On Today’s Bookshelf (IX)

It seems as if it was only yesterday (it was a month ago) when I published On Today’s Bookshelf (VIII), but there has been no stopping my book acquisitions. My recent acquisitions include:

Hardcover —

• Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party by Susan Dunn
• The African American Experience During World War II by Neil A. Wynn
• Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II by J. Todd Moye
• Family of Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House by Kenneth T. Walsh
• Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage by Douglas Waller
• The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang by John Ayto and John Simpson
• Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter’s Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial by H.L. Mencken (this is a paperback reprint of Mencken’s newspaper reports)
• Hitler and America by Klaus P. Fischer

Several of the hardcover books I bought at Author’s Day, which was held at the FDR Library on June 18, 2011. The authors were invited by the Library to give a speech or reading and then autograph their books. The capstone event was a conversation between the historians Michael Beschloss and James MacGregor Burns.

ebooks —

• In Her Name: Empire; Confederation; Final Battle; First Contact; and Legend of the Sword by Michael R. Hicks (see my review of this series: On Books: In Her Name)
• Demon Lord by T.C. Southwell
• Through a Dark Mist by Marsha Canham
• Sacred Secrets, A Jacoby Ives Mystery by Linda S. Prather
• Murder on the Mind by L.L Bartlett
• Driftnet and Deadly Code by Lin Anderson
• Stumbling Forward by Christopher Truscott
• A Death in Beverly Hills by David Grace
• Bake Sale Murder by Leslie Meirer
• Blood Count and Londongrad by Reggie Nadelson
• Durell’s Insurrection by Rodney Mountain
• Impeding Justice by Mel Comley
• Maid for Mayhem by Bridget Allison
• Pilate’s Cross by J. Alexander
• The American Language by H.L. Mencken
• The Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor
• Who Killed Emmett Till by Susan Klopfer
• Dying for Justice, Passions of the Dead, Secrets to Die For, and Thrilled to Death by L.J. Sellers (These are books 2 to 5 in the Detective Jackson Series; the first book, The Sex Club, was listed in an early On Today’s Bookshelf — see below)
• Enemies and Playmates by Darcia Helle
• Henrietta the Dragon Slayer by Beth Barany
• Hostile Witness by Rebecca Forster
• Oathen by Jasmine Giacomio
• The Last Aliyah by Chris Hambleton
• Too Near the Edge by Lynn Osterkamp

Most of the ebooks were gotten free, either that being the author-set price or as a result of an author promotion using a coupon code. After reading Michael Hick’s In Her Name: Empire, I decided I liked the book well enough to purchase the other 4 available volumes of the series — Confederation, Final Battle, First Contact, and Legend of the Sword (see my review of this series: On Books: In Her Name). I purchased Christopher Truscott’s Stumbling Forward on a recommendation from author Vicki Tyley, whose books I have reviewed previously (see On Books: Murder Down Under).

L.J. Seller’s Detective Jackson Series is an excellent mystery series. When I have finished reading the recently acquired books 2 to 5, I plan to review them. However, for anyone who is looking for a 5-star mystery series, this series fits the need. Currently, the author is offering the books at a discounted price of 99¢ each (be sure to scroll down the page to the discounted price); the normal price is $3.19 each. If you like mysteries/police procedurals, you won’t go wrong buying them before I review them.

For those interested, Smashwords is having a major sale, their July Summer/Winter Sale, with authors offering their books at discount s of 25% to 100%. The sale runs through July 31, 2011. It is a good time to buy indie books and get introduced to some new authors.