White Fang - by Jack London

White Fang is a 1906 novel by Jack London. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) London is famous for The Call of the Wild, about a dog stolen from his comfortable life in California and transported to Alaska to be a working sled dog.  But there are some, myself included, who think White Fang is the better book.

White Fang, like London’s other famous dog novel, is written primarily from the perspective of the dogs.  "White Fang" is a dog/wolf hybrid.  The book is set in the wild.

The porcupine rolled itself into a ball, radiating long, sharp needles in all directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his muzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching position, his nose fully a foot away, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he waited, keeping perfectly quiet. There was no telling. Something might happen. The porcupine might unroll. There might be opportunity for a deft and ripping thrust of paw into the tender, unguarded belly.

But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled wrathfully at the motionless ball, and trotted on. He had waited too often and futilely in the past for porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. He continued up the right fork. The day wore along, and nothing rewarded his hunt.

Because it is set in the wild, some animals get killed and hurt.  That is going to make this distasteful to some readers.  But, some people avoid murder mysteries for similar reasons – the violence is distasteful.  I let the reader make the choice.  I find London’s books to be powerful stories about the love between man and dogs.  Others find them to be about cruelty.  I suppose that is why one UK reader calls this a “marmite” book – a polarizing novel that people either love or hate.

Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall [the cave entrance]. He did not know that it was a wolverine, standing outside, all a-trembling with its own daring, and cautiously scenting out the contents of the cave. The cub knew only that the sniff was strange, a something unclassified, therefore unknown and terrible--for the unknown was one of the chief elements that went into the making of fear.

The hair bristled upon the grey cub's back, but it bristled silently. How was he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which to bristle? It was not born of any knowledge of his, yet it was the visible expression of the fear that was in him, and for which, in his own life, there was no accounting. But fear was accompanied by another instinct--that of concealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet he lay without movement or sound, frozen, petrified into immobility, to all appearances dead. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine's track, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled him with undue vehemence of affection. And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped a great hurt.

I have always loved books about animals and this was one of many I read as a child. But this one always stood out and I have vivid memories even of where I was when I read it.

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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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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

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.

Life on the Mississippi - by Mark Twain

Life on the Mississippi is an 1883 memoir by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) on his life as a steamboat captain.  

 

(US Edition)  (UK Edition) The one page preface to this book is off-putting with its eccentric spacing, capitalization and highlighting.  But as Twain might say, it settles down after chapter one.  The sentences in all caps are captions for illustrations that are not included in the free edition.

This book was a bestseller in its time and has remained popular ever since.  Every book and article on the Mississippi that I have read references this travel memoir. 

Samuel Clemens took his pen name from words used to sound the river depth, and Mark Twain sets his most celebrated novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the river.

Here is a bit of the river’s history as it pertains to European explorers:

The mere mysteriousness of the matter [stories of a great river] ought to have fired curiosity and compelled exploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want such a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for a century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and undisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and had no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or even take any particular notice of it.

Twain talks of his desire to work aboard a steamboat.  (His father was a justice of the peace.)  Here is a jealous account of a schoolmate’s good fortune:

By and by one of our boys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turned up as apprentice engineer or 'striker' on a steamboat. This thing shook the bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been notoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this eminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing generous about this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage to have a rusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would sit on the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envy him and loathe him. And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home and swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so that nobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he used all sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so used to them that he forgot common people could not understand them. He would speak of the 'labboard' side of a horse in an easy, natural way that would make one wish he was dead.

So climb aboard and take a lazy trip down the mighty “Mississipp’.”

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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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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

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.

Two Years Before the Mast - by Richard Dana

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana, is an 1840 account by this former Harvard student of his two years working as a common seaman.  (US Edition)  (UK Edition)

On the following night, I stood my first watch. I remained awake nearly all the first part of the night from fear that I might not hear when I was called; and when I went on deck, so great were my ideas of the importance of my trust, that I walked regularly fore and aft the whole length of the vessel, looking out over the bows and taffrail at each turn, and was not a little surprised at the coolness of the old salt whom I called to take my place, in stowing himself snugly away under the long boat, for a nap. That was sufficient lookout, he thought, for a fine night, at anchor in a safe harbor.

Enough said!  That self-deprecating sort of humor is exactly what I look for in a traveling companion. 

The inevitable sailing jargon has a poetry about it and there are footnotes (unlinked):

"Here comes the Cape Horn!" said the chief mate; and we had hardly time to haul down and clew up, before it was upon us. In a few moments, a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen before, and as it was directly ahead, the little brig, which was no better than a bathing machine, plunged into it, and all the forward part of her was under water; the sea pouring in through the bow-ports and hawse-hole and over the knight-heads, threatening to wash everything overboard. In the lee scuppers it was up to a man's waist. We sprang aloft and double reefed the topsails, and furled all the other sails, and made all snug. But this would not do; the brig was laboring and straining against the head sea, and the gale was growing worse and worse. At the same time the sleet and hail were driving with all fury against us. We clewed down, and hauled out the reef-tackles again, and close-reefed the fore-topsail, and furled the main, and hove her to on the starboard tack. Here was an end to our fine prospects. We made up our minds to head winds and cold weather; sent down the royal yards, and unrove the gear, but all the rest of the top hamper remained aloft, even to the sky-sail masts and studding-sail booms.

So brew a cuppa and settle down with your Kindle and some tea for a perilous voyage.

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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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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

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.

East Lynne - by Mrs. Henry Wood

East Lynne by Mrs. Henry Wood, is an 1861 best seller that was very popular in the UK & the US and had numerous stage adaptations. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) The Amazon reviews assure us that it is a page turner with a strong plot and that the Victorians were not as prim as their reputation.  

Barbara, I think your mother looks unusually ill."

"You know she suffers a little thing to upset her; and last night she had what she calls one of her dreams," answered Barbara. "She says that it is a warning that something bad is going to happen, and she has been in the most unhappy, feverish state possible all day. Papa has been quite angry over her being so weak and nervous, declaring that she ought to rouse herself out of her 'nerves.' Of course we dare not tell him about the dream."

"It related to--the----"

Mr. Carlyle stopped, and Barbara glanced round with a shudder, and drew closer to him as she whispered. He had not given her his arm this time.

"Yes, to the murder.

Oh my!  Tell us more . . .

There is an omniscient narrator, dear reader, who will remind you of Trollope:

Look at the visitor well, reader, for he will play his part in this history. He was a very tall man of seven and twenty, of remarkably noble presence. He was somewhat given to stooping his head when he spoke to any one shorter than himself; it was a peculiar habit, almost to be called a bowing habit, and his father had possessed it before him. When told of it he would laugh, and say he was unconscious of doing it.

Some of the reviewers say the plot is great, but the characters are not drawn well.  I would dispute that.This looks like the whole package for a excellent free holiday read.

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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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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

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.

The Princess of Cleves - by Madame de Lafayette

This blog is a pleasure to write.  It almost writes itself because I so enjoy picking titles.

But there is one big problem- I have to check ten titles that are free on Amazon US to find one free on Amazon UK!  So when I do have a UK title that costs a pound, you know I just can’t keep passing over interesting content because it is not free.  In fact sometimes a book that is free in the US can cost upwards of four pounds.  I have never seen the reverse, where a book was free in the UK and not in the US.

My theory about UK books not being free has to do with the Kindle being introduced in the US first.  Most of the free classics no doubt are conversions from Gutenberg. There may have been an early effort by Amazon and others to provide free content.  By the time the Kindle UK site was added, those who were motivated to convert and add classic books may have been guided by the thought of sales rather than altruism.  It may also have to do with copyright differences in the UK.

But one thing is not a theory.  Amazon UK Kindle book prices in general are higher because there is a 20% VAT charged on electronic books.  In the US, Amazon does not charge tax.  Occasionally a state will attempt to charge sales tax on Amazon products.  Usually a state can only charge sales tax (which is never over 10%) on Internet sales if the company has a brick and mortar location in that state.  Most recently Texas demanded Amazon collect state sales tax and Amazon responded by threatening to close a fulfillment center in Texas.  Texas blinked and Amazon will not have to collect sales tax and will open more fulfillment centers as a good will offering. 

Oh, back to book reviewing.  I am fairly talked out, so will go with The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette.  (US Edition)  (£0.86 UK Edition)

This is considered to be the first psychological novel and it is a romance from 1678.  You will notice the UK version is not free. 

 

However, the UK product description says, “NOTE: This edition has a linked "Table of Contents" and has been beautifully formatted (searchable and interlinked) to work on your Amazon e-book reader or iPod e-book reader.”

  

Whereas the US product description states, “This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. (But there is no charge.)

I can only see the US version and there is a linked table of contents – with four entries, Part I, Part II – well you see the pattern.

One Amazon US reader complains this is not the Mitford translation, without specifying which of the many Mitford writers he means.  The UK version is not the Mitford translation either.  It is quite possibly exactly the same edition.  I can't tell because I cannot do UK downloads.

The King [of France], during the Treaty, continued on the frontiers, where he received the news of the death of Queen Mary of England; his Majesty dispatched forthwith the Count de Randan to Queen Elizabeth, to congratulate her on her accession to the Crown, and they received him with great distinction; for her affairs were so precarious at that time, that nothing could be more advantageous to her, than to see her title acknowledged by the King. The Count found she had a thorough knowledge of the interests of the French Court, and of the characters of those who composed it; but in particular, she had a great idea of the Duke of Nemours: she spoke to him so often, and with so much ernestness concerning him, that the Ambassador upon his return declared to the King, that there was nothing which the Duke of Nemours might not expect from that Princess, and that he made no question she might even be brought to marry him. The King communicated it to the Duke the same evening, and caused the Count de Randan to relate to him all the conversations he had had with Queen Elizabeth, and in conclusion advised him to push his fortune: the Duke of Nemours imagined at first that the King was not in earnest, but when he found to the contrary, "If, by your advice, Sir," said he, "I engage in this chimerical undertaking for your Majesty's service, I must entreat your Majesty to keep the affair secret, till the success of it shall justify me to the public; I would not be thought guilty of the intolerable vanity, to think that a Queen, who has never seen me, would marry me for love."

I doubt that is a fair representation of the story, but it made me want to read more!

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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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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

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.