Friday, August 31, 2012

Moby Dick - by Herman Melville

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
I am reaching back to 2011 to re-publish a classic review of a classic book!

Moby Dick is a great book, but not an easy book. (US Edition) (UK edition)  You can see why in this extract.  Melville had been a whaler and he was trying to minutely recreate that way of life; but as the passage continues, you see the narrative moves on with an accident and attempted rescue.  (You will have to download the book to find out what happens. I never disclose the plot!)
"Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he lands on the summit of the head. There—still high elevated above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries—he seems some Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down.

Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up—my God! poor Tashtego—like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight!

"Man overboard!" cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first came to his senses. "Swing the bucket this way!" and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk."
And next time you drink a Starbuck's, lift it in homage to Melville.  His character lent his name to the franchise.
"The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous."
There is something Dickensian about that description . . .

Whether this book was rescued by post-World War I acclaim by the literary establishment or by the popularity of silent movie adaptations, one thing is certain - a top candidate for the Great American Novel was almost forgotten.  After the 1851 publication, it was largely ignored for almost a hundred years.  If Moby-Dick is on your "to read" list, don't neglect it any longer!


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.

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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

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an 1841 popular study of public manias by Scottish writer Charles Mackay.  

(US Edition)  (UK Edition) 

A public mania of the current day would be the recent housing bubble in the states or the overvalued DotComs everywhere.  But this author wrote of earlier crazy valuations, such as Dutch tulip bulbs:
In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade. As the mania increased, prices augmented, until, in the year 1635, many persons were known to invest a fortune of 100,000 florins in the purchase of forty roots.
There are several entertaining stories of tourists mistaking tulip bulbs for something of little value and eating them or cutting them open.

You will be treated to chapters on such things as alchemy, philosophies and fortune telling, told in an entertaining style.
In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.
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)

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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.



Friday, August 24, 2012

The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
The Americanization of Edward Bok : the autobiography of a Dutch boy fifty years after by Edward Bok won the 1921 Pulitzer.  (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  

I must start off with several caveats which should not put you off this book.  The title page is poorly capitalized; the foreward is unreadable (many are); and it is written in third person.  Third person is an odd choice for an autobiography, but this is the story of an unlettered Dutch boy who ends up editing a famous women's magazine for thirty years.  So perhaps a bit of eccentricity is to be expected.

Let us see:

The author is good friends with Kipling and recounts traveling with him and publishing his work in "The Ladie's Home Journal."
"What annoys me," said Kipling, speaking of his father one day, "is when the pater comes to America to have him referred to in the newspapers as 'the father of Rudyard Kipling.' It is in India where they get the relation correct: there I am always 'the son of Lockwood Kipling.'"
Here is an exchange with Bok's boss:
"This is a young-looking crowd," said Mr. Scribner one day, looking over his young men. And his eye rested on Bok. "Particularly you, Bok. Doubleday looks his years better than you do, for at least he has a moustache." Then, contemplatively: "You raise a moustache, Bok, and I'll raise your salary."
This appealed to Bok very strongly, and within a month he pointed out the result to his employer. "Stand in the light here," said Mr. Scribner. 

"Well, yes," he concluded dubiously, "it's there—something at least. All right; I'll keep my part of the bargain." He did. But the next day he was nonplussed to see that the moustache had disappeared from the lip of his youthful advertising manager. "Couldn't quite stand it, Mr. Scribner," was the explanation. "Besides, you didn't say I should keep it: you merely said to raise it."
This book should appeal to those interested in publishing.  Bok is quite a name dropper!



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.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
Who out there has not read the 1877 novel, Black Beauty, by English writer Anna Sewell? 
(US Edition)  (UK Edition)  It was a best seller at publication and has sold well ever since.  But I wonder if it has started to fall out of favor as horses pass out of everyday lives?

Black Beauty has long been considered a children's book, but was not written as such - it was written to inspire kindness toward horses by revealing cruel practices.  Nevertheless the language is simplistic and can be read by children - especially children who want something with a little bite.  As an adult, I was happy to revisit this favorite of my youth.  It was one of the first "complicated" books I read.

The book is narrated by Black Beauty.
I was quite happy in my new place, and if there was one thing that I missed it must not be thought I was discontented; all who had to do with me were good and I had a light airy stable and the best of food. What more could I want? Why, liberty! For three years and a half of my life I had had all the liberty I could wish for; but now, week after week, month after month, and no doubt year after year, I must stand up in a stable night and day except when I am wanted, and then I must be just as steady and quiet as any old horse who has worked twenty years. Straps here and straps there, a bit in my mouth, and blinkers over my eyes.
But the humans speak as well:
"Your master never taught you a truer thing," said John; "there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast it is all a sham—all a sham, James, and it won't stand when things come to be turned inside out."
You would think that would be enough to make it popular again in this era of bestselling books about animals!

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.

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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.


Friday, August 17, 2012

The Crisis - Complete - by Winston Churchill

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
This is not the first time I have featured the once popular, and now neglected, American author, Winston Churchill. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) "The Crisis - Complete" was published in 1901 and is set in pre-Civil War St. Louis.  That is the author's home town and the novel is known for its accurate portrayal of the town.

The first paragraph is awkward and may be corrupt, but I suggest reading past that - it is not representative of the whole book. 

This is not an easy book.  It is about slavery and Lincoln's election.  The language is uncomfortable  - as you might expect with an older novel on the Civil War.  The book also has some dialect, which I know turns some readers off.  In the first chapter, one of the characters expresses an interest in owning slaves some day.

You are going to think I am telling you not to read this book!  Not at all!.  Here is a book written within 50 years of the Civil War about a time not often touched on and a place that is rarely featured in novels.  I am just saying this is not a "beach read," but perhaps insight into an uncomfortable time.
Mr. Hopper was drinking his tea and silently forming an estimate. He concluded that young Brice was not the type to acquire the money which his father had lost. And he reflected that Stephen must feel as strange in St. Louis as a cod might amongst the cat-fish in the Mississippi. So the assistant manager of Carvel & Company resolved to indulge in the pleasure of patronizing the Bostonian.
"Callatin' to go to work?" he asked him, as the boarders walked into the best room.
"Yes," replied Stephen, taken aback. And it may be said here that, if Mr. Hopper underestimated him, certainly he underestimated Mr. Hopper.
(Sorry, not clue as to what "Callatin'" means -- feel free to speculate in the remarks below!)
Against the walls and pillars of the building, already grimy with soot, crouched a score of miserable human beings waiting to be sold at auction. Mr. Lynch's slave pen had been disgorged that morning. Old and young, husband and wife,—the moment was come for all and each. How hard the stones and what more pitiless than the gaze of their fellow-creatures in the crowd below! O friends, we who live in peace and plenty amongst our families, how little do we realize the terror and the misery and the dumb heart-aches of those days!
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.

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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.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Voyage of the Beagle - by Charles Darwin

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
Charles Darwin's 1839 Voyage of the Beagle is a great travel memoir.  It also has its value as a scientific book, but not on the Kindle.  The Kindle edition does not include the illustrations.  (US Edition)  (UK Edition

In honor of "Shark Week," here the great English naturalist describes an interesting fish. (If you do not have Shark Week in the UK, one station dedicates all programming for one week to extravagant shark documentaries - and that has now bled over to other stations who re-run all their shark programming.)
" . . . he has frequently found a Diodon, floating alive and distended, in the stomach of the shark, and that on several occasions he has known it eat its way, not only through the coats of the stomach, but through the sides of the monster, which has thus been killed. Who would ever have imagined that a little soft fish could have destroyed the great and savage shark?"
This is an incredible voyage and only a small part of it is spent in the Galapagos.  This is from Rio de Janeiro:
"On first arriving it was our custom to unsaddle the horses and give them their Indian corn; then, with a low bow, to ask the senhor to do us the favour to give up something to eat. "Anything you choose, sir," was his usual answer. For the few first times, vainly I thanked providence for having guided us to so good a man. The conversation proceeding, the case universally became deplorable. "Any fish can you do us the favour of giving ?" — "Oh! no, sir." — "Any soup?" — "No, sir." — "Any bread?" — "Oh! no, sir." — "Any dried meat?" — "Oh! no, sir." If we were lucky, by waiting a couple of hours, we obtained fowls, rice, and farinha. It not unfrequently happened, that we were obliged to kill, with stones, the poultry for our own supper. When, thoroughly exhausted by fatigue and hunger, we timorously hinted that we should be glad of our meal, the pompous, and (though true) most unsatisfactory answer was, "It will be ready when it is ready." If we had dared to remonstrate any further, we should have been told to proceed on our journey, as being too impertinent."
The trip is not just a travel book.  Seeing slaves, he speculates on slavery:
"It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease.
Not always a gentle 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. 
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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)

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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.



Friday, August 10, 2012

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

US/UK Kindle Classic
I am reaching back to one of my earlier blogs, because this is one of my favorite books.

Of the many hysterical Jeeves & Wooster books by English writer P.G. Wodehouse, "Right Ho, Jeeves" is considered the most hilarious and falling down funny . . . by me . . . and others. (US Edition)  (£4.55 UK Edition)   I wish the UK version were free, but you will never spend a better pence.

Americans who are not familiar with "Jeeves and Wooster," will still recognize that Jeeves is the name of a butler.

Here is a bit of Jeeves and Wooster patter from this novel, but it could have come from any of them.  It is a typical exchange that fans  have come to expect. Wait for it . . .
"Yes, Jeeves?" I said. "Something on your mind, Jeeves?"

"I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat belonging to some other gentleman, sir."


I switched on the steely a bit more.


"No, Jeeves," I said, in a level tone, "the object under advisement is mine. I bought it out there."


"You wore it, sir?"


"Every night."


"But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?"
If this humour is not to your taste, you will still find this book very informative on newts. 



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)

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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


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressel

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a 1914 novel by Irish writer Robert Noonan who wrote under the pen name Robert Tressel. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  Noonan was a house painter and his is one of those sad stories of literary rejection.  A family member was able to get the book published after Noonan's death from tuberculosis.

This is said to be the first book by a working class writer, the book that won Labour's first election and the Socialist bible.  That is a lot to put on one novel!

But Amazon Reader reviews say over and over that they are re-reading this semi-autobiographical story of humour and rage.  The novel is set in a fictional town in England, which is said to be Hastings.

Around the teakettle, a political discussion ensues:
'Wot's the use of talkin' like that?' he said; 'you know very well that the country IS being ruined by foreigners. Just go to a shop to buy something; look round the place an' you'll see that more than 'arf the damn stuff comes from abroad. They're able to sell their goods 'ere because they don't 'ave to pay no dooty, but they takes care to put 'eavy dooties on our goods to keep 'em out of their countries; and I say it's about time it was stopped.'

''Ear, 'ear,' said Linden, who always agreed with Crass, because the latter, being in charge of the job, had it in his power to put in a good--or a bad--word for a man to the boss. ''Ear, 'ear! Now that's wot I call common sense.'
This is a fairly talky book, but the talk is entertaining and the dialect is not tiresome as it is in some books.

Here a foreman is besieged by job applicants and decides to hire one:
You can come here to this job,' and he nodded his head in the direction of the house where the men were working. 'Tomorrow at seven. Of course you know the figure?' he added as Newman was about to thank him. 'Six and a half.'

Hunter spoke as if the reduction were already an accomplished fact. The man was more likely to agree, if he thought that others were already working at the reduced rate.

Newman was taken by surprise and hesitated. He had never worked under price; indeed, he had sometimes gone hungry rather than do so; but now it seemed that others were doing it. And then he was so awfully hard up. If he refused this job he was not likely to get another in a hurry. He thought of his home and his family. Already they owed five weeks' rent, and last Monday the collector had hinted pretty plainly that the landlord would not wait much longer. Not only that, but if he did not get a job how were they to live?
That is not a dilemma confined to pre-war Britain.

There is speculation the title of this book was meant to be "The Ragged Arsed Philanthropists."  "Philanthropists" because the workers received such low wages, they might be thought to be donating their services.


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