Free Literary Books for the Kindle (US & UK): January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Jacob’s Room - by Virginia Woolf

US/UK Kindle Classic

All of Virginia Woolf’s work is coming out of copyright this year and we can hope all of her novels will soon be free on Amazon. But until that time, we can enjoy Jacob’s Room, a 1922 novel. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

I want to give a thank you here to Wikipedia. Amazon does not do a good job of showing the publication date. The publication date on Amazon for a Kindle book is either the formatting date or the upload date. If you want to know when a book was originally published, and that is important with these classic books, the quickest way to find out is to check Wikipedia. I am not saying it is infallible in all things, but Wikipedia almost always has a book’s publication date – even with obscure titles.

I don’t really associate Woolf and humor, but this excerpt is funny:

"This is not a smoking-carriage," Mrs. Norman protested, nervously but very feebly, as the door swung open and a powerfully built young man jumped in. He seemed not to hear her. The train did not stop before it reached Cambridge, and here she was shut up alone, in a railway carriage, with a young man.

She touched the spring of her dressing-case, and ascertained that the scent-bottle and a novel from Mudie's were both handy (the young man was standing up with his back to her, putting his bag in the rack). She would throw the scent-bottle with her right hand, she decided, and tug the communication cord with her left. She was fifty years of age, and had a son at college. Nevertheless, it is a fact that men are dangerous.

I hate to give up my take on the book, but this is a beautiful, succinct review from Amazon:

A typically wonderful read from the great Virginia Woolf. While Jacob is on the one hand the centre of this book, he is also the enigma which the reader never quite finds. We hear many others talking of Jacob, but we catch only fleeting glimpses of Jacob himself, making this book a strange, at times disorientating read. This however, is clearly Woolf's intention, as she plays with notions of character, authorial omniscience, and coherent plotting. A great example of classic modernist fiction from one of Britain's most celebrated authors. If you are prepared for a challenging read, then buy this book- but prepare for your expectations of what constitutes a novel to be put under the spotlight.

This is a stream of consciousness novel and I think they are very close to our ADD society and our flitting from task to task; so I do not think that makes it as challenging to a 21^st century reader as it must have been to the reader 90 years ago.

This download has some tiny formatting problems with lines missing between paragraphs - but when you are caught up in the work, you won't be bothered by that.

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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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Sybil, or the Two Nations - by Benjamin Disraeli.

US/UK Kindle Classic

Sybil, or the Two Nations is an 1845 novel by Benjamin Disraeli. (US Edition) (UK Edition) When I look at both Amazon sites, UK & US, I see no one has reviewed the free Kindle edition. I am always puzzled by how books get forgotten. The first stop has to be sitting on Amazon with no reviews! Maybe a few of my readers will decide to correct that. I find the reviews useful and always check any one star reviews to see if format problems are mentioned.

No formatting problems in this novel:

"Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws." . . . "THE RICH AND THE POOR."

Let me check the date of publication again!

It is a tale of the poor:

"go to your own mother, who is dying in a back cellar without a winder, while you've got lodgings in a two pair."

"Dying; she's only drunk," said the youth.

"And if she is only drunk," rejoined Mrs Carey in a passion, "what makes her drink but toil; working from five o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night, and for the like of such as you."

"That's a good one," said the youth; "I should like to know what my mother ever did for me, but give me treacle and laudanum when I was a babby to stop my tongue and fill my stomach; by the token of which, as my gal says, she stunted the growth of the prettiest figure in all Mowbray." And here the youth drew himself up, and thrust his hands in the side pockets of his pea-jacket.

And the rich:

"That thousand pounds of my mother was very a propos," said Lord Marney; "I suppose it was a sop that will keep them all right till we have made our arrangements."

Set the time machine, but don’t be surprised if you find your thoughts returning to present day.

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

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Titanic - by Filson Young

US/UK Kindle Classic

Sometimes there is an event that reminds us that we are not masters of the natural world – such as the sinking of the Titanic. We look back on that as an example of hubris from our past – lesson learned. But sometimes the past has a way of surprising us. The parallels with the Carnival Cruise ship disaster and the Titanic are not just that both were giant passenger ships that sank. To make an in-depth comparison between April 1912 and January 2012, I invite you to read one of the first books written about the Titanic disaster – Titanic by Filson Young. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

Young starts by giving us a tour of the new ship, so that we will be familiar as he takes us through her fatal voyage.

For there is one thing that the designers of this sea-palace seem to have forgotten and seem to be a little ashamed of—and that is the sea itself. There it lies, an eternal prospect beyond these curtained windows, by far the most lovely and wonderful thing visible; but it seems to be forgotten there. True, there is a smoke-room at the after extremity of the deck below this, whose windows look out into a great verandah sheeted in with glass from which you cannot help looking upon the sea. But in order to counteract as much as possible that austere and lovely reminder of where we are, trellis-work has been raised within the glass, and great rose-trees spread and wander all over it, reminding you by their crimson blossoms of the earth and the land, and the scented shelter of gardens that are far from the boisterous stress of the sea. No spray ever drifts in at these heights, no froth or spume can ever in the wildest storms beat upon this verandah. Here, too, as almost everywhere else on the ship, you can, if you will, forget the sea.

That is very nice . . . but the sea was out there and full of ice; and after a little bump, a few passengers notice an ice berg.

But that was all. The half-hour which followed the stoppage of the ship was a comparatively quiet half-hour, in which a few people came out of their cabins indeed, and collected together in the corridors and staircases gossiping, speculating and asking questions as to what could have happened; but it was not a time of anxiety, or anything like it. Nothing could be safer on this quiet Sunday night than the great ship, warmed and lighted everywhere, with her thick carpets and padded armchairs and cushioned recesses; and if anything could have added to the sense of peace and stability, it was that her driving motion had ceased, and that she lay solid and motionless-like a rock in the sea, the still water scarcely lapping against her sides. And those of her people who had thought it worth while to get out of bed stood about in little knots, and asked foolish questions, and gave foolish answers in the familiar manner of passengers on shipboard when the slightest incident occurs to vary the regular and monotonous routine.

The Titanic is an endlessly fascinating story. It is wonderful that you can get this valuable contemporary account for free.

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

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Emma - by Jane Austen

US/UK Kindle Classic

It is always a pleasure to write about a Jane Austen book. “Emma” is her novel from 1816. Let me share some passages I love. (US Edition) (£0.77 UK Edition)

"I do not understand what you mean by 'success,'" said Mr. Knightley. "Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage. [The marriage of Emma’s former governess.] A worthy employment for a young lady's mind! But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,' and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said."

Here is Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse. Anyone who has had an elderly parent can relate to this conversation. . .

"My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far."

"No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure."

"The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way;—and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?"

"They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night.

There are many who read “Emma” and loved it the first time. It took me a time or two to warm up to the book. And I can see from the Amazon reviews, there are others who share that experience. The important thing is to get there. Some of us had to read the book first for the plot and then come back for the nuance. I don’t know that that says much for me as a younger reader – but now I love “Emma” and I hope you will 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, go to this Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Stardust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus - by W.C. Coup

Stardust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus by W.C. Coup is an “as told to” memoir by an American showman. (US Edition) (£0.77 UK Edition) It was published in 1901. W.C. Coup took circuses from wagons to railroads and was an associate of P.T. Barnum.

I like reading tales of not just a bygone way of life, but also a hidden life. The circus was its own traveling town and you had to be employed by the circus to know what that life was like. Circus folk, like actors, were not respectable, and therefore not a suitable topic for books. That is why this sort of memoir is rare.

The book starts out in customary fashion with Mr. Coup running away and joining the circus!

The show which I joined was one of the largest then in existence, having more than a hundred horses, ten fine Ceylon elephants, a gorgeously carved and painted "Car of Juggernaut," and many other "attractions" which seemed marvelous in my boyish eyes. Not the least of these in point of attractiveness and popularity was General "Tom" Thumb, who was petted and feasted wherever he went. But Nellis, the man without arms who could paint pictures and shoot pennies from the fingers of the manager, claimed a large share of my silent admiration.

Let me just say this book is worth downloading to read about the white elephant and the yellow horse, which is a bit too long to quote in a blog. There is also a story about meeting Sam Houston which I enjoyed. The subject matter does hop about a bit.

Coup seemed to have many encounters with toughs, ruffians and desperados. Here is one:

At last, however, a fight did come off, and a hot one it was, too!

Right in the midst of it one of my horses, which had been trained to fire off a cannon from its back, got loose and, fully accoutred, galloped into the thick of the mélêe. The creature seized the strap which operated the trigger and began firing blank cartridges in every direction. If ever a mob of toughs was frightened it was then! They stopped not upon the order of their going, but fairly flew in all directions.

One of them afterward told a policeman that they could fight any gang of showmen that ever traveled, but when a horse commenced to unload on them with a cannon, he knew it was time to quit.

This is a peep into a closed world. You will find accounts of cruelty and prejudice, but those of us who read the classics, know that is not confined to the circus – but perhaps here it is shown with less veneer.

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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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Barchester Towers - by Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers is the second novel (1857) in the “Chronicles of Barsetshire” series by Anthony Trollope. (US Edition) (UK Edition) Although this is the second novel, it stands on its own and is probably Trollope’s best known novel.

Let us set the scene, the Bishop of Barchester has died:

Our archdeacon [Dr. Grantly] was worldly--who among us is not so? He was ambitious--who among us is ashamed to own that "last infirmity of noble minds!" He was avaricious, my readers will say. No;--it was for no love of lucre that he wished to be Bishop of Barchester. He was his father's only child, and his father had left him great wealth. His preferment brought him in nearly three thousand a year. The bishopric, as cut down by the Ecclesiastical Commission, was only five. He would be a richer man as archdeacon than he could be as bishop. But he certainly did desire to play first fiddle; he did desire to sit in full lawn sleeves among the peers of the realm; and he did desire, if the truth must out, to be called "My lord" by his reverend brethren.

His hopes, however, were they innocent or sinful, were not fated to be realized, and Dr. Proudie was consecrated Bishop of Barchester.

Dr. Proudie brings in Mr. Slope . . .

In truth, Mr. Slope, having made a declaration of affection, afterwards withdrew it on finding that the doctor had no immediate worldly funds with which to endow his child, and it may easily be conceived that Miss Proudie, after such an announcement on his part, was not readily disposed to receive any further show of affection. On the appointment of Dr. Proudie to the bishopric of Barchester, Mr. Slope's views were in truth somewhat altered. Bishops, even though they be poor, can provide for clerical children, and Mr. Slope began to regret that he had not been more disinterested. He no sooner heard the tidings of the doctor's elevation than he recommenced his siege, not violently, indeed, but respectfully, and at a distance. Olivia Proudie, however, was a girl of spirit: she had the blood of two peers in her veins, and better still she had another lover on her books, so Mr. Slope sighed in vain, and the pair soon found it convenient to establish a mutual bond of inveterate hatred.

Setting the scene for a most satisfying novel about the doings of clergy in a cathedral town.

Do not be worried by the primary review of the Kindle edition on Amazon UK!

Review

'The best practitioner of Australian crime fiction' - Sydney Morning Herald; 'The Malone stories come alive through their setting... Cleary's writing is seamless and his plots imaginative and mature' - Miami Herald

Last I checked Trollope was still an English novelist with no interest in the antipodes. I just include this for a chuckle.

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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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

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Gloved Hand - by Burton Egbert Stevenson

The Gloved Hand, is a 1920 detective novel by Burton Egbert Stevenson – who is a famous librarian. That may not be the best introduction to give a writer, but librarians are my heroes. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

Stevenson created a detective duo who he wrote a number of novels about, Godfrey and Lester. Godfrey is a journalist with a police reporter’s beat in New York. Lester is a lawyer. (This is the fourth in the series.)

"No doubt," I went on, more and more interested, "you also knew his very fascinating daughter."

A wave of colour crimsoned his face.

"Why are you asking me these questions, Mr. Lester?" he demanded.

"Because," I said, "the message I have is from that young lady, and is for a man named Frederic Swain."

He was on his feet, staring at me, and all the blood was gone from his cheeks.

"A message!" he cried. "From her! From Marjorie! What is it, Mr. Lester? For God's sake...."

"Here it is," I said, and handed him the letter. He seized it, took one look at the address, then turned away to the window and ripped the envelope open.

He unfolded the sheet of paper it contained, and as his eyes ran along it, his face grew whiter still. At last he raised his eyes and stared at me with the look of a man who felt the world tottering about him.

Nothing like discovering a new detective duo to start off the New Year!

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)

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Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Railway Children - by E. Nesbitt

The Railway Children by E. Nesbitt will need no introduction to most of my UK readers who will know this beloved classic for children from 1906. (US Edition) (£0.99 UK Edition)

Some of us may want to revisit those literary favorites we read in our youth and some of us may want to know what we missed. At a time when so called YA (Young Adult) books end up on the bestseller lists (The Hunger Games and The Book Thief come to mind) – I guess I do not have to excuse liking books written for younger readers.

The book has a promising beginning:

There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an Engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well. Mother did not spend all her time in paying dull calls to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay calls to her.

There is a catastrophe and the family has to move:

As she turned away Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it.

"Oh, Mother," she whispered all to herself as she got into bed, "how brave you are! How I love you! Fancy being brave enough to laugh when you're feeling like THAT!"

Next day boxes were filled, and boxes and more boxes; and then late in the afternoon a cab came to take them to the station.

Aunt Emma saw them off. They felt that THEY were seeing HER off, and they were glad of it.

"But, oh, those poor little foreign children that she's going to governess!" whispered Phyllis. "I wouldn't be them for anything!"

It is always wonderful when you can pick up a book you read in your youth and find it is still good.

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