FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[sufue]

This weekend, Joffe's third Free Friday book is a Spanish 1800s royal history, Royal Vendetta, by Theo Aronson. I haven't read anything by Aronson, but he seems to have made a career of writing royal histories. And it's got four-stars on Goodreads, which is pretty good.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08M6CSD29
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08M6CSD29

Spoiler:

1833. Spain is gripped by a Civil War that will change everything.

On one side the Carlists sought to return to an absolute monarchy under Carlos de Borbón, on the other the Liberals were fighting to defend constitutional monarchy under Isabella II.

Both branches of the family abounded in colourful characters - the shrewd Maria Cristina, the masculine Infanta Carlota, the effete King Francisco, the suave Duke de Montpensier, the showy Carlos VII, and the licentious Alfonso XII.

The drama unfolded across the world - in the court in the Palacio Real in Madrid, Don Juan dying incognito in a house in Brighton, Isabel living out her voluptuous days in Paris, Carlos VII scheming in his palazzo on the Grand Canal, the future Alfonso XII at Sandhurst, the Infanta Eulalia in Chicago, the son of Alfonso XIII dying in a car accident in the U.S.A.

Royal Vendetta is a story of wars, revolutions, exiles and restorations; a parade of kings, queens, regents and pretenders.

[sufue]

My husband read Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, back around the time it came out and really liked it. It's on sale now in the US for $2.99.

Kindle US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/blind-man-s-bluff-14
Kobo US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089EMLGK

Spoiler:

The secret history of America's submarine warfare is revealed for the first time in this "vividly told, impressively documented," (The New York Times) and fast-paced chronicle of adventure and intrigue during the Cold War.

For decades, only a select and powerful few knew the truth about the submarines that silently roamed the ocean in danger and in stealth, seeking information and advantage. Based on six years of groundbreaking investigation into the “silent service,” Blind Man’s Bluff uncovers an epic story of adventure, courage, victory, and disaster beneath the surface. With an unforgettable array of characters from the Cold War to the twenty-first century, Sontag and Drew recount scenes of secrecy from Washington, DC, to the depths of the sea. A magnificent achievement in investigative reporting, Blind Man’s Bluff reads like a spy thriller with one important difference: everything is true.

[Sumanuil]

This month's free University of Chicago Press ebook is Memory: Fragments of a Modern History.

“Impressive. . . . Winter has done an admirable job synthesizing many diverse sources into a tidy cultural history. . . . A compelling demonstration that the science of memory—like all science—is both a product of and an influence on the culture from which it springs” — Bookforum

[salty-horse]

Verso Books is having an ebook sale.
Until 9th August 2024, all ebooks are 80% off.
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blo...ash-ebook-sale

They also have a bunch of free books, like Towers of Ivory and Steel by Maya Wind (Link)

How Israeli universities collaborate in Israeli state violence against Palestinians

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.

As this book shows, Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful expose of Israeli academia’s ongoing and active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Verso Books is having an ebook sale.
Until 9th August 2024, all ebooks are 80% off.
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blo...ash-ebook-sale

I feel like I'm going to get on a government watchlist just for looking at this site!

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I feel like I'm going to get on a government watchlist just for looking at this site!

You should always strive to read what the government doesn't want you to.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

You should always strive to read what the government doesn't want you to.

Ah, but which government?

Also read books fascists burn? Some anyway. Not got time to read them all.

[Cactus Chef]

EDIT: Wrong genre, sorry!

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is $2.99 from the usual vendors.

This is the non-fiction forum.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

This is the non-fiction forum.

Dangers of quick reply, sorry. I tried to select Fiction (everything else) and selected Non-Fiction instead.

[sufue]

Riffing on the “octopus” theme, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery looks pretty interesting. And it is on sale today for $1.99 in the US, as part of today’s Kindle Daily Deal, and matched at Kobo US. Where, although it’s not discountable, it is available for 2400 Kobo Super Points, if you have any of those hanging around.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LD1RZX0
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-soul-of-an-octopus

Originally Posted by sufue

Not just one, but three interesting-looking non-fiction books (interesting looking to me at least ) in today's US Kindle Daily Deal. Just what I need - more books in my TBR pile.

Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate: A Natural History by Roland C. Anderson is $2.99. I've always liked octopuses starting with my days as a volunteer docent at our local aquarium, where the curators would "work" with the octopuses to provide them with little puzzles, like putting their food in rinsed out peanut butter jars, and watching the octopuses figure out how to open the screw tops, and then also learn/remember how to do it faster in the future. And also from watching them while scuba diving.
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D38IZ1C
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00D38IZ1C

{edited other books}

[salty-horse]

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama - Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall is $4 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Interview with the author and Abed Salama on Democracy Now

WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, enmities, and histories over the course of one revealing, heartbreaking day.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall—hailed for his “severe allergy to conventional wisdom” (Time)—offers an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine and a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth.

[Freso]

Following the arrests of hundreds of protesters at Columbia University, students gathered on campuses across the country demanding that their schools stop doing business with Israel.

In solidarity with these students, we're offering free ebooks on Palestine, mass protests, and student rebellions.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/new...h-the-students

• Sai Englert, Michal Schatz and Rosie Warren (ed.): From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine (Open Library)
• Tania Palmieri and Clare Solomon (ed.): Springtime: The New Student Rebellions (Open Library)
• Andrew Hsiao and Audrea Lim (ed.): The Verso Book of Dissent: Revolutionary Words from Three Millennia of Rebellion and Resistance (Open Library)
• Carla Blumenkranz, Keith Gessen, et al (ed.): Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America (Open Library)

This is from April, so not sure for how much longer this is up for grabs, but it seems like no one else has posted it here, and they're still free as of right now.

[bookmarked]

Built to Last by David MacAulay is on sale for $2.99.

It appears to combine his books Castle, Cathedral, and Mosque in one book.

A nomad fashion's a home that’s meant to be built and rebuilt. A family tears down an old house and erects a new one in its place. Even the Eiffel Tower wasn’t meant to be anything more than temporary. As humans, we don’t always build things to endure the test of time. Built to Last brings together the award-winning author and artist David Macaulay’s creative, exacting thinking about buildings and designs that were crafted with a strength of structure and purpose that defy the everyday: Castle, Cathedral, and Mosque. This gorgeous volume includes newly researched information about each building and how it was built. And, for the first time ever, the Caldecott Honor–winning Castle and Cathedral appear in full color—with stunning new drawings that enrich the reader’s understanding of these structures, and capture intriguing new perspectives and details. Just as the buildings themselves were created to last, our interest in the structures themselves, the people who created them, and the purposes for which they were made endures as well. This impeccably researched volume—a necessary addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in architecture—celebrates this spirit of endurance and serves as a reminder that building well and leaving something of consequence behind, whether a building, a design, or an idea, is still of the utmost importance.

Cross-posting to the FREE/BARGAIN - Children's, YA thread, since the book is promoted for young readers.

[sufue]

I've really liked the books I've read in Jason Goodwin's too short Investigator Yashim series, and so I am happy to have his non-fiction Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire pop up in my eReaderIQ as being on sale for $2.99. I've read a couple of histories of Constantinople/Byzantium/Constantinople, which pretty much have to have a lot of Ottoman history, but haven't so far read a book just focusing on the Ottoman Empire itself. And this one got a couple of pretty nice comments from Kirkus and The New York Times Book Review - see the blurb/spoiler.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KF2SN20

Spoiler:

“An elegantly written, thoroughly entertaining work of popular history” examining the Ottoman Empire and its legacy (Kirkus Reviews).

For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile. At its height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched the empire’s aid. In its last three hundred years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay. In this striking evocation of the empire’s power, Jason Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on. In doing so, he also offers a long look back at the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs.

Praise for Lords of the Horizons

“Jason Goodwin’s deftly written and beguiling history of the Ottoman Empire is particularly pertinent today, when the cauldron of ancient hatred once more boils over, but his prose would be welcome at any time.” —The Boston Globe

“A work of dazzling beauty . . . the rare coming together of historical scholarship and curiosity about distant places with luminous writing.” —The New York Times Book Review