They are piled high on my desk at work, on my nightstand and bookshelves at home, and they keep multiplying.

I have too many books, and still I want more. When not satisfying my book addiction at local stores such as Gently Used Books in Douglassville or Wellington Square Bookshop in Exton, I can now get some of the latest novels online for pretty cheap, thanks to some good old fashioned price wars.

Three major retailers are offering new bestsellers at UNDER $10, according to a report today from The Associated Press:

Target joins in price war on expected best sellers

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

AP Retail Writer
NEW YORK — Target Corp. has thrown itself into a heated price war on books expected to be top sellers.

The Minneapolis-based discounter said Monday that it will offer some of this season's most anticipated book titles at $8.99, in line with recent moves by Walmart.com and Amazon.com.
Target says the price applies to pre-orders on Target.com of such books as "Breathless" by Dean Koontz, "Ford Country" by James Patterson and "Under the Dome" by Stephen King.

The book battle started Thursday, Oct. 15, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said its Web site, walmart.com, would charge just $10, with free shipping, for such upcoming hardcover releases as Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" and John Grisham's "Ford County,"60 percent or more off the regular cost.

Amazon.com, the largest online book seller, then matched the prices. The fight became even fiercer when the two competitors lowered the prices even further to $9 by Friday, Oct. 16.

A check online Monday afternoon of several of the titles revealed that Target.com, Amazon and Walmart.com have similar prices. Walmart.com and Target.com are selling "Under the Dome" and "Breathless" at $8.99, a penny less than Amazon.com.

The price war, occurring as the critical holiday shopping season gets under way, is bad news for independent bookstores, as well as the large chain bookstores Borders Group Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. These chains have seen their sales and profits squeezed by discounting and a decline in their music business.

Wal-Mart has said that the steep book discounts won't be available in stores.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not one of those people who's always right on top of their cell phones. In fact, if you've called or texted my cell in the recent past and I haven't gotten back to you, it's not that I'm ignoring you: I probably just haven't checked my messages lately.

So when I saw this news report that Amazon will be selling book downloads directly to your cell phone, I was a little incredulous. My Motorola Razr has about 5 lines' worth of space. Not exactly conducive for prolonged bouts of reading.

But I guess that's not the point. The point is that the technology is now available, in case you're looking for something to read during those moments in line at the grocery store or in the dentist's waiting room.

Rejoice.

And prepare to squint.

Date: 2/6/2009 2:11 PM

Amazon to offer Kindle e-books on cell phones

NEW YORK (AP) — Books that Amazon.com Inc. sells for its Kindle electronic reading device will also be available on cell phones, too.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said Friday that the Seattle-based online retailer is working on making Kindle books available "on a range of mobile phones." The company is not yet saying when the books will be available, or on which phones.

Another e-book provider, Mobipocket, which is owned by Amazon, already sells titles that can be read on numerous smart phones. And on Thursday, Google Inc. announced that titles available from its Book Search service can now be read on Apple Inc.'s iPhone or a phone running its Android operating system. For now that would just be the G1, which is sold by T-Mobile.

Amazon is widely expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle device at a news conference Monday at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

The company has not released sales figures for the first version of the Kindle, which it rolled out in late 2007. Amazon said last fall it sold out of the $359 device after Oprah Winfrey endorsed it. The company has made 230,000 titles available on the Kindle, which can download books wirelessly.