This week’s Free Book Friday Prize is:

SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper

Howard E. Wasdin, Stephen Templin

When the navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six — a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and counterinsurgency. — In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes readers deep inside the world of navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers, beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL — the toughest and longest military training in the world.

After graduating, Wasdin faced new challenges. First, there was combat in Operation Desert Storm as a member of SEAL Team Two. Then, the Green Course: the selection process to join the legendary SEAL Team Six (ST6), with a curriculum that included practiced land warfare to unarmed combat. More than learning how to pick a lock, they learned how to blow the door off its hinges. Finally, as member of ST6, he graduated from the most storied and challenging sniper program in the country: the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. Eventually, of the eighteen snipers in ST6, Wasdin became the best — which meant one of the best snipers on the planet.

Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters, and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it became known, left eighteen American soldiers dead and seventy-three wounded. Howard Wasdin had both of his legs nearly blown off while engaging the enemy. His explosive combat tales and inside details of becoming one of the world’s deadliest snipers combine to make this the most thrilling and important memoir by a navy SEAL since Lone Survivor.

ISBN 9780312699451, Autographed Hardcover

1 Lucky member will win a brand-new autographed Hardcover copy!

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 12 noon EDT, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!

We can’t imagine life without books. They’ve been with us forever– from the fairy tales we read as children, through novels and science fiction and thrillers and memoirs, they’ve offered escape, instruction, entertainment, laughter and wisdom.

One thing we keep finding out: the genre of a book doesn’t necessarily predict what it might add to your life. Young adult books can give new perspectives even to grown-ups; some humorous books can contain a deeper truth.

So it shouldn’t have surprised us when we stumbled across some serious wisdom in a cookbook! Yes, a cookbook.

It says Start where you are. Feed yourself. Do your best, and then let go. Be helpful. Slow down. Don’t be afraid of food. Those are among the notes that Alana Chernila has on her refrigerator, and they also make the chapter headings for her cookbook, The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure.

The book goes right to the heart of a complex daily struggle for many. To eat organic, local, fresh and healthy — to do everything right — while the reality may be a grumpy hungry family at the end of a long day of work. Alana admits that sometimes she hates cooking dinner too! The Homemade Kitchen is a lovely cookbook — it’s beautifully photographed and includes basic recipes as well as fancier fare. But the author’s philosophy offers an extra dimension — like many books, this one is more than the sum of its parts.

Encountering The Homemade Kitchen reminded us again to stay adventurous in reading, to try books that might not be in a favorite genre, or a new author we’ve never heard of. Members have often told us that PaperBackSwap makes it easy to discover new authors or genres, since it’s not a huge commitment to get a book, and every book can be swapped again for a different one when you’re done reading.

Written as much for the reader as the cook, The Homemade Kitchen covers a globe’s worth of flavors and includes new staples (what Alana is known for) such as chèvre, tofu, kefir, kimchi, preserved lemons, along with recipes and ideas for using them. Here, too, are dishes you’ll be inspired to try and that you will make again and again until they become your own family recipes, such as Broccoli Raab with Cheddar Polenta, a flavor-forward lunch for one; Roasted Red Pepper Corn Chowder, “late summer in a bowl”; Stuffed Winter Squash, rich with leeks, chorizo, apples, and grains; Braised Lamb Shanks that are tucked into the oven in the late afternoon and not touched again until dinner; Corn and Nectarine Salad showered with torn basil; perfect share-fare Sesame Noodles; Asparagus Carbonara, the easiest weeknight dinner ever; and sweet and savory treats such as Popovers, Cinnamon Swirl Bread, Summer Trifle made with homemade pound cake and whatever berries are ripest, and Rhubarb Snacking Cake.

In this follow-up to Alana’s wildly successful debut, The Homemade Pantry, she once again proves herself to be the truest and least judgmental friend a home cook could want. ISBN 9780385346153

We are giving away a free, brand-new copy of this cookbook to one lucky member here on the Blog! Leave a comment telling us about a book that surprised you — that you didn’t expect to enjoy as much as you did– before the end of Sunday June 26th, and we’ll choose a commenter at random to receive The Homemade Kitchen . We’ll announce the winner here in the blog next week! NB: Contest open to PaperBackSwap members only (join here!).

The Winner of the brand new copy of

The Red Circle by Brandon Webb is:

Marcia W.

Congratulations, your book will be on the way to you soon!

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Blog!

The Red Circle by Brandon Webb

Brandon Webb’s experiences in the world’s most elite sniper corps are the stuff of legend. From his grueling years of training in Naval Special Operations to his combat tours in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, The Red Circle provides a rare and riveting look at the inner workings of the U.S. military through the eyes of a covert operations specialist.

Yet it is Webb’s distinguished second career as a lead instructor for the shadowy “sniper cell” and Course Manager of the Navy SEAL Sniper Program that trained some of America’s finest and deadliest warriors-including Marcus Luttrell and Chris Kyle-that makes his story so compelling. From his days as a student going through the sniper course to his hair-raising close calls with Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the northern Afghanistan to his vivid account of designing new sniper standards and training some of the most accomplished snipers of the twenty-first century, Webb reveals how the Special Operations warriors at the forefront of today’s military are forged.

ISBN 9781250055095, Mass Market Paperback

There are currently 5 Members wishing for this book. 1 lucky member will win a brand-new copy.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 12 noon EDT, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!

The Winner of the brand new copy of

Luck Be a Lady by Meredith Duran is:

Karina A.

Congratulations, your book will be on the way to you soon!

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Blog!

Luck Be a Lady
by Meredith Duran

THE WALLFLOWER — They call her the “Ice Queen.”  Catherine Everleigh is London’s loveliest heiress, but a bitter lesson in heartbreak has taught her to keep to herself.  All she wants is her birthright — the auction house that was stolen from her.  To win this war, she’ll need a powerful ally.  Who better than infamous and merciless crime lord Nicholas O’Shea?  A marriage of convenience will no doubt serve them both.

THE CRIME LORD — Having conquered the city’s underworld, Nick seeks a new challenge.  Marrying Catherine will give him the appearance of legitimacy — and access to her world of the law-abiding elite.  No one needs to know he’s coveted Catherine for a year now — their arrangement is strictly business, free from the troubling weaknesses of love.  Seduction, however, is a different matter — an enticing game he means to ensure she enjoys, whether she wishes to or not….

ISBN 9781476741369, Mass Market Paperback

There are currently 14 Members wishing for this book. 1 lucky member will win a brand-new copy.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, June 12, 2016 at 12 noon EDT, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!