Some haiku deals at Amazon

With Black Friday coming up, there are deals everywhere online. If you're looking for a good book of haiku, either for yourself or as a gift, here are some decent deals on haiku books at Amazon:

- Baseball Haiku ($7.98)
This collection of haiku about one of America's favorite games includes poems by Alan Pizzarelli, Masaoka Shiki, Jack Kerouac, Ed Markowski, George Swede, and editor Cor van den Heuvel. Even if you're not a fan of baseball, this book has some good haiku.

- Vampire Haiku ($4.00)
If you liked Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum, Vampire Haiku is along the same veins, just about vampires instead. There are only 12 copies left in stock, so if you want one, order it soon. $4.00 is a really low price for this book; I think it usually sells for somewhere between $8 and $10.

- The River of Heaven: The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki ($11.64)
I haven't read any of the haiku in this book, but it includes poems by the four masters, as well as commentary and stories by Robert Aitken. At 208 pages, $11.64 is a pretty good price (especially since the list price is $15.95). There are only 13 copies of this one left at Amazon.

All three of these books are eligible for Amazon's free shipping deal, where if you spend $25 or more (on most items) you get free shipping.

5 novels I wish I'd written

Charles Gramlich made a post a while back in which he listed five novels he wished he'd written. Here are my five:

1. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. 1984, by George Orwell
4. War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
5. The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac

If anyone still hasn't picked up a copy of Baseball Haiku, it's down to only $3.67 on Amazon. Not bad for a brand new hardcover book. (If you spend $25, you get free shipping.)

Baseball Haiku

I'm not sure what's going on over at Amazon -- maybe it's a glitch in the system -- but right now Baseball Haiku is on sale for only $5.15. (That's 74% off the regular price.) If you've ever thought about buying a copy, now is definitely the time.

Baseball Haiku is a 256-page hardcover book (the Kindle version is also $5.15) with great poems by Cor van den Heuvel, Ed Markowski, and George Swede, among many others. I'm not sure why Amazon has it marked down so much, but haiku fans should definitely snatch this one up.

Amazon offers free shipping on most orders over $25, so if you're looking to reach that $25 mark, here are some other books on sale:

- The Haiku Handbook, by William J. Higginson with Penny Harter - $10.08
- Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass - $12.48
- The Haiku Anthology, edited by Cor van den Heuvel - $11.53
- Japanese Death Poems, compiled by Yoel Hoffman - $11.53

P.S. My review of Modern Haiku is currently the featured article over at Helium.com. If you've never read Modern Haiku, it's a great magazine, filled to the brim with good poems.

Contest Deadline, Baseball Haiku

Tomorrow is the deadline for submitting to the Basho Haiku Challenge, so hurry up and send in your haiku if you haven't already done so.

If you find yourself with a free minute and want to hear one of the haiku masters, go to FORA.tv and listen to Cor van den Heuvel discuss baseball haiku, and hear him read the very first American baseball haiku, written by Jack Kerouac.

While the Basho Haiku Challenge may close on 10/2, Boulevard opens for submissions that same day. The editors accept (they even say "encourage") simultaneous submissions, and they pay $25-300 for poems up to 200 lines.