Changes, Changes, Changes
Thank you for voting in last week’s poll about the post times on our site. Half of you would prefer that we post all the books first thing in the morning; about 30% like the way we are doing things now; and 20% want us to post books throughout the day.
We are responding to your input. Starting Monday we will have the following posting schedule:

Monday – Thursday: Six books plus the Daily Deals will post around 6:30a.m. Central time; two more books will post at 11:30a.m. Central time.
Friday – Sunday: All posts will post around 6:30a.m. Central time.

If we find great books at great prices; price matching; or other deals or announcement that will interest you, we will make posts during the day. Free books will post as we learn about them.
Changing our post times will not diminish the great reads or the information posted.
 
Enhanced Editions with Audio/Video
Kindle books that are enhanced editions with audio/video are now available on the second generation Kindle Fire and all Kindle Fire HD models. As always, these editions are also available for iPad, iTouch, and iPhone Kindle apps.
If you have an eligible Kindle Fire model, I would recommend that you purchase The Hobbit: 75th Anniversary Edition ($3.32). This deluxe edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy contains a short introduction by Christopher Tolkien, a reset text incorporating the most up-to-date corrections, and all of Tolkien’s own drawings and full-color illustrations, including the rare “Mirkwood” piece.
 
 
A Classic Romance Cheap Read
According to Wikipedia: LaVyrle Spencer is an American best-selling author of contemporary and historical romance novels. Twelve of her books have been New York Times bestsellers.
In her thirties, Spencer had read “The Flame and Flower” by Kathleen E. Woodwiss, which gave her the idea to become a novelist. She decided to try transferring to paper a recurring dream about a story based on her grandmother’s lifestyle on a Minnesota farm. She awoke at 4:00 a.m. one morning, and quickly began writing her story in a three-ring notebook. This story became her first novel, The Fulfillment, published in 1979.
 
The Fulfillment (99 cents) Two brothers work a rich and bountiful land—and one extraordinary woman shares their lives. To Jonathan Gray, Mary is a devoted and giving mate. To Aaron, she is a beloved friend. But seven childless years of marriage haveforced Jonathan to ask the unthinkable of his brother and his wife—binding the two people he cares for most with an act of desire born of compassion…awakening Mary to the pain of infidelity, and to all the bittersweet joy and heartache that passionate love can bring.

Have you become more discriminating?
Reader comments from our inaugural Daily Cheap Reads Book Club have led me to the conclusion that today’s reader is more discriminating and perhaps even more demanding than just 15 or 20 years ago.
We read Murder on a Girls’ Night Out by Anne George, a cozy mystery (Ms. George’s first novel) published in 1996 – 17 years ago. The consensus among those who commented on the book was that the story may have been cozy, but the mystery was flat; the suspense was minimal; and the discovery of the murderer was rushed.
In 1996 the reviewers gave high marks and praise for the novel. The book didn’t change in 17 years so I have to conclude that the readers have. When reading for a book club, we tend to be more critical than in casual reading. Our level of expectation when reading for entertainment is less. Because we were reading with the intent of commenting on it to our peers, we honed in on the weaknesses of the story.
Another reason I believe we found the book lacking is that readers today are more knowledgeable of murders through media coverage of crime, trials, and speculation by experts all day every day. Popular television shows have educated the public and readers’ expectations have risen. To satisfy the readers’ appetite for relevant fiction, successful authors will respond to the change.
A quick survey of the reviews of Murder on a Girls’ Night Out indicates that ten of the 14 3-star and lower reader reviews were posted a decade after the book was released. I see that as a change in the reader’s preferences and expectations.
As with many things, readers mature in their tastes as their experiences grow. The books we loved in our 20s may seem sophomoric today. With the millions of reading opportunities available, we can be lifelong readers and enjoy a good book any day.
Have your reading choices and tastes changed through the years? Do you laugh at some of your favorite books from 10 years ago, 20 years ago? What makes a book timeless for you? Post a comment and let us know.
 
Tax Time?
The United States Senate approved a bill that would require on-line retailers to collect state and local sales tax on all sales, not just sales to states where the retailer has a presence.
The bill received bi-partisan support and passed by a large margin, 69 to 27. The bill now moves to the House where strong opposition may end the tax increase. If passed by the House, Amazon would be required to collect state and local taxes on all purchases made by customers.
Read more about the bill in this article in the Huffington Post.
 
Post Times – And I don’t mean horse races
A few weeks ago we implemented a change on our posting schedule for the weekends – posting all the posts in the early morning hours. Please vote in the poll below to tell us how you like the change.

 
Cheap Culinary Mysteries
New York Times bestselling author Diane Mott Davidson wrote three novels before one was accepted for publication—when she was 41. She has since written 14 more mysteries, all featuring Goldy the caterer. Davidson has won the Anthony Award from Bouchercon, and has been nominated for the Agatha, another Anthony, and the Macavity Award. In 1993 she was named Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year.
The two novels below are the first and thirteen whodunits in the Goldy Bear series. The first was originally released in 1990; the second in 2007.
 
Catering to Nobody ($3.99) In Goldy’s tantalizing debut, she serves up a savory dish of secrets, suspicions, and murder….Catering a wake is not Goldy’s idea of fun. Yet the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savory feast including Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. And her culinary efforts seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered…until her ex-father-in-law gynecologist Fritz Korman is struck down and Goldy is accused of adding poison to the menu.
Dark Tort: A Goldy Bear Culinary Mystery ($1.99) Caterer Goldy Schulz’s lucrative new gig, preparing breakfasts and conference room snacks for a local law firm, is time-consuming, but she’s enjoying it . . . until the night she arrives to find Dusty, the firm’s paralegal, dead. The deceased also happened to be Goldy’s friend and neighbor, and now Dusty’s grieving mother is begging Goldy to find out who murdered her daughter.

Trade in that old Kindle
Amazon has a trade-in program for your unwanted Kindle (if there is such a thing). You can receive an Amazon gift card for trading in your Kindle, nook, iPad and other electronic devices.
While popular Kindles aren’t valued very highly, you could receive a $152 gift card for returning a Kindle DX. It’s tempting to ask everyone you know if they have a Kindle they aren’t using and would they be interested in selling and/or giving it to you. . .
If you have a device to trade-in, you select a condition category based on defined criteria. Amazon promises that if they believe you under-selected the condition, they will give you a gift card for the better condition amount. Amazon even pays the postage to send the device to them.
When it comes to e-readers, Amazon won’t accept any Kindles with the following conditions:
• Water damaged
• Severely damaged/unusable
• Does not power on (even after charging)
 
Over Sync
I had to turn off the device synchronization on my account. The sync went just a little bit wild.
While reviewing my account earlier this week, I clicked on the Manage Your Kindle page. I noticed there were 639 pending deliveries. That’s not a typo – over 600 books were waiting to download. A closer look indicated random books with dates from last year waiting to download to as many as eight devices or Kindle apps on my account. I needed some ‘splaining from Amazon.
Chad at customer service explained that these were all books trying to sync on the devices on my account. While the idea of reading from one device to another is appealing if only one person is on the account, with more than a dozen devices and readers on an account, synchronization across all accounts is not workable.
The odd thing is that the books weren’t going to ALL the devices on my account. Some books were pending on two devices, others six devices, others eight devices, but no books were pending for all devices on the account.
Chad said the only way to clear the pending list was to download the books to the Kindles on the list. Half have been downloaded, but how am I going to clear the pending delivers scheduled to go to a Kindle that will no longer charge? Maybe after a time of not being downloaded, they will be removed from the list.
 
Cheap Read by P. D. James, Crime Novelist
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, was born in Oxford, England, in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her novels.
Writing as P. D. James, she has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award.
She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Her debut novel written in 1962 is available today for only $1.99. Read the book that launched one of Britain’s most popular crime novelist.
 
Cover Her Face ($1.99) Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill.
Cover Her Face is P. D. James’s electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.

Where my mind wanders when I can’t sleep
• Did I use the £ symbol on the United Kingdom posts and the $ symbol on the United States posts today? If the British use 99p for 99 pence; why doesn’t the United States us 99c for 99 cents, especially since there isn’t a keyboard around that has the ¢ symbol as the shift of the 5 anymore.
• Is gluten-free really the answer to every person’s health and diet woes? Am I wrong to practice “Give us this day our daily bread” and enjoy it?
• What publishers are going to merge next? The big players are eyeing each other; trying to find a suitable dance partner. No one wants to be a wallflower because then they will have to declare they can go it alone. It’s Victorian drama all over again.
• Why do so many teen and young adult books dwell on dark subjects such as death, abuse, destructive behavior and broken relationships? Teen fiction needs to foster adventure, growth, unlimited potential, achievement and hope.
• Will I live long enough to read even 20% of the books on my Kindle?
 
Daily Cheap Reads Book Club
I’ve read Murder on a Girls’ Night Out ($2.99) by Anne George, preparing for our DCR Book Club discussion starting Wednesday, May 1. The cozy mystery features sisters who are old enough to know better, but still become involved in a murder investigation that grows worse each day. It’s a quick read – you still have time to join the conversation next week.
 
New Adult Fiction
A genre of literature has emerged in recent months – new adult fiction. The novels bridge the gap between young adult/teen and adult fiction and target readers ages 18 – 35. Typically, the novels are emotionally intense, but feature protagonists who act with freedom and experience the reality of living on their own without their parents’ support.
Many chick lit and romantic comedy novels and contemporary coming-of-age and action/adventure novels appeal to the readers in this age group. John Grisham’s The Firm ($7.99) is an example of a new adult novel. Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster ($7.36) is a more recent example of a very popular new adult novel.
The three books below are all considered new adult novels and are selling at cheap prices:
 

Stuck On You (99 cents) Big shot producer KT Masters never apologizes. Especially not to showgirl waitresses. But when he tears Laura Charles’s feathered costume and she gives him a piece of her mind, it sets him aflame. In fact, between Laura’s feisty temper and how damn good she looks in that little number, KT wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of that costume . . .
Stealing Harper ($1.99 pre-order) Chase Grayson has never been interested in having a relationship that lasts longer than it takes for him and his date to get dressed again. But then he stumbles into a gray-eyed girl whose innocence pours off her, and everything changes. From the minute Harper opens her mouth to let him know just how much he disgusts her, he’s hooked.
Wait for You ($2.99) Some things are worth waiting for…Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago–an event that forever changed her life.

Kindle Store’s Top 100 Paid List – Is it valid?
Some readers and almost all authors live and die by the bestsellers list, but how valid is the Kindle Store’s Top 100 Paid list?
Amazon tells us the list is updated hourly and contains best selling items. But Amazon has no accounting for the price of the item when sold.
Hardbound books on The Times Bestsellers list sell for expected prices that all readers know. To be in the top ten of the list week after week means that the buying public continues to spend $10 – $20 for a copy of the book.
The Kindle Store Top 100 is a list skewed. An author or publisher can reset the price of a book to 99 cents and sell thousands of copies to move into the top 20 of books sold. Consumers might buy the book because the price is so low they are willing to give the book a try. These same consumers would never buy the book at a higher price.
The price can then be increased to $5.99, but the book remains in the top 100 list until other books outsell it according to Amazon’s criteria.
I believe that the inclusion of the book in the Top 100 list with the increased price is misleading to buyers. If I did not know that the book had sold at a much cheaper price that caused it to reach the Top 100 list, then I am under the impression that this book reached its popularity selling at $5.99. As a consumer, my first thought is that the book must be a great read if so many others are buying the book at that price.
I don’t have a solution for how to account for a price change of a book in the top 100. Perhaps it should be pulled from the Top 100 if the price fluctuates by more than a percentage of the price that caused the price to reach the list. Publishers and authors won’t be happy with any adjustments, but consumers deserve honesty in how a book rose to the Top 100.
A common example of this is the Kindle Daily Deal which often appears in the Top 100 list for several days following its feature at a very cheap price. Three of the top 40 in the list as I’m preparing this post were previously Daily Deals – selling for $1.99 or $2.99 as deals, but now priced from $8.40 to $10.67.
Should Amazon take price into consideration when compiling the list? Is it misleading? Any other ideas on how to account for price changes? Leave a comment to let us know what you are thinking.
 
Comments from Readers
Readers usually like to know what other readers think of an author, a book, or a series. I love to hear what you have to say about the books we post. Whether its praise or criticism, your input is welcome.
Here are two comments recently posted:
Bill commented this about Francona: The Red Sox Years ($4.99) before he read the book:

Just purchased this and I look forward to reading this. I’m an Orioles fan so I’ve experienced some great O’s – Red Sox memories over the years. As much as I enjoyed reading Joe Torre’s book about his time with the Yankees, I look forward to reading about Terry Francona’s time with Boston.

Bill commented this after reading the book:

Just finished this book. It was a great read and still available for $4.99
Every Red Sox fan probably has read this but every baseball fan should read this. I liked reading about the up and downs of both the Red Sox and Terry Francona during the eight seasons he managed the team. Managing a baseball team is not easy. Managing in Boston is a (high) pressure (job) and I came out of the book thinking Francona is a likeable guy. I’m rooting for him to do well with the Indians (except when they play the Orioles).

 
Cheap Reads
Donald Harington spent nearly all of his early summers in the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes Creek. There, before he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age of twelve, he listened carefully to the vanishing Ozark folk language and the old tales told by story-tellers. His first novel was published by Random House in 1965, and since then he has published twelve other novels, most of them set in the Ozark hamlet of his own creation, Stay More, based loosely upon Drakes Creek.
Today you can buy 15 of Harington’s novels for only $9.00 when you buy the three volumes below. Individually these novels are selling for $4.99 each, so I strongly recommend you purchase the volumes for your Kindle library now while they are supercheap.
 

The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington Volume 1 ($3.00) The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington includes five complete novels: (1) Lightning Bug; (2) Some Other Place. The Right Place; (3) The Architecture of the Ozarks; (4) The Cockroaches of Stay More; (5) The Choiring of the Trees.
The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington Volume 2 ($3.00) The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington includes five complete novels: (1) Ekaterina; (2) Butterfly Weed; (3) When Angels Rest; (4) Thirteen Albatrosses (or, Falling off the Mountain); (5) With.
The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington Volume 3 ($3.00) The Nearly Complete Works of Donald Harington includes five complete novels: (1) The Pitcher Shower; (2) Farther Along; (3) Enduring; (4) Let Us Build Us a City; (5) The Cherry Pit.

Cozy Mystery is our first Book Club read!
The Daily Cheap Reads book club poll results are in to select the genre of our first book. Thank you for participating and choosing cozy mystery for our May book discussion.
We will then choose books in the coming months from the next most popular genres. The final results are:
Cozy Mystery – 40
Historical Romance – 29
Thriller – 24
Historical Fiction – 20
Contemporary Romance – 18
Paranormal Romance – 15
Contemporary Fiction – 14
 
We will read one of the four great cozy mysteries below for our discussion in May. Vote now because the voting closes Sunday evening and the winner will be announced on Monday. We will post a review around May 1 and the discussion begins.
 
Murder on a Girls’ Night Out by Anne George ($2.99) First book in the Southern Sisters Mysteries: Patricia Anne — “Mouse” — is respectful, respectable, and demure, a perfect example of genteel Southern womanhood. Mary Alice — “Sister” — is big, brassy, flamboyant, and bold. Together they have a knack for finding themselves in the center of some of Birmingham’s most unfortunate unpleasantness.
Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers (99 cents) First book in the British detective Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries: Lord Peter Wimsey spends his days tracking down rare books, and his nights hunting killers. Though the Great War has left his nerves frayed with shellshock, Wimsey continues to be London’s greatest sleuth—and he’s about to encounter his oddest case yet.
Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell ($3.99) First book in the Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Series: Film lover Barbara Marr is a typical suburban mom living the typical suburban life in her sleepy little town of Rustic Woods, Virginia. Typical, that is until she sets out to find the missing link between a bizarre monkey sighting in her yard and the bone chilling middle-of-the-night fright fest at the strangely vacant house next door.
Dog on It by Spencer Quinn ($2.99) First book in the Chet and Bernie Mysteries Series: Meet Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, who works alongside Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator. In this, their first adventure, Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of Madison, a teenage girl who may or may not have been kidnapped, but who has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters.

 
Cheap Read
In our poll to choose the Book Club genre several readers voted for Christian fiction. We will include inspirational books some months in the choices when we select a book. The cheap read below is considered an inspirational read, but is published by by William Morrow; a division of HarperCollins.
Daybreak ($1.99) In this close-knit Amish family, nothing is as perfect as it seems . . .
When Viola Keim starts working at a nearby Mennonite retirement home, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with resident Atle, whose only living relative, son Edward, is living as a missionary in Nicaragua. Viola understands the importance of mission work, but she can’t imagine leaving her father in the hands of strangers. Even though her family is New Order Amish, it’s not the Amish way, and though she doesn’t know Ed, she judges him for abandoning his father.
But when Ed surprises his father with a visit, Viola and Ed both discover an attraction they never expected. Despite her feelings, choosing Ed would mean moving to a far-off country and leaving her family behind. She can’t do that. Does Viola dare leave her family all behind and forge her own life? Or will family ties mean her one chance at love slips away?

DCR Book Club
An enthusiastic site user sent an email to ask about starting a book club for fans of Daily Cheap Reads. We loved the idea! We will find a great cheap read for all of us to enjoy and after a couple of weeks we’ll post a review and open the discussion of the book.
How do we pick one book out the many, many options available? With your help. Please vote for the genre you would like to read in our inaugural DCR Book Club discussion. You can only vote once, but the top three choices will be the genre for the first three books.
A big thank you to K for sending along this idea.

 
Is it a Joke? Or a Riddle?
To have the best quality books posted on our jr. Daily Cheap Reads site, I often read children’s fiction, including the ever-popular joke book. My Kindle library has more than 50 joke books according to the titles. Sadly, though, many are page after page of riddles.
This is a riddle: What does a dentist call his x-rays? Tooth-pics.
This is a joke: The teacher asked the little boy, “If you had five dollars and you asked your father for another dollar, how many would you have?”
“Five dollars,” replied the boy.
“You don’t know your arithmetic,” said the teacher.
“No,” replied the boy. “You don’t know my father.”
 
Cheap Reads
The three selections below are Kindle Serials that have had at least one episode distributed and more to come. The mystery, romance, and high-tech science fiction books below are selling for $1.99 each.
 

Changes are Coming
Thank you for sharing your opinions regarding what you want like and would like to have on Daily Cheap Reads.
Beginning April 1 you will see some of those changes. On Fridays and Saturdays all of the posts will be live at approximately 6:00a.m. Central time. Holidays will also have a similar schedule.
On Sundays we will post a block of inspirational books at 6:00a.m. and another block of posts of general interest books at 6:00p.m. Mondays through Thursdays will be same schedule we have now with eight posts a day starting at 5:45a.m.
Occasionally we will post a book priced higher than $5 – great reads at a great price. We will be looking for more 99 cent book options, too.
Tell all the Kindlers you know about us and help us grow the site with what you want to see.
 
$99 Kindle Fire Rumor
Techcrunch.com is reporting that Amazon may soon be offering a $99 Kindle Fire HD 7” tablet. They broke the rumor after Amazon lowered the price on the current Kindle 8.9” devices. According to the article, the price cut meant one of two things: Amazon is clearing inventory before releasing a new model or Amazon wants to sell more of the devices quicker. The 7” Kindle Fire sells more than the 8.9″ model.
If Amazon offers a $99 Kindle Fire tablet, they would dominate the low-priced tablet market beyond the large market share they already have. Industry experts estimate that “Amazon sold 4.8 million Kindle Fires in 2011 (shipping only in the fourth quarter), and in 2012, it shipped 10.4 million units worldwide.”
We’ll post the links to the latest Kindle Fire as soon as the rumor becomes reality.
 
Cheap Reads
From now through March 31 you can purchase any of 20 Amazon-published books for only $2.00 each. Choices include mysteries, romances, and literary fiction. Three of the book offered are:
 

 
Amazon is also offering more than 30 children’s books for $2.00 each also.

Highlights – Not just for your hair
Remember back when you would go through a book and write down stuff you wanted to remember? Or used a highlighter to mark things to study?
While I’ve been highlighting things on my Kindle for quite a while, I didn’t realize there was an easy way to look at that information. The Kindle site at www.kindle.amazon.com is like a card catalog (now there’s a throw back!) of all the books you’ve read on Kindle, with a social media option.
I didn’t realize this site existed until I got a notice that a friend was following me. Similar to Goodreads, this site allows you to track what books you’ve read.
The best feature allows you to scan through a book and see all the highlights. This would be invaluable for a textbook or study material. I imagine I’ll use it for book reviews.
When you get to the end of a book on Kindle Fire, an automatic link pops up where you can rate the book on this site – great option. The design on the site is rather stark and clunky to navigate. (You can only sort books alphabetically, not by the date you read them, for instance.)
It’s wonderful to see all your Kindle books in one location. Even better would be if I could make shelves and sort books the way I wanted. You have the option of allowing your highlights to be public or private and can follow what your friends are reading. Personally, I don’t really like the idea of someone reading over my shoulder, but I can see where it would have uses for people collaborating on a project.
 
Re-Design Update
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to complete our poll on re-designing Daily Cheap Reads. Your preferences and opinion matter. Some of your ideas may be implemented within a few weeks.
One reason for the re-design is to make the site friendlier for those users who access DCR through their mobile devices. Our goal is to keep the site ad-free, uncluttered, and easy to navigate.
For those who want us to bring back free books: Until Amazon changes their policy that jeopardizes our commission based on free book downloads, we will not post free books. The sites that continue to post free books are making their money from advertising revenue and are no longer Amazon associates.
Your continued support to buy your Kindle books and other Amazon products through our site is appreciated. The poll is still open if you haven’t voted yet.
  
Cheap Read
Already a hit in the United Kingdom, Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan is both a poignant love story and a lyrical, evocative depiction of the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. Readers of historical fiction will adore their time spent on Ellis Island.
 
Ellis Island ($1.99) Sweethearts since childhood, Ellie Hogan and her husband, John, are content on their farm in Ireland—until John, a soldier for the Irish Republican Army, receives an injury that leaves him unable to work. Forced to take drastic measures in order to survive, Ellie does what so many Irish women in the 1920s have done and sails across a vast ocean to New York City to work as a maid for a wealthy socialite.
Once there, Ellie is introduced to a world of opulence and sophistication, tempted by the allure of grand parties and fine clothes, money and mansions . . . and by the attentions of a charming suitor who can give her everything. Yet her heart remains with her husband back home. And now she faces the most difficult choice she will ever have to make: a new life in a new country full of hope and promise, or return to a life of cruel poverty . . . and love.

Re-designing Daily Cheap Reads
The summer months will soon be here and Daily Cheap Reads will be celebrating its third anniversary. Have you noticed that we have had the same look for three years? While comfortable and familiar, it’s time to think about a makeover.
Some things won’t be changing. We’ll still be searching the Kindle Store to find great reads at great prices. We promise subject variety, new authors as well as ones you have loved for years, and the daily deals. The Housekeeping column will be here every week and my periodic opinion of the best buys in the Kindle Store.
Your input is needed to decide what to include in the spiffy redo of DCR. Please take the poll below and select what you would like to have on the site, selecting as many of the options as you want. If we forgot something, please select Other below and tell us about it. We welcome your ideas and comments.

 
Meeting and Exceeding My Goals
Determined to read more this year, I set a goal of reading one book a week. This is the 11th week of 2013. I’ve read 24 books, 11 novellas, and 18 short stories. The winter is a perfect time to read and the pace will slow as the weather warms and the activities increase.
Right now I’m listening to The Notebook ($5.99) by Nicholas Sparks and reading EntreLeadership ($12.99) by Dave Ramsey; Better Each Day: 365 Expert Tips for a Healthier, Happier You ($8.69) by Jessica Cassity; and I Got You, Babe ($3.99) by Jane Graves.
One other goal I set for the new year was to use the food in our overflowing kitchen cupboards. We moved out of a second residence last fall and added that inventory to the main house. The shelves were full, the drawers were stuffed, and finding something I needed was almost impossible.
My goal was to use 100 cans, boxes, and packages by March 31. To date 127 items have been used. Woo-Hoo! Thankfully Tiger never tires of Jello with fruit.
 
Cheap Reads
Andrew Kapkan is best-known as the author of the Scorpion series. A former journalist and war correspondent, he covered events around the world and served in both the U.S. Army and the Israeli Army, including providing military intelligence analysis for the Israel Defense Force. The CIA has tried on several occasions to recruit him and he has consulted with think tanks that advise governments. The latest book in his Scorpion series, Scorpion Deception ($8.00) is available to pre-order for delivery May 28. The first two books of the series are selling for only $1.99 each today.
 
Scorpion Betrayal ($1.99) The head of Egypt’s State Internal Security is brutally murdered in a Cairo café—his assailant a faceless killer known only as “the Palestinian.” It is the opening move in a chilling game of terror that has caught the international intelligence community completely off-guard, and the CIA turns to the one man they believe can get to the twisted roots of a looming nightmare shrouded in mystery: a former Company operative code-named Scorpion.
The breakneck hunt for a mastermind is leading Scorpion from the Middle East to the dangerous underworld of the capitals of Europe. With the fate of the free world in the hands of two well- matched adversaries there is no margin for error. But a shocking truth has been kept from the determined manhunter . . . and beauty will blind him to the ultimate betrayal.
Scorpion Winter ($1.99) In the frozen wastes of Siberia, a silver artifact is stolen from a dead man . . . In the Middle East, the carefully planned strike on a terrorist leader goes disastrously wrong . . . Two seemingly unrelated incidents have placed the former CIA covert operative-turned-freelance spy, code-named Scorpion, in a desperate position: joining forces with a beautiful woman to prevent the assassination of a powerful Ukrainian politician.
But treachery breeds terror in the long shadow of a dangerous Russia, as Scorpion finds himself caught in a lethal trap sprung by an unknown enemy—perhaps someone on his own side of the game. And now time is ticking rapidly away with the whole world balancing on a knife’s edge, just days from the opening salvos of a catastrophic war that could leave the earth itself in ruins.