Sunday, November 28, 2010

Chapters from My Autobiography - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

I wrote about Huckleberry Finn in my first blog, so I promise this is not going to be the Mark Twain blog. But I am fascinated that Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain is on the bestseller list. His complete autobiography had a literary embargo so that it could not be published until one hundred years after his death. He is now dishing the dirt from beyond the grave.

But if you want the expurgated version which was published and popular in his lifetime, you can get it for semi-free.

It is not the book titled Mark Twain's Burlesque Autobiography (UK edition) (Deutsch edition) which is free for the Kindle, but which you may not want to read. Twain hated the book so much, he bought up the plates and destroyed them. He anticipated much, but apparently not scanners.

You are looking for the 99 cent Chapters from My Autobiography (Free UK edition) (Free Deutsch edition) by Samuel Clemens. But I think this is one of those times where you will want to pay full price. Samuel Clemens was a very frank writer and wrote very bleakly about life and death in a way not designed to endear him to Tom Sawyer's many fans. If he thought something was too incendiary to publish for a hundred years - well maybe that is what you want to read. In which case you want the new bestseller Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 (UK edition) (Deutsch edition) It is 700 plus pages, making it a good choice to downsize on to Kindle or maybe the size will make you reach for the shorter 95 cent version listed above. Either way, how wonderful to have his wider works read once again.

Here is an excerpt from Chapters from My Autobiography. It should also be part of the new publication.

[Dictated in 1906] In those early days duelling suddenly became a fashion in the New Territory of Nevada, and by 1864 everybody was anxious to have a chance in the new sport, mainly for the reason that he was not able to thoroughly respect himself so long as he had not killed or crippled somebody in a duel or been killed or crippled in one himself.

At that time I had been serving as city editor on Mr. Goodman`s Virginia City "Enterprise" for a matter of two years. I was twenty-nine years old. I was ambitious in several ways, but I had entirely escaped the seductions of that particular craze. I had had no desire to fight a duel; I had no intention of provoking one. I did not feel respectable, but I got a certain amount of satisfaction out of feeling safe.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try.

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Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online. I love to get good reviews! Who wouldn't? Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

US/UK Kindle Classic
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy

Incest . . . a psychopath . .. forced marriages . . . scheming over a corpse . . . what is not to like? All War and Peace needs is a zombie to bring it up to date. Thankfully this absorbing novel works just fine in the era it is set. So get in your time machine and re-discover once again that people do not change.

The Kindle edition of War and Peace (.99 US Edition) (£0.70 UK edition) is translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. The Constance Garnett translation is purportedly online Amazon US a dozen times - but each one is mislabeled! (More on this below.) However, the Maude translation was authorized by Tolstoy and has stood the test of time, not falling into disfavor as sometimes happens with translations.

The US version does not have chapter titles, they are listed by number - so they are not descriptive. I do not know what the Garnett version looks like. You kind of take potluck with these free and inexpensive versions when it comes to niceties such as cover, chapter titles and preface. Sometimes you are just flung right into reading.

I do not love this book but I like it. Like Joyce's Ulysses, it is one of those books I had to start more than once before I could get into it. I loved the account of the battle of Borodino. (I like military history.) I would not say anything to discourage anyone from reading this book, so my liking it should be seen as a failure on my part and I am sure you will love it.

Downloading it just now, I am now reading it again. It is absorbing and funny and deserves to be known as a great book:

"But Pierre now committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who wished to get away."

The Kindle shows it strength with these long books, because you are not carrying around a heavy volume. War and Peace could not be easily be read on public transport before the Kindle!

The first line of the Constance Garnett is

"Well, Prince, Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family."

I have downloaded samples of every purported translation by Garnett and none are Garnett's translation. . .

Here is a really good guide on how to tell which translation you have. It is by Amazon reviewer, Barney Duff, who toils in relative anonymity, but who has taken the trouble to help everyone interested in this topic. For example (and this is just a taste):

MAUDE (1922):

"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes."

and later

"It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor..."

---------------

GARNETT (1904):

first paragraph:

"Well, Prince, Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family. (1)"

"These words were uttered in July 1805 by Anna Pavlovna Scherer, a distinguished lady of the court,..."

If this is not enough, I would also point you to a nice piece by The Language Geek. Page down to the middle of the page. I am busy writing Amazon to tell them the Garnett translations are wrongly attributed, so perhaps this will be fixed and maybe when people see Garnett is not available, that will be corrected too!

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try.

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

A Beginner's Guide to Ordering

Well actually I am the beginner. I had a bit of trouble ordering the free books I blog about from my Kindle. That is why I have not been blogging. I was troubleshooting! There are two things that I did wrong and I hope to save you from those problems.

If you are on your Kindle, you have to log in to your Amazon account from your Kindle to buy books linked from a Kindle blog. This is different from buying books from the menu item "Shop in the Kindle Store." You are logging in to what Amazon calls "the experimental Kindle browser.

Use the arrow keys on the 5-way controller to move the hand icon to the link for the book you want from my blog (or any Kindle blog.) Click on the link by pressing the button in the center of the controller.

If this is the first time you have done this, you need to log in. Here is how to do that. You will see the enlarging tool, an icon of a magnifying glass, in the center of a box. Move the box around with the arrow keys on the 5-way controller. You want the link for "Sign In" to be in the box. Select the enlarging tool by pressing the 5-way controller button. Use the arrow keys to move the hand icon to the sign in link and press the controller button.

After logging in, you will have to return to the blog and again follow the link to the free book you want from Amazon. Move the box to the right margin so you can click on the "Buy now with 1-Click" button." (It says "buy" even when the book is free.) Press the controller button. Your book should download!

I promised you two mistakes. Here is the other one. I did NOT see a buy button. If you do not see the button, you have the graphics turned off. I think I diabled images when I had a problem with the "New York Times" locking up the experimental browser. Go to Menu/Browser Settings to enable graphics and then you will see the "Buy" button and you are on your way!

Please note that if you are a US resident, you may only use the US store - no matter where you might be traveling- and if you are a UK resident, you must use the UK store.

As a US resident and an Anglophile, I would love to register my Kindle to the UK store, but that would only be possible if I had a UK credit card sent to a UK address. My UK bank account is not sufficient to meet the "residency" requirement.

If you move to another country, you may change which store your Kindle is registered too - but your Kindle may only be registered to use one store.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try.

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Fans of Sherlock Holmes may know there are four novels and five collections of short stories. All are entertaining to the devotee of this most famous of detectives, but the most accessible and best introduction to Holmes is

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ( £0.70 UK edition) (Free Deutsch edition)

This is the collection with the Irene Adler story (for Sherlock Holmes she was always THE woman), "A Scandal in Bohemia," the always amusing, "The Red-Headed League" and my favorite, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." I don't want to give away the ending, just don't let science get in the way of a good read.

Here is a bit of CSI: Baker Street:

"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple."

Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all."

I have linked the FREE Kindle edition above. The caveat for the US version, (and there is always a caveat with free), is there is no list of story titles at the beginning of the book. You just start right off with the first story. The work-around is you search on the title to go directly to the story. Of course you need to know the title to search on it, but many fans of this collection will remember the story titles, and if you are a first time reader - start at the beginning!

I assume everyone with an electronic reader is familiar with the computer term "work-around." It means the extra thing you have to do to get something to work the way it was supposed to work in the first place. For example, the work around for forgetting your house key is break the window. If you can raise the window, that is an "elegant work-around."

If you are a fan of free classic Kindle literature, you must be tolerant. As I go along with this blog, I will try and point out the best free or inexpensive versions of classic books for the Kindle.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try.

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Huckleberry Finn - by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

US/UK Kindle Classic
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

This blog is for Kindle Readers in the US and UK. At this time US residents must buy from the US Kindle store and UK residents must buy from the UK Kindle store and so forth.

I am going to start this blog with one of my favorite books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. There is a lot of great classic literature available free for Kindle. Unfortunately it is not always easy to find and free is not always worth it.

Sometimes a free book is poorly done with conversion errors or missing text or it may not even be the book it is claimed to be!

In the case of Huckleberry Finn, the novel is offered free in 7 pieces, but you have to buy the ending, which is part 8. Gotcha!

Samuel Clemens would surely appreciate that. It is bizarre. This is not such a long book, that it would need to be split up . . .I think it is a legacy from years ago when files had to be smaller to be easily downloaded and those files have just been converted as is to Kindle rather than edited into one file. If War and Peace (see a later blog) can be one file, surely The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be too!

So alongside the "free" copies, I also offer an inexpensive copy that costs the same as part 8 and includes the novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Huckleberry Finn is laugh out loud funny. So take a trip into the past and down river on a raft with an American original. The book is wry commentary on life along the Mississippi. I read it more than once as a child, but Tom Sawyer is for children -- Huckleberry Finn is for adults.

Here is an excerpt. This is at a funeral:

"Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "He had a rat!" Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was."

I suggest checking out the first chapters. If you like them, and you would have to be dead not too, then pay.99 for the whole version.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 01 to 05

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 06 to 10

I am not going to list all the other chapters you can download for free, because why bother. You have to pay .99 to read the ending so you might as well pay that and get Tom Sawyer too.

Here is the .99 Huckleberry Finn plus Tom Sawyer (Free UK edition)

Through the miracle of Blogger, I am allowed to re-edit my blogs and still post them in the order they were first published. I confess I was a coward when I wrote this and did not mention the liberal use on the "N" word, due primarily to the use of it as part of a former slave's name: "N" Jim. I do not like to see this word in print.

But I have read this book many times. It may be the first real American novel. It is certainly one of the best and is head and shoulder above Tom Sawyer. Huck celebrates the subversiveness of childhood that we would prefer our children not act out. Huck is the archetypal "bad influence" whereas Tom is the kid next door who is just all boy. Both need to be first read when you are a child. And although Tom Sawyer will probably be fondly set aside, you may still want to journey down the river with Huck and Jim when you are retired.

I have been afraid for many years that Huck, that must lively of American characters, would pass from our collective consciousness because it is too difficult to teach the book in school. How do you explain that a word is OK in this book, but not that, and never OK in speech. It is word so ugly it doesn't even need to be thought, let alone read out loud.

And in the mid-60's in my segregated school in the North (segregated because the rumor was you had to be white to live in our blue collar school district), I got in trouble for using the "N" word while reading "Huckleberry Finn" out loud to my 5th grade class. I was a student, not a teacher, and was sharing my favorite book during a read out loud session.

"But," I protested. I wanted to say I would never use that word, except to read it. My beloved teacher, who had to be very familiar with the book, cut me off. "You never use that word." He was ashamed of me.

Now thanks to "New South Books" and editor Alan Gribben, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has been removed from the "too toxic to teach" shelf and placed back in the hands of young readers. (It is published, but not for Kindle.) They replaced the ugly "N" word with the word "slave." That is also an ugly word, but it is easier to teach. And when these new lovers of Mark Twain grow up, maybe they will reach for the original or maybe they will be satisfied by what New South Books has done. Mark Twain was pretty subversive, he took a black man, a slave and made him into a person, a hero - not someone to be ignored or mistreated. I don't think he would have wanted his book to be shelved because we followed him and have now passed him.

I believe by adding an edited edition of this book, readership will increase for the original edition.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try.

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link