August Audiobook Giveaway!

To celebrate August, the last month of summer, I have 9 great audiobooks available for a giveaway, courtesy of Penguin Audio. I have descriptions from Goodreads of each book below. If you would like to win one of the audiobooks, please leave a comment describing which audiobooks are your top two picks and why they sound interesting.

As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a Monte Carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!).

No P.O. Boxes.

The deadline for entry is midnight on Sunday August 31st.

Please make sure to check the first week of September to see if you are a winner. I send emails to the winner, but lately I've been put in their "junk mail" folder instead of their inbox.

Good luck!

Affliction by Laurell K. Hamilton

Some zombies are raised. Others must be put down. Just ask Anita Blake.

Before now, she would have considered them merely off-putting, never dangerous. Before now, she had never heard of any of them causing human beings to perish in agony. But that’s all changed.

Micah’s estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about “zombie disease.”

Anita makes her living off of zombies—but these aren’t the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes…

Where will it stop?
Even Anita Blake doesn’t know.

Dark Lycan by Christine Feehan

“The erotic, gripping series that has defined an entire genre” (J. R. Ward) continues as #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan links the fates of two strangers bound by a secret in the shadows of the Carpathian Mountains…

Tatijana of the Dragonseekers spent centuries encased in ice with her sister, trapped in limbo between life and death, never speaking to a soul other than those who tormented her. Now, she has been freed from her frozen prison by an unknown descendent. Awakened in human form, Tatijana yearns to explore the modern world in which she now lives—a world with more mysteries than she is prepared for.

Fenris Dalka has returned to the Carpathian Mountains after a long absence to be with his brother. He is scarred by centuries of battle, and every hard-won victory. But the real reason for his return home could prove deadly if discovered by the wrong man—or woman. Upon his arrival, he is compelled by a beautiful and enigmatic stranger who carries the scent of fresh earth, of forest, of the night itself.

In time Tatijana and Fenris will discover all that unites them—their secrets and pasts, their predators, and the hot flush of passion that stirs their souls. Yet just as surely, seduced into the silvery darkness of a full-moon night, they’ll also discover everything ancient and evil that exists to destroy them.

Includes a teaser for Christine Feehan’s next Carpathian novel, Dark Wolf.

The Map and the Territory by Alan Greenspan

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to

question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us?

To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether we're conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. Very often, however, we're steering by out-of-date maps, when we're not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control.

The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid using twenty-first-century technologies. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the author's own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can't. The book explores how culture is and isn't destiny and probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges, from debt and the reform of the welfare state to our competition with China to natural disasters in an age of global warming.

No map is the territory, but Greenspan's approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state

Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen

Musician and songwriter Donald Fagen presents a group of vivid set pieces in his entertaining debut

as an author, from portraits of the cultural figures and currents that shaped him as a youth to an account of his college days and of life on the road.

Fagen begins by introducing the “eminent hipsters” that spoke to him as he was growing up in a bland New Jersey suburb in the early 1960s, among them Jean Shepherd, whose manic nightly broadcasts out of WOR-Radio “enthralled a generation of alienated young people”; Henry Mancini, whose swank, noirish soundtracks left their mark on him; and Mort Fega, the laid-back, knowledgeable all-night jazz man at WEVD who was like “the cool uncle you always wished you had.” He writes of how, coming of age during the paranoid Cold War era, one of his primary doors of escape became reading science fiction, and of his invigorating trips into New York City to hear jazz. “Class of ’69” recounts Fagen’s colorful, mind-expanding years at Bard College, the progressive school north of New York City, where he first met his future musical partner Walter Becker. “With the Dukes of September” offers a cranky, hilarious account of the ups and downs of a recent cross-country tour Fagen made with Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald, performing a program of old R&B and soul tunes as well as some of their own hits.

Acclaimed for the elaborate arrangements and jazz harmonies of his songs, Fagen proves himself a sophisticated writer with a very distinctive voice in this engaging book.

Think and Grow Rich “Stickability”:  The Power of Perseverance by Greg S. Reid

The path to personal and professional success is not a one-way street. Most people encounter

setbacks and obstacles that threaten to derail them from their chosen route. The most successful people, however, adhere to their principles and goals, capitalizing on hidden opportunities, even in the face of what many would consider unconquerable obstacles. To coin a new word—these people have STICKABILITY!

This thought-provoking book shows readers of all ages and backgrounds how they, too, can not only apply the self-motivation principles of Napoleon Hill’s timeless and groundbreaking self-help volume Think and Grow Rich, but make them stick. Combining author Greg S. Reid’s modern business wisdom, interviews with numerous business celebrities like Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), Frank Shankwitz (founder of the Make a Wish foundation), and Martin Cooper (inventor of the cell phone), and valuable information from the secret files previously available only to the Napoleon Hill Foundation and its members, this book will reveal:

The “Three Causes of Failure” from Napoleon Hill’s hidden vault of wisdom The importance of flexibility The principle of relaxed intensity in action How to define and conquer your “cul-de-sac” moments How to overcome the ghost of fear The importance of insight through necessity And so much more! Each inspiring chapter will remind readers that if ever a discouraging moment arrives and the temptation to stop becomes greater than the dream, to keep one simple observation from Dr. Hill in mind:

“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step BEYOND their greatest setback and failure.”

STICKABILITY shows readers just how life-changing this simple principle can be. Additionally, it gives readers an outlines on how to develop their own stickability—and transform their lives forever!(

The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth

In Virginia, there is an agency bearing the bland name of Technical Operations Support Activity, or

TOSA. Its one mission is to track, find, and kill those so dangerous to the United States that they are on a short document known as the Kill List. TOSA actually exists. So does the Kill List.

Added to it is a new name: a terrorist of frightening effectiveness called the Preacher, who radicalizes young Muslims abroad to carry out assassinations. Unfortunately for him, one of the kills is a retired Marine general, whose son is TOSA’s top hunter of men.

He has spent the last six years at his job. He knows nothing about his target’s name, face, or location. He realizes his search will take him to places where few could survive. But the Preacher has made it personal now. The hunt is on.

Doing Hard Time by Stuart Woods

When Stone Barrington embarks on a trip to Bel-Air to check in on some business and personal

concerns, he expects a relaxing break from the fast pace and mean streets of New York.  But trouble never takes a vacation, and it has a way of finding Stone.  A case that had seemingly been resolved has returned in full force—with lethal results.  And this deadly situation makes for strange bedfellows when Stone finds himself teamed with the least likely ally . . . a gentleman of unique abilities, who can fly below the radar and above the law.

From the high-stakes poker tables of Las Vegas to California’s lush beachside resorts, the trail of disguise, subterfuge, and murder leads to a shocking conclusion.(

The Mayan Secrets by Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry

Husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo are in Mexico, when they come upon a remarkable

discovery—the skeleton of a man clutching an ancient sealed pot, and within the pot, a Mayan book, larger than anyone has ever seen. The book contains astonishing information about the Mayans, about their cities, and about mankind itself. The secrets are so powerful that some people would do anything to possess them—as the Fargos are about to find out.

Before their adventure is done, many men and women will die for that book—and Sam and Remi may just be among them.

Mirage by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul

In October 1943, a U.S. destroyer sailed out of Philadelphia and supposedly vanished, the result of a Navy experiment with electromagnetic radiati

on. The story was considered a hoax—but now Juan Cabrillo and his Oregon colleagues aren’t so sure.

There is talk of a new weapon soon to be auctioned, something very dangerous to America’s interests, and the rumors link it to the great inventor Nikola Tesla, who was
working with the Navy when he died in 1943. Was he responsible for the experiment? Are his notes in the hands of enemies? As Cabrillo races to find the truth, he discovers there is even more at stake than he could have imagined—but by the time he realizes it, he may already be too late.