First I've seen (but I'll bet not the last): Get a free app with the purchase of a book.

"Dad's Eye View: 52 Family Adventures in the Twin Cities," by Michael Hartford and published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, offers a free scannable app for your iPhone. It allows you to search locations by season, venue and price, find reviews and get directions.

Now, if it offered a free iPhone, they might really get my attention.

Also ...

• Nancy Paddock blends poetry, memories, old photos and graceful writing in her memoir, "A Song at Twilight: Of Alzheimer's and Love," the story of her St. Paul parents' descent into Alzheimer's disease. It has been published by Blue Road Press.

• Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" will be published as a picture book by Sterling in November, with paintings by Jon J. Muth.

• "The Face of America: Plays for Young People," edited by Peter Brosius and Elissa Adams of the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, will be published in October by the University of Minnesota Press. The book is a collection of multicultural plays commissioned by the Children's Theatre.

• Catherine Friend, author of "Hit by a Farm" and "Sheepish," has a young adult book coming out in the fall. "Barn Boot Blues" will be published in October by Marshall Cavendish. It's about a 12-year-old city girl who moves to a (you guessed it) farm.

• "Oh, Mighty Mississippi," by Melissa Vocelka and Amy Larson, has been published by North Star Press of St. Cloud. The children's picture book is set in Itasca State Park, headwaters of the Mississippi.

• "The Orchard," a memoir by Theresa Weir of St. Paul, will be published in September by Grand Central. Weir is a New York Times best-selling author of fiction (some under the name Anne Frasier). Her new book is about working with her husband on an apple farm that is deeply tainted by herbicides.

• "Cooking in Canoe Country" by Robert Black -- not just recipes, but sensible advice on how to pack, what to bring, how to build a fire -- has been published by Nodin Press.

• Susan Niz's debut YA novel, "Kara, Lost," has been published by North Star Press of St. Cloud. It's the story of a 16-year-old girl who heads to Minneapolis to find her sister.