The Romance of Morien

"Few documents portray the ethnicity of the Moors in medieval Europe with more passion, boldness and clarity than the epic of Morien...He first challenges, then battles, and finally wins the unqualified respect and admiration of Sir Lancelot...Ultimately, and ironically, Sir Morien came to personify all of the finest virtues of the knights of the European Middle Ages." - from "Nature Knows No Color-Line" , By J.A. Rogers


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Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

"It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end [...] Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance a those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent."— Musings upon the Big/Little end heresy, Gulliver's Travels

"One of the precursors of Speculative Fiction, [Gulliver's Travels], was written by Jonathan Swift as a parody of the now-dead genre of traveller's tale, satirising 18th century follies, but is now, sadly, largely remembered as a children's tale, despite being Swift'sMagnum Opus and a heavily satirical and adult book."- Tv Tropes

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Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Andersen Nexø

"The great charm of the book seems to me to lie in the fact that the writer knows the poor from within; he has not studied them as an outsider may, but has lived with them and felt with them, at once a participant and a keen-eyed spectator... His sympathy is of the widest, and he makes us see tragedies behind the little comedies, and comedies behind the little tragedies, of the seemingly sordid lives of the working people whom he loves." - Otto Jespersen, Introductory note to English translation (1913)



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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full."

"The word PRINCESS doesn't mean what it used to and I want to reclaim the meaning of this word from the pink swathed, tiara wearing, big eyed, marketing manufactured princesses now captivating the minds of most little girls under the age of eight."- books4yourkids review

"I loved it because at its heart this is a story about one of my very favourite themes: the power of stories and the imagination. It’s a story about how they help make us more compassionate by stepping into the shoes of fictional others, how they save us, how they can be a refuge, and how they give us hope."  - Things Mean a Lot review


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Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley

To a LADY on her remarkable Preservation
in an Hurricane in North-Carolina.

THOUGH thou did'st hear the tempest from afar,
And felt'st the horrors of the wat'ry war,
To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore
Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar,
And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand
Compell'd the Nereids to usurp the land.
Reluctant rose the daughters of the main,
And slow ascending glided o'er the plain,
Till AEolus in his rapid chariot drove
In gloomy grandeur from the vault above:
Furious he comes. His winged sons obey
Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea.
The billows rave, the wind's fierce tyrant roars,
And with his thund'ring terrors shakes the shores:
Broken by waves the vessel's frame is rent,
And strows with planks the wat'ry element.
But thee, Maria, a kind Nereid's shield
Preserv'd from sinking, and thy form upheld:
And sure some heav'nly oracle design'd
At that dread crisis to instruct thy mind
Things of eternal consequence to weigh,
And to thine heart just feelings to convey
Of things above, and of the future doom,
And what the births of the dread world to come.
From tossing seas I welcome thee to land.
"Resign her, Nereid," 'twas thy God's command.
Thy spouse late buried, as thy fears conceiv'd,
Again returns, thy fears are all reliev'd:
Thy daughter blooming with superior grace
Again thou see'st, again thine arms embrace;
O come, and joyful show thy spouse his heir,
And what the blessings of maternal care!



Biography of Phillis Wheatly


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The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell

"And, sure, it’s not feminist literature or anything, but I found it charming, in a disturbing kind of way, and I’m sorry I put it off for so long. Yes, there’s a helpless, slightly dithery young woman, but she’s only helpless and dithery in fairly trying situations. Other times, she likes to play hockey. And yes, the hero is powerful and commanding and all that, but he also looks like a monkey and is slightly insane (Dell repeatedly describes him as looking like a monkey. The insanity I figured out on my own.)" - Redeeming Qualities review


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Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser

The novel is referenced by  Harvey Pekar in the film American Splendor (2003).

"In a 1911 review, H. L. Mencken wrote, "Jennie Gerhardt is the best American novel I have ever read, with the lonesome but Himalayan exception of Huckleberry Finn." Beautiful, vital, generous, but morally naïve and unconscious of social conventions, Jennie is a working-class woman who emerges superior to the succession of men who exploit her. There are no villains in this novel; in Dreiser's view, everyone is victimized by the desires that the world excites but can never satisfy." - The Library of America

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Dubliners by James Joyce

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves...His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
- "The Dead"

"Mostly it's what it says on the tin, it's about Dubliners, people who live in Dublin, many different sorts of people... It certainly does not feel nearly a hundred years old; any of these stories could appear in a modern literary magazine tomorrow and not appear dated. That is rare." Rush-That-Speaks

"And Joyce is excellent at fulfilling those expectations: he gives us the truth of things, and much more than that, beautiful things for us to look at." - about.com

　
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Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality by Benjamin I. Page and Lawrence R. Jacobs.

University of Chicago Press Free eBook of the Month


"Class War? is the right question, and Page and Jacobs provide the right answer: Americans are more concerned about inequality and less divided over what should be done about it than the pundits presume. Everyone interested in America’s widening income gap—and everyone, including our leaders, should be—needs to read this book."—Jacob S. Hacker



"It should be read, not as a carefully balanced contribution to the literature, but as a polemic, as a challenge, as a call to arms."  - John Benson, University of Wolverhampton



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This book is free only until February 29th 2012

A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew A. Henson

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

FIRST PANEL: (two explorers, one black, one white, both with parkas and mustaches)

Black Explorer (Matt Henson): Like I said Peary, here it is.

White Explorer (Robert Peary): At last! It's mine!

SECOND PANEL: (we now see that Peary is strapped to a dog sled)

Peary: Now get me out of this sled so that I may be the FIRST to set foot on the NORTH POLE!!

THIRD PANEL:

Henson: Well, I already did, before we drove you here.

Peary: Oh, Henson, you know what I mean.

FOURTH PANEL: (Henson has a serious look on his face)

Heson: Yes, I see

FIFTH PANEL:

Henson: Man, it sure feels nice, being up here on the North Pole.

Peary: Henson let me out of this sled.

SIXTH PANEL:

Henson: Gonna do some squats.

Peary: HENSON

Henson: On the North Pole. Feels good.

SEVENTH PANEL

Henson: Phew! All those squats, they're making me tired! Who's ready to go home?

EIGHTH PANEL: (the dog sled races away. Henson is grinning ear to ear. Peary looks as mad as hell. )] - Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton



"It is always interesting to note that at the very same time that Canadian immigration was insisting black people couldn't handle the cold, a black man was the first non-native person to set foot on the North Pole. This is such a stupid country sometimes." -Kate Beaton

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National Geographic Profile of Matthew A. Henson

My Double Life by Sarah Bernhardt

"My life, which I had at first expected to be very short, now seemed likely to be very very long; and it gave me great joy to think of the infernal displeasure that would cause my enemies." - Sarah Bernhardt



Sarah Bernhardt (22/23 October 1844 — 26 March 1923) was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a serious dramatic actress, earning the nickname "The Divine Sarah". - Wikipedia



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A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."


" Professor Otto Lidenbrock, a rather eccentric geologist, stumbles across ancient runes in a book from the twelfth-century one day. The runes are written ancient Icelandic and once deciphered reveals that to be written by a famous fifteenth-century explorer, Arne Saknussemm, who was declared a heretic. Once the runes are eventually translated, they read:
Go down into the crater of Snaefells Yocul which the shadow of Scartaris caresses before the calends of July, O audacious traveller, and you will reach the centre of the Earth. I did it. Arne Saknussemm. – p. 25
So off Professor Lidenbrock goes, taking (or rather dragging) along his very reluctant nephew, Axel." - madbibliophile review

　

"One of the oldest themes in storytelling deals with a trip to the
underworld—a plot of such universal appeal that it has even been
given a name: katabasis literature, from the Greek word
signifying descent...Give credit to Jules Verne for taking this
ancient plot and finding a completely new
basis for it—namely the scientific journey
into the underworld." - conceptual fiction review

　


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 Comic Adaptation

 Radio Drama

Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians by Woislav M. Petrovitch

"This beautiful, illustrated book recounts the many heroes and legends of Serbian folklore. Beginning with a historical overview of the country's key characters, themes, and superstitions, it also includes prose translations of many Serbian folk ballads. A treat for fans of mythology and fairy tales, and a glimpse into the poetic soul of a country little known to most westerners.

WOISLAV M. PETROVITCH (1885?-1934) was an attach to the Serbian Royal Legation to the Court of St. James's, and a translator. He also wrote Serbia: Her People, History and Aspirations and Key to the Serbian Conversation Grammar." - Googlebooks


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Beowulf

Beowulf got ready,
donned his war-gear, indifferent to death;
his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail
would soon meet with the menace underwater.
It would keep the bone-cage of his body safe
- Beowulf 1442-1446

Tv Tropes Page

An informal (and hilarious) recap


The original can be found here. A free translation is available, but personally I prefer the Seamus Heaney one, that I have quoted above.

A note on translation.

A reading by Michael Drout, Professor of English at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

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Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates

First published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction, this short story was the basis for the classic movie 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'

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The Octopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris

[Image description: a political cartoon depicting a giant, smiling octopus with "railroad monopoly" written on it. Its tentacles are wrapped around a bank, a ship, a truck, and several farmers. On the bottom of the page are several graves, with "mussel slough" written beside it.]

The first part of a planned but uncompleted trilogy, The Epic of Wheat. It describes the raising of wheat in California, and conflicts between the wheat growers and a railway company. Norris was inspired by the role of the Southern Pacific Railroad in events surrounding the Mussel Slough Tragedy - Wikipedia

"Norris's antagonists are not cardboard heavies but conflicted, complex characters, who often resort to blaming the very system they thrive in...Nor are the novel's farmers always long-suffering victims, but often headstrong and ill-tempered figures, whose pride precipitates violence." - Zola in San Francisco


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Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome

"A humorous account of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford." -  Wikipedia

"You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.

If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:

"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:

"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted- put you right in less than no time."

Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with:

"So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar." - Three Men In A Boat

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 Audio book

Collections of Nothing by William Davies King

 The University of Chicago Press Free ebook of the Month

"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one.… His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."—New Yorker

"King’s book is short but dense, encompassing in 163 pages an autobiography, a self-psychoanalysis, an apologia, and an initial finding aid to his collection. He enjoys wordplay: puns, chiasmus, unexpected and creative repetition. His sentences can act like linguistic traps, making you linger to puzzle them out. They give the sense of someone trapped by his own hyper-creativity" - bookslut.com review

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(free only until January 31st. 2012)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Spirited Elizabeth Bennet matches wits and wiles of the heart with the arrogant Mr. Darcy in this entertaining portrait of matrimonial rites and rivalries in Regency England.

"This is the important point to remember about classic literature--the reason why it even became classic in the first place: classic works can be read simply because they're enjoyable to read, simply because when truth and insight are added to fiendish complexity of plot and a strong capacity for wit, the results are rarely dry fodder for academics." -About.com review

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