once selected, UNO for Kindle gives you the choice of nine different varieties of the game, including 7-0 (if a zero card is played, all players give their cards to the next player) and Jump-in (if you have a card with the same number and pattern in your hand as on the discard pile, you can play it at any time).

With smooth game play, sharp graphics, easy-to-learn rules, and loads of in-game achievements, playing UNO for Kindle continues the game's tradition of fast fun for everyone.

Guest Blogger Heather Poole Shatters Five Flight Attendant Myths

Guest post by Heather Poole, author of Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet

In her more than 15 years as an airline flight attendant, Heather Poole has seen it all. Here, she dispels the top five misconceptions about her profession:

1. A college degree is not required to become a flight attendant. But there are very few flight attendants who do not possess one. Being a flight attendant is considered a profession, not just a job. When Delta announced 1,000 openings in 2010, the airline received 100,000 applications. Only the most qualified are hired: being able to speak a second language helps, and so does having customer service experience.

2. Flight attendants are paid well. No one becomes a flight attendant for the money. The average salary for a first year flight attendant ranges between $14,000 and $18,000. Each year we get a standard raise across the board. Major carriers tap out around 13 years. This is one of many reasons why seniority at an airline is so important.

  3. Flight attendants barely work. Eighty five hours a month might sound pretty great, but those hours are flight hours only. Time during boarding spent cramming bags into bins and helping displaced families get seats together never shows up in our paychecks. The clock doesn’t start ticking until the plane backs away from the gate.

  4. Flight attendants love to date pilots. One flight attendant wrote down a few tips on the back of a beverage napkin for me: 1. Don’t do it. 2. Don’t do it. 3. Don’t do it. 4. If you do mess up and do it, don’t do it again. It’s only fair to mention I’m pretty sure there are plenty of pilots who feel the same way.

 5. Flight attendants party on layovers. Most domestic layovers average 10 hours. Add a delay into the mix and it’s nine hours. By the time we check-in to the hotel, it’s now an eight and a half hour layover. Keep in mind I need an hour and a half to get dressed and get back to the airport in the morning, which totals to seven hours of sleep if I can fall asleep the second I walk into my room. Sometimes there’s not enough time to eat, sleep and shower.

May's Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less

From great literature to inspiring cookbooks, May's selection of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less has something for everybody. Here are a few of our favorites:

 

Literature & Fiction

Curses! by J.A. Kazimer, $3.99

This hilarious and witty romp through the twisted fairy-tale world of New Never City follows "ugly stepsister" princess Asia as she tries to figure out who killed her sister, Cinderella. Asia enlists the help of the villainous R.J., a.k.a. Rumplestiltskin, who's suffering from a curse to only do good deeds.

 

Mystery & Thrillers

Kaleidoscope by Darryl Wimberley, $1.99

Jack Romaine's addiction to speakeasies and cards turns him into an unwilling recruit for a Cincinnati gangster wanting to recover his stolen cash and railroad bonds. The trail leads south to Kaleidoscope, a "beddy" for freaks when carnival season over. Unfortunately, Jack's competition is a sadistic killer.

 

Biographies & Memoirs

As Seen On TV by Lucy Grealy, $2.99

Whether she's discussing promiscuity, The New Testament, or learning to tango, Lucy Grealy's writing seduces and surprises at every turn. Wit, unflinching honesty, and peerless intelligence are the hallmarks of this essay collection.

 

History

Holy Wars: 3000 Years of Battles in the Holy Land by Gary L. Rashba, $3.99 

Today's Arab-Israeli conflict is merely the latest iteration of violence in the Holy Land. Gary L. Rashba sheds light on this unending history of conflict by focusing on pivotal battles to describe the region's 3,000 years of war, from the Israelites' capture of Jericho to Israel’s assault against Lebanon.

 

Kids & Teens

What Color Is My World? by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, $3.99

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar champions a lineup of little-known African-American inventors in this lively, kid-friendly book. Filled with engaging profiles, Abdul-Jabbar gives a nod to the inventors whose perseverance made our world safer, better, and brighter.

 

More Great Deals

Fast, Fresh, and Green by Susie Middleton, $3.99

This go-to reference for all things vegetable holds more than 100 recipes for appetizers, snacks, entrees, and side dishes. Perfect for vegetarians, vegans, and omnivores alike, the book also features a veggie shopping guide.

 

Be sure to browse May's entire selection of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less to discover great fiction and nonfiction titles catering to all ages.

 

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.

Top 10 Kindle Books for March

From Theodore Roosevelt's quest to clean up sin-soaked New York City to the travails of a Tokyo pickpocket, our editors' selections for the Best Books of March features engaging nonfiction, imaginative new novels, and a moving short story collection.

 

The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits
A paranormal detective story, an affecting exposition of familial and female dynamics, and a hilarious satire of academic politics: Heidi Julavits has crafted an ambitious and strange novel.

 

 

Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up ... New York by Richard Zacks
Overrun with gambling and bootleg liquor, NYC was known as the "Island of Vice." Zacks's fun, enthusiastic style makes this well-researched history memorable.

 

 

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Looping from Nazi-occupied Europe to modern-day Baltimore and back, Esi Edugyan's Giller Prize winner is an electrifying, musical novel about racism and what we're willing to surrender for love and art.

 

 

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Betrayal, ardor, war, and prophecies... Author Madeline Miller gathers to love about Homer's "Iliad" without the labor of epic poetry, resulting in an absorbing, gratifyingly modern story.

 

 

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura
Nakamura's protagonist weaves through the streets of Tokyo, pickpocketing his way through the flow of humanity, but the thief begins to realize a noose is being drawn around his neck.

 

 

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
Combining cutting-edge neurological research with the age-old mystery of how and when inspiration strikes, Jonah Lehrer crafts a fun and engaging study of creativity.

 

 

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
At 26, following the death of her mother, divorce, and a run of reckless behavior, Cheryl Strayed found herself embarking on a solo thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. It's a well-balanced wilderness tale and personal-redemption memoir.

 

 

The Reconstructionist by Nick Arvin
Ellis Barstow, whose brother died young in a car crash, makes a living conducting auto accident postmortems. In love with his boss's wife, Ellis' brother's high school girlfriend, Ellis seeks answers to his brother's death.

 

 

White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
Over the last hundred years, bread has gone from cure-all to fluff, and every place in between: this is table-bread's true story.

 

 

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
This collection of stories constructs a world filled with nature and family who hate and love and mostly need one another, each satisfying in a way short fiction rarely does.

February’s Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less

 

For the shortest month of the year we’ve put together a great list of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less.

Here are some of our favorites we want you to know about:

Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains by Jon Krakauer, $3.99
No matter what the actual temperature may be, several pages into this collection of stories examining the climbing subculture you will begin to shiver. The various heroes, risk-takers, incompetents, and individualists captured here are more than colorful as Krakauer explores the addiction of risk and intense effort.

The Sweetest Thing by Barbara Freethy, $1.99
Freethy’s charming writing style and expert plotting perfectly explore what happens when matters of the heart become complicated for entrepreneur Alex Carrigan after he invites his eccentric grandfather and precocious 12-year-old daughter into his home and a beautiful redhead into his love life.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut, $2.99
An influential classic of satire and dark humor by one of the best, Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome.

The Good Neighbor Cookbook: 125 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Surprise and Satisfy the New Moms, New Neighbors, and more by Suzanne Schlosberg, $2.99
Forget about the same old boring pasta salad or tuna casserole when you need to bring dinner to exhausted new parents, care for a friend recovering from surgery, or contribute to a business breakfast. Schlosberg and her coauthor Sara Quessenberry uniquely divide this excellent cookbook by occasion rather than food category.

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming, $2.99
Fleming’s page-turning debut follows the trials of Virginian Clare Ferguson, who has left her tough past as an army helicopter pilot to become an ordained priest in upstate New York. Things become chilling after a baby is left on her doorstep and a community-shattering murder investigation follows.

 

Be sure to visit our complete list of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less and browse through the other 95 gems we’ve chosen for February; from adventure anthology to science fiction, this month’s selection has something for all reading tastes and moods.

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.

Editors' Picks: December's Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less

We've chosen a new set of 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less this month, and we're excited to share a few of our favorites with you.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, $3.99
Not a character is untouched by delightful eccentricity in this charming story, full of surprises and wisdom.

The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker, $1.99
This debut novel follows the adventures of 14-year-old Princess Emeralda and the talking frog she meets one day in a swamp.

Restless by William Boyd, $2.99
Boyd's ninth novel is an absorbing historical thriller loosely based on the history of a covert branch of British intelligence created to coax America into the Second World War.

Out of My Later Years by Albert Einstein, $2.69
Einstein’s essays share his philosophical beliefs, scientific reasoning, and hopes for a brighter future, and show how one of the greatest minds of all time fully engaged with the changing world around him.

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller, $2.99
One of our Best Books of 2010 in the category of "Outdoors & Nature," this book is a beautifully written and highly personal view into one man's adventure and what it means to make a lifelong vision come true.

See the whole list of this month's deals at www.amazon.com/kindlemonthlydeals, and have a great weekend reading.

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.

Q&A with Lauren Shockey, author of "Four Kitchens"

At the French Culinary Institute, Lauren Shockey learned to salt food properly, cook fearlessly over high heat, and knock back beers like a pro. But she also discovered that her real culinary education wouldn't begin until she actually worked in a restaurant. After a somewhat disappointing apprenticeship in the French provinces, Shockey hatched a plan for her dream year: to apprentice in four high-end restaurants around the world.

Amazon.com: Four Kitchens recounts the year you spent working in four different restaurants around the world.  How did you choose these restaurants?

Lauren Shockey: I’d been interested for a while in molecular gastronomy, and wd~50 is by far the most prominent place in New York serving this cuisine.  I knew my next locale would have to be Vietnam since I’ve always loved its food.  Several people suggested I contact Didier Corlou at La Verticale, who really represents the face of top-notch Vietnamese cuisine, even though he’s French-born.  In Israel, I wanted to be in Tel Aviv because its food is considered to be more progressive than that of the other cities, and Carmella Bistro typified this. And finally in Paris, I reached out to all the two- and three-starred Michelin restaurants, and Senderens was the first one that accepted me, so the decision was easy.     

Amazon.com: What should someone know before going to work in a professional kitchen?

Lauren Shockey: How to take direction. Do exactly what is being asked of you as quietly and efficiently as possible. And have a good attitude!  You work as a team, and you want your teammates to want to help you out if you end up “in the weeds,” which is kitchen-speak for “royally screwed.”

Amazon.com: What are some tips or skills you learned in professional kitchens that you can use in the home kitchen?

Lauren Shockey: In the professional kitchen, everything has to be done ahead of time. When you begin service at a restaurant, you can’t stop for ten minutes to finish cutting string beans. Even at home, you’ll save time in the long run if you have all of your mise en place (prep work) finished before you start cooking. 

Amazon.com: You created many recipes for the book.  Which is your favorite?

Lauren Shockey: All the recipes are more than just instructions for dishes—they’re taste memories that reflect a particular moment of my travels.  But the sweet potato soup with feta and zaatar oil and the red-wine braised brisket are special because these dishes made me realize I could cook a whole feast without a single recipe.

Guest Blogger: Bruce Feiler, author of "Generation Freedom"

Generation Freedom is being published on the third anniversary of my being diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer in my left femur.  For the previous ten years, I had traveled around the Middle East; climbing Mount Ararat, Mount Sinai, and Mount Nebo; riding camels, hiking deserts, squeezing into old tombs.  Because this activity was for a series of books and television shows on the theme of “Walking the Bible,” I had become known as the “walking guy.”

Now I was facing the prospect that I might never walk again.

Over the next year, I faced an arduous medical journey that involved nine months of chemotherapy and a 15-hour surgery to replace my left femur with titanium; relocate my left fibula to my thigh; and remove a third of my quadricep.  (This journey, along with the life lessons I gathered from the six men I asked to form a support group for my daughters, is chronicled in my book, The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me.)

In February 2011 I had my regular follow-up scans to see if my cancer had returned.  It had not.  We marked the milestone.  That same week, an enormous political milestone was reached in Egypt: Hosni Mubarak stepped down following 18 days of unprecedented--and unimaginable--popular revolt.

These two events were completely unrelated, of course.  But for me, their confluence was profound.  For a year during the height of my treatment, I had not left my bed.  For a year and a half, I was on crutches.  For another nine months I used a cane.  Now I was walking again, and in that instant when the Middle East seemed to awaken from decades of decay and embrace the possibility of a new, more hopeful future, I had the undeniable urge to go back and walk there again.  What was happening on the ground?  What did these changes mean for us?  Was this hope well-founded, or was it a mirage? 

And so, for the first time in three years I dug through my desk-top drawer for my passport, I pulled my dusty knapsack out from under my bed, I climbed a ladder into the upper reaches of my closet to bring down my walking shoes, and I headed back to the lands where time began.  Generation Freedom is the story of what happened next.

--Bruce Feiler

$2.99 for a Limited Time: Kuperard - Culture Smart! eBooks

You’ve planned a trip abroad. You’ve packed your bags and checked them twice, but you still feel like you’re forgetting something. Don’t leave home without Kuperard – Culture Smart! Now through July 8^th, 2011, all books in the series are available for $2.99. Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior – insuring that you’ll learn cultural customs, not tourist traps. If you’re attending a business dinner in Beijing, read China – Culture Smart! and you’ll know to offer a gift only after the meal has finished. When taking in the sights on a busy street in Tokyo, read Japan – Culture Smart! to learn why eye contact with other pedestrians should be kept to a minimum. Or read India – Culture Smart! for the proper etiquette when entering a home in Mumbai. (Hint: remove your shoes.) Travel guides are not enough. Travel smart this summer with Kuperard – Culture Smart!

Oliver Broudy's "The Saint": A Single Is Born

In early February, a young New York-based magazine writer named Oliver Broudy sent me a two-year-old, 28,000-word manuscript that eventually became The Saint--a wild narrative ride across two continents by a reporter in search of answers to some deep existential questions.

As thrilled as I was to snag it for Kindle Singles, it made me wonder: how was it possible that an experienced, successful journalist--Broudy was a National Magazine Award finalist--had such an epic, extraordinary piece just laying around the apartment, unpublished and unread?

Broudy tells me that it began with a tip in early 2009 about James Otis, a collector of Gandhi memorabilia who had come to New York to put a few items up for auction. Broudy tried to interest The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” in a short, quick version of the story, but got turned down. 

"Otis was going back to India afterwards, and I just felt a moral imperative to go with him and follow the tale,” Broudy explained. The result: a compelling disquisition on disillusionment, disappointment and the choices we make, couched in the twists and turns of Otis’s life.

"I came back and just wrote it--the whole story--without an assignment,” Broudy recalls. “And when I realized I’d written 28,000 words, I knew no magazine in America would print it.”

Broudy then tried to re-fashion his reporting into a book proposal. Some publishers passed, and others pushed him to expand his vision to multiple characters.  No one wanted The Saint as written.

“At that point,” Broudy said, “I’d sort of resigned myself to the possibility that it would never see the light of day.”  

Fortunately, Broudy was wrong. 

We’ve published almost 40 Kindle Singles in the last two months--all of them aspiring to shine light on stories worth telling, and on topics of importance. But none has given me greater personal pleasure than to give The Saint a means to find its proper audience, at last, among lovers of sweeping narratives told with eloquence and grace. 

     --David Blum