An Accursed Race - by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

I don’t usually choose a non-fiction history book because most of those books no longer appeal to our sensibilities.  But I am making an exception because An Accursed Race by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell is about a topic I was not familiar with:

"There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people called Cagots in the valleys of the Pyrenees; in the Landes near Bourdeaux; and, stretching up on the west side of France, their numbers become larger in Lower Brittany. Even now, the origin of these families is a word of shame to them among their neighbours; although they are protected by the law, which confirmed them in the equal rights of citizens about the end of the last century. Before then they had lived, for hundreds of years, isolated from all those who boasted of pure blood, and they had been, all this time, oppressed by cruel local edicts. They were truly what they were popularly called, The Accursed Race."

This is not a book length piece; it is more like an extended magazine article.  I had not heard of the Cagots and assumed they must be Gypsies.  That is not the case.  Their ostracism is likened more to the treatment of a low caste in India.

"About thirty years ago, there was the skeleton of a hand hanging up as an offering in a Breton church near Quimperle, and the tradition was, that it was the hand of a rich Cagot who had dared to take holy water out of the usual benitier, some time at the beginning of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth; which an old soldier witnessing, he lay in wait, and the next time the offender approached the benitier he cut off his hand, and hung it up, dripping with blood, as an offering to the patron saint of the church."

This is a history of a people that has almost been erased, both the history and the people.  What  is saved here was published in 1896 by a writer better known for her novels. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

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The Adventures of Robin Hood - by Howard Pyle

"IN MERRY ENGLAND in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. No archer ever lived that could speed a gray goose shaft with such skill and cunning as his, nor were there ever such yeomen as the sevenscore merry men that roamed with him through the greenwood shades. Right merrily they dwelled within the depths of Sherwood Forest, suffering neither care nor want, but passing the time in merry games of archery or bouts of cudgel play, living upon the King's venison, washed down with draughts of ale of October brewing.

Not only Robin himself but all the band were outlaws and dwelled apart from other men, yet they were beloved by the country people round about, for no one ever came to jolly Robin for help in time of need and went away again with an empty fist.

And now I will tell how it came about that Robin Hood fell afoul of the law."

I read The Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle  in high school and enjoyed it very much.  (US Edition) (UK Edition)  This 1883 book is more a collection of short stories than a novel.  It is not a history, although I have seen the grave of “Little John.”  It was very long!

Books are better than movies and the 1938 Errol Flynn movie, “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” is one of the best movies ever made.

What more needs to be said?   

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.

Les Misérable - by Victor Hugo

 I am afraid you are going to have to pay for Les Misérable by Victor Hugo. ($0.99 US Edition) (£1.44 UK Edition)   (Pay no attention to the bizarre and unappealing cover. We e-book readers don’t care about covers.)

 

The free version is “notably condensed” and “inevitably cuts many of the intricate subplots and minor characters who enrich Hugo's vast tome.”  Although authors are on record praising the new translation, I downloaded the free chapter and I see no mention of a translator or any publication information.  I doubt that Jeanette Winterson said, “This is the [translation] to read. . . ”

 

So let’s move away from that bad free edition! 

This is a big book and you want to read the whole thing.  The famous story of revolution (no, not that revolution – an earlier revolution), revenge and redemption is like any long book, a world unto itself.  I am a fan of long books and I think a lot of Muggles would agree with me! 

"In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords."

 And

"He paused, and then said:— "I shall die three hours hence." Then he continued:— "I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour draws on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended to my knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the heart, I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeled out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does not fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is on the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that moment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight." 

And still more

"Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This human creature had entered life in just this way."

 I have to re-read this book . . .

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.

Vanity Fair - by William Makepeace Thackeray

 Vanity Fair is an 1847 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray.  (US Edition) (UK Edition)  It was written as a satire and has remained a favorite.  

Follow the fortunes of two women as they make their way in the wide world

“Let us have some music, Miss Sedley--Amelia,” said George, who felt at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and if I should say that they fell in love with each other at that single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been read in their respective families any time these ten years. They went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark, Miss Amelia, in the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into Mr. Osborne’s, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal better than she could.

 And the inestimable Miss Becky Sharp:

 “You don’t mind my cigar, do you, Miss Sharp?” Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors beyond everything in the world--and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to the Captain, who twirled his moustache, and straightway puffed it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation, . . .

 How many novels can still find their audience after 150 years?  Vanity Fair goes on a very select list.

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 Innocence of Father Brown - by G. K. Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton  (US Edition) (UK Edition) (DE Edition)

This is the first collection of short stories about the priest and detective. 

I found a rather astonishing reader review:

“This is, quite simply, the best book written in the twentieth century. Chesterton's idiosyncratic, poetic, colourful, often bizarre, writing style; his strong imagination, with its visions of invisible men, secret gardens, false prophets, dream-like islands; the brilliant solutions to his highly original mysteries; the religious allegory; the memorable dialogue and paradox; the character of the little priest from Essex... Mind-shattering.”

It made me wonder if the reviewer made such extravagant claims about other books.  It turned out the reviewer is very well read in mysteries and had reviewed about 70 of them, many which did not earn such praise.  So, give this review some credit.

Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous—nor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.

Very nicely written indeed!

Here are a few random passages about Father Brown:

"Yes," said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair with the same strange vagueness of manner. "Yes, I've heard of it before." 

The small man from Essex turned what seemed to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said, with the timid eagerness of "The Private Secretary": "Are—are you sure?" 

"I don't believe you. I don't believe a bumpkin like you could manage all that. 

Sound familiar?  Let’s just call this blog an homage to Detective Columbo . . .

And now for something completely different!  I am participating in a Blog Hop this week.  It is a way to find out about other book blogs.  So click on the link and check out other blogs!

I am supposed to answer this question.  "How/Where do you get your books? Do you buy them or go to the library? Is there a certain website you use like paperbackswap?"

During the school year, I substitute as a librarian at an elementary school and I check out young adult books.  My public library is not satisfactory.  I gave up trying to get Penelope Lively shifted to my branch so I could check out her novels.  I use PaperBackSwap, but I am really addicted to my Kindle and my current project is to donate my DTB's and not acquire 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.

Candide by Voltaire

Candide by Voltaire is a novella from 1759.   (US Edition) (UK Edition) (DE Edition)  You are excused if you thought of it as a play or a musical as there have been highly successful adaptations of the work on Broadway.

The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but windows. His great hall, even, was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farm-yards formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate of the village was his grand almoner. They called him "My Lord," and laughed at all his stories. 

This is from the beginning, so you know this is a satire right away.  

TEMPEST, SHIPWRECK, EARTHQUAKE, AND WHAT BECAME OF DOCTOR PANGLOSS, CANDIDE, AND JAMES THE ANABAPTIST.

Half dead of that inconceivable anguish which the rolling of a ship produces, one-half of the passengers were not even sensible of the danger. The other half shrieked and prayed. The sheets wererent, the masts broken, the vessel gaped. Work who would, no one heard, no one commanded. The Anabaptist being upon deck bore a hand; when a brutish sailor struck him roughly and laid him sprawling; but with the violence of the blow he himself tumbled head foremost overboard, and stuck upon a piece of the broken mast. Honest James ran to his assistance, hauled him up, and from the effort he made was precipitated into the sea in sight of the sailor, who left him to perish, without deigning to look at him. Candide drew near and saw his benefactor, who rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up for ever. He was just going to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this à priori, the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank. 

If you believe everything –absolutely everything- happens for a reason, this book is not for you.  If you have ever been annoyed at being reassured that something happened to you for a reason, you will have a good time with this!

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.

Oliver Twist - by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, I believe, has attained a lighter image in recent decades.  It may be the musical, “Oliver!,” has influenced the popular perception of the novel, so that it is now seen as a story about homeless boys larking about and picking pockets.  (US Edition) (UK Edition) (EUR 0,99 DE Edition - free edition is abridged)

This was not the story by Charles Dickens that I read and could not put down for fear of what Bill Sikes might do to Oliver and Nancy!  That part of the story was more Gothic than Victorian and the dog’s behavior still haunts me.  This was really my young introduction to violence against women; which was not a staple of television in those black & white days.

So pick up Oliver Twist and be prepared to be charmed by the Artful Dodger and to puzzle over whether Fagin is a sympathetic or an anti-Semitic portrayal, or if his interest in young boys is purely mercenary.  It is the literary game within a game these days for this novel. 

But if you read the book as I do, Bill and his brutality are as frightening as Hannibal Lecter.  You may think this is overstatement, but some things that scared you as a child stick with you!

‘Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters; but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots. Having given it a hearty shake, he retired, growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr. Sikes levelled at his head.

"You would, would you?" said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp knife, which he drew from his pocket. "Come here, you born devil! Come here! D'ye hear?"’

Still makes me uneasy . . ..

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 Thirty-Nine Steps - by John Buchan

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 novel by John Buchan.  (US Edition) (£0.71 UK Edition) (

EUR 0,99DE Edition)

If you are a fan of the really old Alfred Hitchcock (1935) - which is the best Hitchcock, you may have seen the version of this book that I think is really good.  (I am kind of old school.)  There have been more recent adaptations including a very ho-hum BBC version shown recently in the States on PBS and a Broadway play.

Obviously, with the Hitchcock connection, it has to be a thriller.

Here is a bit from the beginning:

'Can I speak to you?' he said. 'May I come in for a minute?' He was steadying his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing my arm. 

I got my door open and motioned him in. No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, where I used to smoke and write my letters. Then he bolted back.

 'Is the door locked?' he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand. 

'I'm very sorry,' he said humbly. 'It's a mighty liberty, but you looked the kind of man who would understand. I've had you in my mind all this week when things got troublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?' 

'I'll listen to you,' I said. 'That's all I'll promise.' I was getting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.

There was a tray of drinks on a table beside him, from which he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He drank it off in three gulps, and cracked the glass as he set it down. 

'Pardon,' he said, 'I'm a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead.' 

What more is there to say?  What happens next!!!  Read on!

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.