 |
Free US/UK Kindle
Classic
|
I wanted to write about Emile Zola's
novel, The Paradise, because I am
really enjoying the TV adaptation. But I
was shocked, shocked to discover no free copies on Kindle! There is a feature on Amazon which readers
can use to alert Amazon to a Kindle edition that violates copyright. It should not apply to the public domain
books that I review. However, I notice
that many of the books I reviewed over a year ago are no longer available. I suspect that publishers of inexpensive
editions report the "free" editions, knowing that they can knock out
the competition. As Amazon makes no
money on the free editions and even loses a small amount on the download, there
is no incentive to hurry up and vet these free editions which are incorrectly reported
as violating copyright. So, no Zola . . .
(US Edition) (UK Edition)
So we will go with the next best thing, which is the
French writer Zola's 1871 novel, The
Fortune of the Rougons. It is the
first in a series of twenty, but stands on its own!
Once again, I will depend heavily on the intrepid Amazon
reviewers.
"In
his introduction to the 20th and final novel (DOCTOR PASCAL), Zola specified
the order he intended the series to be read, and it differs greatly from the
order in which the books were written. So, now that you're on the first of
twenty, make a note of the LOGICAL order of the books, and you will enjoy them
much more:
1). THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS); 2) HIS EXCELLENCY or CLORINDA [and so on up to twenty, but we will stop with two.]
And in case you were wondering, if this were a single novel, it would be 6,680 pages long. C'est pas possible!"
This series
of novels is a very rewarding reading experience, the type of endeavor like
reading Proust that will stay with you your entire life.
Let's take a look:
First there is a long introduction to a
cemetery and then we meet a young man carrying a gun.
The young man was still
gazing anxiously in that direction when, suddenly, one of the town clocks
slowly and solemnly struck seven. He counted the strokes, and then jumped down,
apparently surprised and relieved.
He seated himself on the
tombstone, like one who is prepared to wait some considerable time. And for
about half an hour he remained motionless and deep in thought, apparently quite
unconscious of the cold, while his eyes gazed fixedly at a mass of shadow. He
had placed himself in a dark corner, but the beams of the rising moon had
gradually reached him, and at last his head was in the full light.
Please let me know when you finish the series.
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.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to
this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. (It is one of the top 100 blogs on
Amazon.)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
Here
is a video of my mother,
at 97, a new convert to the Kindle!
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. You may e-mail me at marilyn@marilynlitt.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.