{"id":28609,"date":"2017-12-26T11:03:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T17:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/?p=28609"},"modified":"2018-02-01T18:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T00:55:20","slug":"cheap-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/26\/cheap-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheap Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just in case you got an Amazon Gift Card for Christmas, here is a way to spend it VERY SLOWLY on cheap Kindle books, selected because of their potential interest to readers of this blog:<\/p>\n

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia<\/a>\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Michael Korda, author of the New York Times bestselling Eisenhower biography Ike and the captivating Battle of Britain book With Wings Like Eagles, comes the critically-acclaimed definitive biography of T. E. Lawrence\u2014the legendary British soldier, strategist, scholar, and adventurer whose exploits as \u201cLawrence of Arabia\u201d created a legacy of mythic proportions in his own lifetime. Many know T.E. Lawrence from David Lean\u2019s Oscar-winning 1962 biopic\u2014based, itself, upon Lawrence\u2019s autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom\u2014but in the tradition of modern biographers like John Meacham, David McCullough, and Barbara Leaming, Michael Korda\u2019s penetrating new examination reveals new depth and character in the twentieth century\u2019s quintessential English hero. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beren and L\u00fathien<\/a>\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tale of Beren and L\u00fathien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year.<\/p>\n

Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and L\u00fathien: for Beren was a mortal man, but L\u00fathien was an immortal elf. Her father, a great elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed L\u00fathien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and L\u00fathien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril.<\/p>\n

In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and L\u00fathien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father’s own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.<\/p>\n

Published on the tenth anniversary of the last Middle-earth book, the international bestseller The Children of H\u00farin, this new volume will similarly include drawings and color plates by Alan Lee, who also illustrated The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and went on to win Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years<\/a>\"\"><\/p>\n

Remember when presidents spoke in complete sentences instead of in unhinged tweets? Former Obama speechwriter David Litt does. In his comic, coming-of-age memoir, he takes us back to the Obama years \u2013 and charts a path forward in the age of Trump. <\/p>\n

More than any other presidency, Barack Obama\u2019s eight years in the White House were defined by young people \u2013 twenty-somethings who didn\u2019t have much experience in politics (or anything else, for that matter), yet suddenly found themselves in the most high-stakes office building on earth. David Litt was one of those twenty-somethings. After graduating from college in 2008, he went straight to the Obama campaign. In 2011, he became one of the youngest White House speechwriters in history. Until leaving the White House in 2016, he wrote on topics from healthcare to climate change to criminal justice reform. As President Obama\u2019s go-to comedy writer, he also took the lead on the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner, the so-called \u201cState of the Union of jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, in this refreshingly honest memoir, Litt brings us inside Obamaworld. With a humorists\u2019 eye for detail, he describes what it\u2019s like to accidentally trigger an international incident or nearly set a president\u2019s hair aflame. He answers questions you never knew you had: Which White House men\u2019s room is the classiest? What do you do when the commander in chief gets your name wrong? Where should you never, under any circumstances, change clothes on Air Force One? With nearly a decade of stories to tell, Litt makes clear that politics is completely, hopelessly absurd. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also important. For all the moments of chaos, frustration, and yes, disillusionment, Litt remains a believer in the words that first drew him to the Obama campaign: \u201cPeople who love this country can change it.\u201d In telling his own story, Litt sheds fresh light on his former boss\u2019s legacy. And he argues that, despite the current political climate, the politics championed by Barack Obama will outlive the presidency of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Full of hilarious stories and told in a truly original voice, Thanks, Obama is an exciting debut about what it means \u2013 personally, professionally, and politically \u2013 to grow up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just in case you got an Amazon Gift Card for Christmas, here is a way to spend it VERY SLOWLY on cheap Kindle books, selected because of their potential interest to readers of this blog:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5044],"tags":[1038],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/books_greg_ladens_blog-copy.png?fit=510%2C340&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-7rr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28610,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28609\/revisions\/28610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}