Susan Danziger
CEO/Founder, DailyLit
sdanziger@dailylit.com

Alice Munro: Our Big Read
Writer Alice Munro won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her lifetime body of work, and people are over the moon about her latest short story collection, Too Much Happiness. We’re excited to feature one of her short stories (”Fiction”) as this month’s Big Read. Life, love and writing all intertwine in one woman’s life. Read it here.

New! Berlitz Essential French (and Spanish)
Given the amazing response we had from the launch of Berlitz Spanish Lessons, we’ve teamed up with Berlitz again to offer Berlitz Essential French. And while we’re at it, we’re offering Berlitz Essential Spanish too. Both series feature bite-sized lessons in vocabulary perfect for travelers (or at least arm-chair travelers), from culture to transportation and accommodations. Read Essential French here and Essential Spanish here. (And if you missed our exclusive Berlitz Spanish Lessons, you can find those here.)

Kaplan SAT Prep
Taking the SATs or have a friend who’s due? We’ve got a daily course for that extra little something—and it’s all on us! Read it here.

Reader Challenge: Love Bites
We heard about this challenge on Twitter and thought it would be a fun Reader Challenge for February. Tell a love story (your own or make one up) in 140 characters or fewer—that is, the length of a single tweet or short sentence. We’ll choose five winners who will each receive a copy of Us: Americans Talk About Love, a collection of folks talking about love. Post your love bites in our Reader Challenge Forum by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, March 7th to be included in the contest.

New Detective Story
We know from our recent survey that Laurel Dewey’s heroine, Detective Jane Perry, has become a reader favorite, so we’re excited to launch the fifth and final piece of original fiction featuring the detective, Promissory Payback. And if you missed the first four pieces, you can find them here.

Our Book Channel
Our Book Channel brings you excerpts from books hand-selected by DailyLit staff and those in the know in the book industry. We’ve recently featured the 2009 Man Book Prize winner for fiction; a new novel that O, the Oprah Magazine called “mesmerizing;” and the #1 New York Times bestselling Happiness Project. What’s up next? It’s a surprise, of course, but count on more bestsellers, award-winners, and buzzed-about titles—the ones everyone will be talking about. Sign up for our Book Channel here.

And, finally, thought you’d enjoy this love sonnet from Shakespeare (I’ve always heard the first line but never really read it myself):

XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From Sonnets by William Shakespeare.

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
susan [at] dailylit [dot] com

Diane von Furstenberg Brings Favorite Book to DailyLit for Free
Iconic designer Diane von Furstenberg has a holiday gift for you: one of her favorite reads this year is now available on DailyLit for free.  Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman is a fast-paced biography that tells the glamorous, dramatic story of a woman who was a true force to be reckoned with. Vogue Magazine called it “a timely mediation on female power and an inspiring profile of one woman’s courage.” Thanks to Diane and the publisher, it’s free through the end of January. Read it.

New! DailyLit Kicks off “Big Ideas”
“Big Ideas” is designed to inspire you with new ideas for both work and play.  Kicking off this new channel is inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book Crush It! Cash In on your Passion.  He grew his family’s wine business and became a national industry leader, landing him at #18 on AskMen.com’s list of 50 most influential Men of 2009. Read it–FREE.

DailyLit’s Big Read: Short Story by John Grisham
Bestselling author John Grisham just released his first ever collection of short stories, Ford County–and we’ve selected one as this month’s Big Read. “Fetching Raymond” is a simple, powerful story about a day one family knew was coming but still can’t face. Read it–FREE.

Reader Challenge
As bestselling author Daniel Pink wrote, exercising your creativity leads to personal and professional success.  With that in mind, and holiday dinners fast approaching, this month’s reader challenge asks you to imagine a fictional holiday gathering and describe–in no more than 50 words–a character, conversation or event at your holiday meal. Share your mini-stories in our Reader Challenge forum. And to sweeten the pot, we’ll select three winners, each of whom will receive a copy of Mollie Katzen’s new book, Get Cooking.

New reads
–Grammar Girl: She’s on the scene to make grammar easy and fun with her “quick and dirty” tips.  We’ve got a selection from her new book that will make you a better writer. Read it–FREE.
–Jane Perry Returns: In a second piece of original writing, Laurel Dewey’s inimitible heroine Detective Jane Perry returns to DailyLit. Get into her head with “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover,” a blog entry by the detective. Read it–FREE. (And if you missed the first installment, “An Unfinished Death,” read it here–FREE.)

Pause Your Books for the Holidays
You’ve always been able to suspend and resume delivery of your books using the links at the end of any installment. Now, with the holidays coming up, when you want to suspend your book, you can set a date for it to automatically resume.  Just click on the “suspend” link at the bottom of any installment to set it up.

Upload Your Picture Now–You May Win a Grisham Book
To make our community a little friendlier, join us for some facetime here at DailyLit.  Help us out by uploading a personalized profile picture. Your face, your cat, your favorite painting–doesn’t matter what you choose. And everyone with a personalized picture uploaded by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, November 22nd will be automatically entered to win one of five copies of John Grisham’s new book Ford County.

Come to the dark side with one of our spooky books. And have a very happy Halloween.

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
• Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
• Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (this month’s Big Read)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Famous Modern Ghost Stories

We’ve seen some comments from our own readers that show how well-loved Jane Perry is. Recently in our forums Lad525 said “I love the realness and straight talking attitude of her main character, Detective Jane Perry.” And Wildcat1733 was excited too:

“I just signed up with Daily Lit when I found out about them serializing original short stories by Laurel Dewey. Thank you! Thank you! I’ve read both Jane Perry novels (PROTECTOR and REDEMPTION) and devoured them. She has quickly become one of my top ten favorite writers. If you like your fiction gritty, creative, character-driven and thought-provoking, you too will LOVE Laurel Dewey’s stories.”

For her part, Dewey, who has said that Jane came to her, fully formed and “demanded that [Dewey] learn about her,” was surprised by how much her readers responded to Jane:

“I wasn’t prepared for was the massive connection Jane Perry would have with readers who ranged in age from fourteen to ninety. While her impatient, gritty, and often foul-mouthed behavior irritated some people, they also admitted that they couldn’t stop reading. The majority were drawn to Jane’s intelligence, compassion, intuition and brutal honesty, as well as the indelible impression she makes as a survivor….What was intriguing was that readers didn’t so much want to be like Jane; rather, they wanted to hang out with her.”

Unfinished Death–published for the first time on DailyLit–drops us into Jane’s world in the dark days before her first novel, Protector. We’ve been able to make this story–and the four novellas that will come out over the next four months–absolutely free thanks to the publisher, Storyplant, who’s counting down to the launch of Dewey’s book Redemption in February 2010. Enjoy!

If you’d like to read more about readers’ reactions to Jane Perry, visit Laurel Dewey’s site.

Thanks again for all your support.

Sincerely,
Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
susan@dailylit.com

NPR’s List of “Best Beach Reads Ever”
Our usual Big Read is on vacation this month (it’s August, after all!). Instead, we thought we’d highlight books on DailyLit that made NPR’s list of “Best Beach Reads Ever” (as determined by its audience). Here they are—all available for FREE on DailyLit:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen;
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain;
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy;
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas;
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott;
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll;
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte;
Dracula by Bram Stoker;
and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. FREE for the taking.

Get Organized, Get Away, Get Thrills: New Books on DailyLit
—Get Organized: Staying organized doesn’t come easily to most kids—or to most parents for that matter. I’m definitely signing up for this series on Organizing the Disorganized Child: Tips and Tricks. It’s being made available for FREE on DailyLit thanks to HarperStudio, which is coming out with Organizing the Disorganized Child this fall.

—Get Away: August may be a popular vacation month, but if you can’t get away, escape with our Travel Books. Check out the 100 Places Every Woman Should Go or head out on safari with Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide.

—Get Thrills: If you’d rather read for thrills, we’re offering more short stories from best-selling author Jeffery Deaver in More Twisted and a pulp sci-fi classic, Star Ways, by award-winning author Poul Anderson.
Reader Challenge: Summer in 6 Words
With summer starting to wind down (ugh, can’t believe I said that!), this month’s reader challenge highlights a favorite back-to-school assignment. Tell us what you did on your summer vacation in—you guessed it—six words, and share your odes to summertime in our Reader Challenge Forum.
Tips and Tricks on DailyLit

Here are some useful tips you may not know that can help make DailyLit even easier to use:

—Customize: You can completely customize the delivery date, time, format (HTML or plain-text), and length (normal, 2X, or 4X) of your installments. Click on “Advanced” while you’re signing up for a book or click on the “Manage Your Book Settings” link at the end of any installment—then click on “More” next to the name of the book you want to edit.

—Connect: You can link your DailyLit profile to Twitter to let your followers know what you’ve been reading, become a fan of DailyLit on Facebook, and log in to DailyLit using Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, MySpace, AOL, and OpenID. Oh, and you can follow @DailyLit on Twitter, too!

—Keep Track: You can create Booklists on DailyLit to keep track of books you like or books you want to read. And, when you finish your current book, the next book on your To-Read list will automatically start coming to you.

—Show Off: Show your friends what you’re reading by putting the DailyLit book roll onto your blog. Login to DailyLit and you’ll see a link to “Add a book roll to your blog” under the “Your Widgets” heading.

—Keep Up: If sometimes your scheduled installments don’t appear, don’t worry. Check your spam folder to see if they ended up there. If not, you can easily resend installments to yourself by following the directions here.

We have a real treat for you this month. One of my favorite authors, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri, is making a short story available for FREE to DailyLit readers. We’re also offering a spy thriller by best-selling author Joe Finder for FREE. And, for some short summertime reads, check out stories by best-selling authors Jeffery Deaver and Mary Higgins Clark. Oh, and if you appreciate what we’ve been doing, come become a fan on Facebook.

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
susan@dailylit.com

DailyLit’s Big Read: Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jhumpa Lahiri

Our new July Big Read is (drumroll please…) Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, “Hell-Heaven,” from Unaccustomed Earth. For those of you not familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri, she’s a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and deserves all the glowing praise there is; she’s simply amazing! Here she tells the story of a family forever changed by one woman’s quiet love. READ FOR FREE.

Featured Free Thriller: Paranoia by Best-selling Author Joe Finder

Best-selling author Joe Finder comes to DailyLit with the spy thriller Paranoia, made completely FREE for our readers. Here’s what you have in store: when a slacker employee crosses his boss, to avoid criminal charges he needs to spy on a rival corporation. Soon he’s in way over his head—and then the real nightmare begins. READ FOR FREE.

Reader Challenge: Summer Love in One Sentence

Inspiration for this month’s reader challenge came from Jhumpa Lahiri, who’s known for her turns of phrase that are short yet revealing. You’ll see what I mean when you read “Hell-Heaven”, this month’s Big Read, which tells the story of an unexpected love. In a single sentence—that’s right, a single sentence—tell your own story of summer love. Share your single-sentence love story in our Reader Challenge Forum.

Short Stories from Jeffery Deaver and Mary Higgins Clark

…are now here! Jeffery Deaver, described as the “grand master of the plot twist,” comes to DailyLit with thrilling crime stories. Get single stories for just $.99 (for a limited time only!) or read the whole collection, Twisted. And we’ve got mystery stories from Mary Higgins Clark’s The Lottery Winner, which spent 12 weeks on PW’s bestseller list.

Inspiring Tips for Your Life

- The Life Plan: Many of us would like to make our lives better but don’t know where to start. The Life Plan: 700 Simple Ways to Change Your Life for the Better offers daily tips and inspiration to improve your life throughout the year. Check it out HERE.

- My Start-Up Life: Here’s a book that will either inspire you or thoroughly depress you! At the age of 12 Ben Casnocha founded a company; by 19 he was a CEO. Just think of him as the Doogie Howser of Silicon Valley. Read it HERE.

Classics by Request

Thanks to requests from readers “Cloward” and “dreamdust,” we’ve just launched an early collection of poems by C.S. Lewis. Spirits in Bondage, one of Lewis’s first published works, is now available for FREE on DailyLit. Read C.S. Lewis for FREE.

DailyLit is on Facebook

DailyLit is on Facebook! Become a fan of DailyLit to see who else is reading with us and show your friends what you spend all your time at “work” doing. Plus, you’ll get the latest from DailyLit and find out about new books and features right as they happen. Become a fan and share your thoughts about DailyLit HERE. (Oh, and @DailyLit is on Twitter, too!)