FREE/BARGAIN — Christian Interest

[Difflugia]

These have been on sale before, but not this cheap.

The NKJV Study Bible: Full-Color Edition is $2.99. As I mentioned before, the paper version is quite spectacular, but the ebook version is nearly the same as the original NKJV Study Bible, but with some pictures thrown in.
B&N
Kobo
Amazon

NIV First-Century Study Bible: Explore Scripture in Its Jewish and Early Christian Context by Kent Dobson is $2.99.
B&N
Kobo
Amazon

There are actually quite a few study and devotional Bibles on sale right now for $2.99 and $3.99. Here's a link to Christianbook that lists the ebooks on sale that are also Bibles.

[GtrsRGr8]

Rose Publishing is offering a free Bible Translations Comparison eChart for readers of Biblical Archaeology Review. However, the link that I will give you at the end of this message will work whether you subscribe to the magazine or not; in fact, it appears that Rose doesn't care. But I'm not suggesting that you do one thing or the other.

The "eChart" has 15-20 pages of substantive material, so it's definitely more than a "chart," as Rose Publishing calls it. It's more like a booklet.

The only cost to you is a few seconds of your time and surrendering an email address for Rose to use to put you on their mailing list. But that's not all bad; in fact, it's not bad at all in my opinion. For one thing, every few weeks they will send you an offer to download a free echart (they're not the full versions, but they're pretty good nonetheless).

After you submit your request for the Bible Translations Comparison Chart, Rose will send you a link for you to use to download it. It will be in the pdf format.

Curious how much it would cost for the Kindle mobi at Amazon or ePub at Christianbook? Well, they're $3.99 and $3.19, respectively.

As they say on the infomercials, "but wait, there's more!" I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of additional free charts and such offered by Rose when I followed the link that they sent me. These charts seem to be similar, if not the same as, the free charts that they offer every few weeks.

Here's the link to follow to get all of the goodies.

[GtrsRGr8]

William Wilberforce perhaps may be best known for his successful efforts to end the slave trade and slavery itself in the British Empire. I'm putting this post in the "Christian Interest" thread for several reasons, primarily because Wilberforce was a professed Christian, professed Christians like to claim him as one of their own, and the fact that his anti-slavery efforts arose from his religious beliefs.

Title: Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce.
Format: Pdf.
Author(s): John Piper.
Publisher: Crossway Books.
Pages: 76.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): 4.3 (32).
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at Amazon if available there: $5.49 (Kindle mobi).
Book Description (Amazon):
Against great obstacles William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian and a member of Parliament, fought for the abolition of the African slave trade and against slavery itself until they were both illegal in the British Empire.

Many are aware of Wilberforce's role in bringing an end to slavery in Great Britain, but few have taken the time to examine the beliefs and motivations that spurred him on for decades. In this concise volume, John Piper tells the story of how Wilberforce was transformed from an unbelieving, young politician into a radically God-centered Christian, and how his deep spirituality helped to change the moral outlook of a nation.

As world leaders debate over how to deal with a host of social justice and humanitarian crises, a closer look at Wilberforce's life and faith serves as an encouragement and example to all believers.
Comments:
URL: http://document.desiringgod.org/amaz...pdf?1439242070 (direct).

[Conan46]

Here is a link to John Piper's books:
http://www.desiringgod.org/books
Quite a few of them are free and in various ebook formats. The David Brainerd book for instance.

[Difflugia]

Another bundle of Warren Wiersbe's "BE" series of Bible studies is on sale. This one is for nine of Paul's letters and it's $3.96 at Christianbook.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Conan46

Here is a link to John Piper's books:
http://www.desiringgod.org/books
Quite a few of them are free and in various ebook formats. The David Brainerd book for instance.

Piper is quite a prolific writer. Yes, quite a few of them are free at the website that you cited.

It's nice of Piper to provide these gratis. He is probably losing some royalties from people (I may be one of them) that he would have earned from Amazon and other vendors on for-sale versions.

Even though you gave the webpage for the freebies, I may post some them, individually, in the future. One reason is that it is my impression, even if it may be incorrect, that when people are confronted with a whole lot of choices they are overwhelmed by them sometimes and, consequently, don't make any choices.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

Another bundle of Warren Wiersbe's "BE" series of Bible studies is on sale. This one is for nine of Paul's letters and it's $3.96 at Christianbook.

Great find.

For those who are mathematically-challenged (I am one of them, but I do know how to push keys on a calculator. ha), that works out to 44 cents each. These "BE" books are sometimes offered at 99 cents, which I consider to be a really good price. Even though they occasionally appear for free, I sometimes jump on one that I find at the 99-cent price point.

I checked Amazon (I prefer the mobi format over the ePub format) in the hope that they would be the same price as Christianbook, but the bundle there is $6.15. Still a really good price, working out to 68 cents each! However, I am a penny-pincher (someone said that I could squeeze Lincoln off of a penny, I take that as a compliment. ha).

Will Amazon drop their price to match Christianbook's, as they sometimes do? I wish that I knew. I am almost afraid not to go ahead and grab Christianbook's offer, in case the deals were to expire before I acted.

There is one other concern that I have. I am concerned that when I buy a bundle, I will overlook the bundle or forget what is in it, and when an ebook that I already have in a bundle appears, separately, on sale at a great price again, I will re-buy it. I usually do searches of my libraries--Amazon's, Christianbook's, Kobo's, B&N's, ad nauseam--by title, not by author (searching by title probably would not reveal the individual title contained within a bundle; searching by author would reveal the presence of the bundle, containing the individual title). Maybe you or some other intelligent Mobilereader can give a solution to this conundrum.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Piper is quite a prolific writer. Yes, quite a few of them are free at the website that you cited.

It's nice of Piper to provide these gratis. He is probably losing some royalties from people (I may be one of them) that he would have earned from Amazon and other vendors on for-sale versions.

Even though you gave the webpage for the freebies, I may post some them, individually, in the future. One reason is that it is my impression, even if it may be incorrect, that when people are confronted with a whole lot of choices they are overwhelmed by them sometimes and, consequently, don't make any choices.

That's true. It takes a bit of time to go through all of the links. I'm reading the David Brainerd book so I know it was free--and a good book by the way

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

There is one other concern that I have. I am concerned that when I buy a bundle, I will overlook the bundle or forget what is in it, and when an ebook that I already have in a bundle appears, separately, on sale at a great price again, I will re-buy it. I usually do searches of my libraries--Amazon's, Christianbook's, Kobo's, B&N's, ad nauseam--by title, not by author (searching by title probably would not reveal the individual title contained within a bundle; searching by author would reveal the presence of the bundle, containing the individual title). Maybe you or some other intelligent Mobilereader can give a solution to this conundrum.

I use Calibre, partly to solve this very problem. When I saw these, I went back and looked to see which ones I had, so I searched for Wiersbe and sorted by title (I had seven of the nine). You can also add your own columns for anything you want to track, so I keep track of which store or website that I got each book from.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I use Calibre, partly to solve this very problem. When I saw these, I went back and looked to see which ones I had, so I searched for Wiersbe and sorted by title (I had seven of the nine). You can also add your own columns for anything you want to track, so I keep track of which store or website that I got each book from.

Great tip. Thanks.

For some reason, I have been a holdout on using Calibre. I've downloaded it a few times and actually installed it a time or two, but never actually put it to use! But I know that it would be helpful in so many ways, and after I started to use it I probably would wonder why I waited so long . . . .

[GtrsRGr8]

The publisher of this book, the Knights of Columbus, is in some way associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Even if the organization is not officially sanctioned by the Vatican, one certainly can say that it is an organization made up of Roman Catholics.

Years ago, I remember seeing advertisements in various magazines by the Knights of Columbus offering literature on Roman Catholicism. I haven't seen any of those lately. It seems that they, like so many other religious organizations have done, have chosen to switch to offering digital literature on their website. This book is one of those pieces of literature.

My posting of this book is not a proselytizing or even indoctrination effort. It just seems to me that some people might find it helpful to have ready access to a dictionary of terms used by this major religion.

This book is a treatment of just some of the basic terminology.

Title: Catholic Word Book.
Format: Pdf.
Author(s): Brunetta, Juan-Diego (general editor).
Publisher: Knights of Columbus Supreme Council.
Pages: 73.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews (Amazon): N/A.
Price: $0.00.
Lowest Price at Amazon if available there: N/A.
Book Description: "Hundreds of words defined."
Comments:
URL: http://www.kofc.org/un/en/resources/cis/cis371.pdf.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Great tip. Thanks.

For some reason, I have been a holdout on using Calibre. I've downloaded it a few times and actually installed it a time or two, but never actually put it to use! But I know that it would be helpful in so many ways, and after I started to use it I probably would wonder why I waited so long . . . .

That's exactly how I was. I hated it every time I tried it out, mostly because a whole lot of bells and whistles that I don't like are enabled by default. When my collection passed a few hundred books across a half-dozen bookstores, my old organizational method (directories by genre) became unwieldy and I started doing things like accidentally deleting books when I was rearranging them and such. I basically just sucked it up and spent a few days learning how to disable all of the features that annoy me and now I don't know what I'd do without it.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

The publisher of this book, the Knights of Columbus, is in some way associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Even if the organization is not officially sanctioned by the Vatican, one certainly can say that it is an organization made up of Roman Catholics.

The very short and mostly sane answer is that the Catholic Church historically believed that the Masons were anti-Catholic and excommunicated any Catholics that joined, so some priests got together and created the Knights of Columbus. If you're ever wondering how to spend an afternoon, Googling Catholic and Freemason together will find you a morass of conflicting and contradictory information where everybody thinks everybody else is part of The Conspiracy. If you get through that and don't feel like you've descended into quite enough madness, throw in a few search terms like "mind control" and "new world order".

You can probably stop when you get to the lizard aliens. I'm not joking.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

That's exactly how I was. I hated it every time I tried it out, mostly because a whole lot of bells and whistles that I don't like are enabled by default. When my collection passed a few hundred books across a half-dozen bookstores, my old organizational method (directories by genre) became unwieldy and I started doing things like accidentally deleting books when I was rearranging them and such. I basically just sucked it up and spent a few days learning how to disable all of the features that annoy me and now I don't know what I'd do without it.

The very short and mostly sane answer is that the Catholic Church historically believed that the Masons were anti-Catholic and excommunicated any Catholics that joined, so some priests got together and created the Knights of Columbus. If you're ever wondering how to spend an afternoon, Googling Catholic and Freemason together will find you a morass of conflicting and contradictory information where everybody thinks everybody else is part of The Conspiracy. If you get through that and don't feel like you've descended into quite enough madness, throw in a few search terms like "mind control" and "new world order".

You can probably stop when you get to the lizard aliens. I'm not joking.

My organization method is unwieldy, too. Check that: I have no organization system!

I think that the reason that I haven't started using Calibre is that it will be time-consuming up front. First, because of the learning curve. Second, because of the time that I will have to spend entering what books that I already have. I know, I know, it won't get any easier. In fact, it will be more and more difficult to start it as time goes by, and the books stack up (metaphorically speaking).

There is a common thread to both of your quotes. It's time. Because of it (or rather the finite-ness of it) I'll pass on your idea about spending an afternoon searching the Internet for RCC and KOC connections. Funny.

After you stated the connection between the two organizations, I immediately remembered that I had heard that a long time ago. I didn't think about KOC being a fraternal organization when I was making my post, or I might have made the connection then.

I'm always glad to see your posts. I learn (or remember something that I had forgotten) every time.

ADDENDUM: Is there a way for Calibre to automatically organize your books by subject? I know that that would almost be too good to be true, if there was. I have often wondered why Kindle and Kindle readers apparently aren't set up to do this. Amazon just has to have metadata, such as metatags, for all of these books that they sell or they wouldn't be able to put them in categories on their website like they do.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

ADDENDUM: Is there a way for Calibre to automatically organize your books by subject? I know that that would almost be too good to be true, if there was. I have often wondered why Kindle and Kindle readers apparently aren't set up to do this. Amazon just has to have metadata, such as metatags, for all of these books that they sell or they wouldn't be able to put them in categories on their website like they do.

Sort of. Amazon's category information is independent of the ebook files, but if the producer of the ebook populates the "tags" metadata field, Calibre imports that information. Unfortunately, the tags information is mostly crap. Most ebooks don't populate it and the ones that do, don't seem to understand what it's for. I created my own field for the subject and spend a few minutes populating it when I import books. When I initially created the field, I had about 2000 books and it took me a week or so. I'd filter my library by no subject and enter them until the list was empty.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

Sort of. Amazon's category information is independent of the ebook files, but if the producer of the ebook populates the "tags" metadata field, Calibre imports that information. Unfortunately, the tags information is mostly crap. Most ebooks don't populate it and the ones that do, don't seem to understand what it's for. I created my own field for the subject and spend a few minutes populating it when I import books. When I initially created the field, I had about 2000 books and it took me a week or so. I'd filter my library by no subject and enter them until the list was empty.

Thanks. Really invaluable information that I don't know where I would have ever found otherwise.

Knowing information about the subject of an ebook would be greatest at the time of purchase. So, after I set up Calibre, it seems like the best thing to do is to immediately after purchase of an ebook, or as soon thereafter as reasonably possible, import the ebook into Calibre. Then, enter the subject information into the field.