Friday, April 6, 2012

Sons and Lovers - by D.H. Lawrence

Free US/UK Kindle Classic
Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence
Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by D.H. Lawrence.  It is among the top ten novels of the 20th century,according to Modern Library – whose compact editions were so prized before the advent of the Kindle! 
(US Edition)  (UK Edition


And those Modern Library edtions will be among the few volumes I keep in the event of a power outage.  My collection of DTB's (Dead Tree Books), keeps shrinking as I realize I just want to read books on the Kindle.  This is due to my eyesight problems.  I love the uniform background and the easy to read e-ink with scalable type at the push of a button.  I just don't want to read any other format.


The official Amazon review said . . .Never was a son more indentured to his mother's love and full of hatred for his father than Paul Morel, D.H. Lawrence's young protagonist. Never, that is, except perhaps Lawrence himself.” 

So, this is an autobiographical novel.  More to the point, an Amazon reader review states: “There is a quality to this work that you do not find in contemporary novels. The characters are developed to an incredible depth and with great skill and precision. You find after reading this book that you feel you know some of the characters better than your neighbors.”

Now that sounds like a good book!  Let’s take a look.  The bride, Gertrude Morel finds her new husband is a cheat, but not perhaps the sort you think:
"And how much has he sunk in his houses?" she asked.

 "His houses--which houses?" 

Gertrude Morel went white to the lips. He had told her the house he lived in, and the next one, was his own. 

"I thought the house we live in--" she began. 

"They're my houses, those two," said the mother-in-law. "And not clear either. It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgage interest paid." 
Gertrude sat white and silent.

Quite a blow to discover that you are a renter, not the owner – but nothing compared to discovering you were lied to.  And of course there is never just one lie:
He began to be rather late in coming home [from the mine].
"They're working very late now, aren't they?" she said to her washer-woman.
"No later than they allers do, I don't think. But they stop to have their pint at Ellen's, an' they get talkin', an' there you are! Dinner stone cold--an' it serves 'em right."
"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink."
The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with her work, saying nothing.
It is bad when you can’t tell your husband is drinking . . .but rather common I think, at least years ago.  (I speak from personal family history.)



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 on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly through your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog, as I get 33 cents a month for each subscription.

You may get a two week free trial membership which you can cancel if it does not suit your needs.

UK readers, 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 this links for UK readers or US readers.

Thank you!  Enjoy a good book this week!  I am caught up in the French Revolution with Madame Dafarge.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - by Robert Louis Stevenson




The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an 1885 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.  (US Edition)  (£0.77 UK Edition)  Everyone knows what Jekyll and Hyde is about.  The phrase, “Jekyll and Hyde personality,” is a part of our culture.  But have you ever read the book?  Sometimes something so familiar is not what we expect it to be .  . .

All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.

It sounds like nothing to hear?”  It is harrowing!
"But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man.
I thought it was Mr. Hyde who was the bad guy?
The story of how the book is written belongs with those books written in a haze as well as those books produced by a dream.  The book was written very quickly while Stevenson was ill or maybe on drugs.  For good measure he claimed to have burned the original manuscript and then rewrote it from memory.  Strange provenance or not, it is a strange book!
"Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only differently sloped."

Check it out!


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

US readers, 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.