If you already own a Kindle, Amazon is not the only place where you can get ebooks for your electronic Kindle reader. There are tons of places out there, many are for free, and here is a short list of the best ones:
www.gutenberg.org Mostly classic ebooks or ebooks that no longer have copywrite
My parents want to buy me the Amazon Kindle 2. But is it good? I am only about 13 years old and there aren’t too many kids books out on there as far as I can tell. If you own the K2 could you please show me a list of books on the K2 or something? I like mystery/fantasy stuff. *Hint*Hint*
Michiko Kakutani on Thomas Pynchon'sInherent Vice: "Though 'Inherent Vice' is a much more cohesive performance than the
author’s last novel, the bloated and pretentious 'Against the Day,' it
feels more like a Classic Comics version of a Pynchon novel than like
the thing itself. It reduces the byzantine complexities of 'Gravity’s
Rainbow' and 'V.' — and their juxtapositions of nihilism and
conspiracymongering, Dionysian chaos and Apollonian reason, anarchic
freedom and the machinery of power — to a cartoonish face-off between
an amiable pothead, whose 'general policy was to try to be groovy about
most everything,' and a bent law-enforcement system."
Larry Rohter on The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez: "'The Informers'" is a straight-ahead,
old-fashioned narrative, though not necessarily linear. Mr. Vásquez
moves back and forth between the 1980s and '90s and the 1930s and '40s,
but shows restraint, addressing history rather than myth. He avoids
unnecessary pyrotechnics, perhaps out of respect for the gravity of his
subject. If anything, he would seem to owe a debt to Joseph Conrad."
Lawrence Downes on Imperial by William T. Vollmann: "It’s not that Vollmann ultimately fails to get his point across. A
reader can’t spend that much time with him without absorbing the bigger
picture–how the failed Imperial idea is the failed American idea:
that water will flow anywhere we tell it to; that we can make the
desert forever fruitful; that the West will inevitably become an Eden
of family homesteads abounding with fruits, vegetables, grains and
democratic self-reliance, rather than a corporate nightmare of worker
exploitation, environmental havoc and unchecked sprawl. But 'upon
Imperial’s blankness,' Vollmann writes, 'which might as well be a light
table, it becomes all too easy to project myself, which is a way of
discovering nothing.'"
Patrick Anderson on Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan: "We keep thinking we've spotted
the killer, and we keep being wrong. If I say that the novel is as well
plotted as Agatha Christie at her best, I don't mean to make it sound
old-fashioned; it's not. Even more than Christie, this novel reminded
me of Patricia Highsmith. It's witty, sophisticated, suspenseful and endless fun — a novel to be
savored by people who know and love good crime fiction."
Jonathan Yardley on The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez: "Nothing works out quite the way anyone expects, which is just one of
the many strengths of this remarkable novel. It deals with big
universal themes — betrayal, the war between fathers and sons,
cowardice and valor — and big particular ones: the mix of peoples and
histories that is Latin America, the painful political and social
history under which Colombia suffers, the poison that Nazism spread
throughout the world."
LA Times:
Heller McAlpin on That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo: "It boasts a tight single-year timeline, photogenic locations, lots of
physical comedy and snappy dialogue. But readers looking for the warmth
and complexity of that old Russo magic may prefer his harder-hitting,
small-town novels."
Tim Rutten on American Adulterer by Jed Mercurio: "Mercurio has an obvious facility for constructing an accessible fiction
of ideas and reflection. In this novel, though, the ideas are both arduously convoluted and essentially banal, and the reflection seldom
raises its head above the muck of prurience. The result is a book that,
ultimately, fails on its own terms."
Brent P. Newhall demonstrates the new Kindle DX. This is particularly aimed at folks who want to see Kindle’s E Ink screen in action, and how long is required to load pages. I demonstrate a regular Kindle book, a native PDF, and a web browser page. I also show all three in landscape as well as portrait mode.
K2 rises 28,251 above sea level in the Karakoram range of Pakistan, second only to Everest as highest peak on the planet. But while the conquests and disasters of Everest have produced countless bestselling volumes, K2's relatively modest mountaineering history has remained in its immense shadow. K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs (with David Roberts) closes that gap considerably, with generous amounts of alpine crack for mountaineering junkies, armchair and otherwise. Across 18 years and 30 expeditions, Ed Viesturs reached the summits of all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without the aid of supplemental oxygen, becoming just the sixth human (and first American) to accomplish the feat. K2 recounts a handful of attempts, all remarkable for elements of disaster or lasting fallout, and casts actions and decisions–both life-saving and fatal–in the light of Viesturs's own rigorous safety ethic. Just three four of the memorable accounts:
The 2008 disaster that resulted in 11 deaths when a huge serac (ice block) fractured, triggering avalanches and scouring the climbers' path
The 1953 American expedition marked by tragedy and the "miracle belay":
Pete Schoening's single-handed arrest that prevented all eight
expedition climbers from scudding off cliffs to certain death.
Absolutely thrilling.
The 1954 Italian "success" that spawned decades of bitterness and accusations of deadly Machiavellian intrigue
Viesturs's own ascent with Scott Fischer and Charley Mace, where he
cemented his safety-first philosophy: "Getting to the top is
optional, getting down is mandatory." This is a different account from No Shortcuts to the Top, drawn from his expedition diaries and unusually frank in its assessments.
For fans ofInto Thin Air, adventure and mountaineering tales, and exhilarating awesomeness. Like the Krakauer book, K2 provides an excellent launching point for more first-hand accounts and deeper research.
–Jon
P.S. Nissley and I had the privilege of traveling to Mr. Viesturs's house last week to spend a little time talking about the forthcoming book, and once I've been reasonably edited out, we'll post that video here. Will he reveal the secrets of the Yeti? Check back.
