Amazon.fr Opens French Kindle Store

Amazon.fr today launched the French Kindle Store offering customers a vast selection of over 35,000 French-language Kindle books, all 28 L'Express best sellers available in digital--the most in France--hundreds of popular graphic novels and over 4,000 free classics in French. The new store offers customers over 825,000 titles--including thousands of global best sellers--in English and other languages. Amazon also announced the first French-language Kindle--the smallest, lightest and most affordable Kindle ever--is available on Amazon.fr for only 99EUR . Amazon.fr customers can pre-order Kindle today on www.amazon.fr/kindle with a release date of October 14.

"French customers are passionate about books and reading, and just as we've seen in the US, UK and Germany, we believe they will love reading on Kindle. We are excited to bring our first French-language Kindle and our new Kindle store to millions of Amazon.fr customers," said Greg Greeley, vice president, Amazon European Retail. "Kindle is already the best-selling e-reader in the world. We kept everything readers love about Kindle--the electronic ink display that reads like real paper, with no glare, even in bright daylight, the convenience of downloading books in less than 60 seconds and Kindle's ability to disappear in your hands so you can get lost in the author's words--and made it lighter, smaller, faster, and more affordable than ever."

The French Kindle Store's vast selection of content includes popular titles from best-selling authors such as Katherine Pancol, Delphine de Vigan, Harlan Coben, Stéphane Hessel, Haruki Murakami, Françoise Bourdin and Michel Houellebecq in a wide range of categories. Customers will also find the largest selection of popular graphic novels available for download including titles from The Largo Winch Series of Francq and Van Hamme, Julia and Roem from Bilal and Walking Dead. Customers can also find top French newspapers and magazines such as Le Monde, Les Echos, Le Figaro, Libération and Aujourd'hui en France/Le Parisien available for single purchase or subscription. Independent authors and publishers can also now use Kindle Direct Publishing to make their books available in Amazon.fr's Kindle Store.

Kindle Free Pick of the Week: Just Dial 911 for Assistance

A great read, written about Chris Allen, a 911 Dispatcher and part-time online columnist.

He is is about to have a busy twelve days. For starters, there’s that pesky 911 call he took that’s probably going to send him to court. On the upside, though, Chris gets to meet the cute new receptionist at the Sheriff’s office. A hint of romance may cheer things up, that is, if his ex doesn’t keep hanging around and playing her usual mind games.

The book is written almost exclusively in dialogue, that can be sometimes difficult to keep up with- sometimes there's more than one conversation going on at a time. However, Chris is a witty, charmingly irreverent character and makes reading the story almost like having a conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed the lighthearted, breezy book.  Perfect for summer reading.  Get it while it's free.

Kindle Free Pick of the Week: The DNA of Relationships

Something different this week in the Kindle Store for free.

Like Smalley's previous books, THE DNA OF RELATIONSHIPS is engaging, largely because he sprinkles his teaching points with anecdotes in which he presents himself as the jerk who has taken years to learn lessons he wants to pass along; the "relationship expert" is just a regular guy. His style is also evident in this book's clear outline; for example, chapter 4, "The Power of One: Take Personal Responsibility" includes "six steps to take control of your emotions and reactions to life." For extra measure, each chapter ends with a one-page "One-Minute Review" of the major points.

Evelyn Bence, FaithfulReader

I'm not familair with Gary Smalley, and I have not read any of his other books.  Might give this a try for the heck of it.