E-books (Ebooks) - Open Books discussion

January 8, 2010

Dear Friends of Open Books,

It has been a month since our last newsletter, and we have much to tell you about. So let us get started without delay.

JUST PUBLISHED

The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans by David A. Ross

Meet Fizzy Oceans—archivist, researcher, environmentalist and adventurer. On her travels she witnesses The Exodus, the Battle of Gettysburg and Hurricane Katrina, as well as many other historical and real time events. She meets notable individuals including Gandhi, Mark Twain, Jacques Cousteau, The Dalai Llama, Saddam Hussein and even a new species called the Quinngen.

Such unique experiences and encounters spanning the world and time as we know them would not be possible for a single individual—especially not for a woman named Amy Birkenstock who works as a medical clerk in Seattle, Washington—but Fizzy Oceans, Amy’s digital alter ego, is not in Physical Life. She lives, works and travels in the virtual world where the dead are very much alive, places like ancient Babylon and Pompeii have been reconstructed, and with the click of a button—WHOOSH!—one is transported throughout the Ages to events and destinations that make up our human history.

Even as Amy’s physical life existence is challenged by encroaching environmental disaster, economic instability, and societal breakdown, Fizzy’s virtual world offers instant realization of vision and inspiration. The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans imagines the bridging of two worlds—the literal and the metaphorical—and questions what it is we have created, what has been lost, and what might be possible for us as individuals and for the Human Race.

BUY NOW AT
Open Books Direct
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Smashwords.com

UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS

TARANTULA WOMAN by Donald O'Donovan

Publication: February 2011

Donald O'Donovan is the author of Night Train: A Novel and The Sugarhouse: A Novella. His writing is simply delicious. Here are the first few paragraphs from his upcoming novel, TARANTULA WOMAN:

“As a child I was a Taoist. Then I departed from the Way. It wasn't my decision. I was forced, by secret urges and demonic voices. The decision to leave the Garden originated in the blood, the germplasm, the liver, the spleen. In the pituitary, if you will. Or in the pancreas. It was a matter of chemistry. Once I was the joyful inhabitant of a tiny, ordered world whose enameled blue sky my extended fingers could always touch. Then the serpent entered the Garden. The enzymes were released. My eyes were opened. And so it began: cities, women, occupations. In other words, my life... It was right after I was rejected by the Peace Corps, when I was living in El Paso, that I started writing letters for the girls across the river, in Ciudad Juárez—the girls of Mariscal Street—the butterflies who inhabited the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

NAKED AT THE MIC: THE SURVIVAL OF A LIBERAL/RADICAL IN A TIME OF PERIL by L.A. Steel

Publication date: March 2011

L.A. Steel pulls no punches. His analysis of the Bush years is honest and unapologetic as he exposes the truth about events both well known and well hidden. And he does not stop there! Included are revelations about 911, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, Vice President Dick Cheney, the religious right, President Obama and much, much more. This is a big book that every American who values his freedom must read.

HIGH PRAISE FOR Alone in the Company of Others: A Novel by Kelly Huddleston

"In this superb non-linear novel, Kelly Huddleston displays an adroit handling of shifting timelines without resorting to cumbersome and patronizing flashback devices. We can easily lay our hands on plenty of novels that follow the familiar conventional linear structure, but a large percentage of these books are unreadable because their sentences are stacked one on top of the other like wooden planks. We don’t want wooden-plank sentences whose sole object is to move the characters and the reader from point A to point B because this sort of thing is dull and formulaic. A literary novel—and ‘Alone’ is unquestionably a literary novel—must have texture. It must have patina. It must have style. The words must dance and sparkle and cavort as well as carry the story forward. And in ‘ Alone’ we have it. Word-magic, I mean. Kelly Huddleston unfurls her lyric weaponry on every page, without fail."—Donald O’Donovan, author of Night Train, The Sugarhouse and Tarantula Woman.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND OUR TITLES?

As always, you can find all Open Books titles at Open Books Direct. Purchase the title of your choice direct from Open Books in the format of your choice (ePub for Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader and others or .prc for Kindle and other devices using Kindle apps).

In addition to Open Books Direct, you can buy Open Books titles from well-known retailers worldwide. Here is a partial list of retailers offering our titles:

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Smashwords.com
barnesandnoble.com
kobo.com
whsmith.co.uk
waterstones.co.uk
angusrobertson.com.au
whitcoulls.co.nz

Wherever you purchase your Open Books titles, we know you will enjoy the fine books we have on offer, and all Open Books authors thank you in advance for your purchase and welcome your communications.

Until next month, we hope you enjoy your reading.

THE EDITORS from Open Books
www.open-bks.com