Category Archives: Free Books

Free Zora Neale Hurston Audiobook

Zora Neale Hurston was born today, in 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama. In honor of her birth, one of her most famous book Their Eyes Were Watching God is available FREE to the first 10,000 downloaders. The offer is being made through Libro.fm by the publisher of the ebook.

Zora Neale Hurston

It’s hard to imagine a time when Hurston wasn’t the well known author she is today, topping many school reading lists. But when she died in 1960 she was broke and living in a state welfare home. She was buried in an unmarked grave until 1973 when some scholars did the research and went back and marked her grave.

The University of Florida has the collection of what remains of Zora Neale Hurston’s writings. It’s an amazing few shelves of paper as all of her papers were thrown in the fire after the order to burn her writings when she died. A friend of hers wound up saving them from the flames.

So grab your free copy of the audiobook today, while they’re still giving them out and think about all the stars that had to align to make this possible. Famed stage actress and civil rights voice Ruby Dee narrates this audiobook. I have not heard her yet, but Dee, who died in 2014, no doubt brings some real life awareness and urgency to the story. I’ve seen clips of Dee in the stage version of A Raisin in the Sun and can see just what a great fit she’d be as narrator.

Also, that cover for this copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God is pretty dang cool!

Books at Brookwood Mall

This weekend I had to run through Brookwood Mall for a bit, but found myself wanting to stay, due to all the FREE books! It was fantastic. According to the signs it’s a partnership between The Literacy Council of Central Alabama and the Brookwood Mall.
Brookwood Mall

Brookwood Mall

If you want to take a book – then take a book. It’s free! All they ask is that you leave a book too. What a great deal and what a great location.  .  . at a mall. I love it.

While I didn’t find anything to take home this trip, this will certainly be a place that I’ll check in on a good bit. They did have hardback copies of all three books in the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ series. Which is a good deal, if you haven’t gotten those yet.

Brookwood Mall

The bookcases surround the tops of the escalators outside of Macy’s as well as outside of Belk. I can vouch that the couch and chairs are indeed as comfy as they look.

Brookwood Mall

Brookwood Mall

I hope that this turns into a permanent setup at the mall. In fact, I hope it’s so successful that other malls, in the Birmingham area, will take note and set up their own free lending libraries.

Free Science Fiction Magazines

Sometimes the internet shows up to the party dressed to impress. This past week was one of those times as the Internet Archive made the entire original 175-issue run of the science fiction magazine IF available for free download.

If vintage pulp or vintage magazines are you thing, then is is something you definitely want to check out. The magazine ran from the early 1950’s to the early 1970’s. Each cover is like a time travel capsule to a different age. I think many are worth framing.

Science Fiction Magazine

There even seems to be a “bonus issue”? The very last issue posted at the Internet Archive is listed as Fall 1986 and declares a relaunch of sorts for the magazine, which closed in 1974. Not sure what happened to the rest of the run.

IF magazine published  serialized versions of many well-known science fiction authors like Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven and Harlan Ellison.

According to the Internet Archive, IF magazine won three Hugo Awards for “best professional magazine” in the late 60’s. At the end of its run IF magazine was folded into the Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.

Science Fiction Magazine Science Fiction Magazine

So check them out, if science fiction is your thing. I’m also anxious to take a look and see who designed these covers. Too many great representations of vintage science fiction artwork here not to dig in deeper.

New John Grisham Book is FREE

John Grisham has a new book out. It’s short and it’s totally free. You can download the kindle verison straight from Amazon or you can click over to this page and download any file format you want. You can even order a free hard cover copy!

John Grisham download FREEThe book is called “The Tumor” and it has nothing to do with the legal system and probably doesn’t even qualify as a “thriller”. This one is all about cancer and new technology. It’s something that seems near and dear to Grisham’s heart. So he decided to write this 49-page book, partner with the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and give it away. All just to help raise awareness about new technology available to fight cancer.

The story follows a 35-year old father of three as he goes through the prognosis and treatment of a brain tumor. Pretty heavy stuff from Grisham.

I haven’t read it yet. Let me know if you have and how the story stacks up.