What is the Hall's reading list?
Grim has very generously offered to let me put a question before the Hall, and I consider it a great honor that he has extended to me. In short, I have received a new Kindle (thanks to my lovely bride) and given both my parsimonious nature (I'm a cheap son of a gun) and the fact that there's a world of free literature out there, I have not gone to the electronic book stores to fill it, but instead to sites like Project Gutenberg. So my question is, what does the Hall recommend? What are your favorite "classics"?
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For reference; I got these, among others, from Gutenberg:
Federalist Papers
Anti-Federalist Papers
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (I got the 4 separate volumes)
Common Sense
The Writings of Thomas Paine (Complete)
Declaration of Independence
Constitution
Ethics (Aristotle)
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (2 vols, Locke)
Politics: A Treatise on Government (Locke)
Second Treatise on Government (Locke)
Magna Carta
Rousseau (two volumes)
Lit:
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Divine Comedy
Treasure Island
I like the Gutenberg references in Kindle because it's easy to take notes, and to cut and paste for later, more focused study.
Sorry, I'm short on Kindle classics; I've already accumulated over my life an extensive print library of classics, ranging from "real" classics through PI mysteries (Parker and MacDonald, mostly) and science fiction.
Eric Hines
One thing I downloaded on my Kindle was the memoirs of British actress Fanny Kemble, who visited the United States circa 1835. A very smart and perceptive woman, well worth knowing. I reviewed her works here:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html#2460691192628986921
and here:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html#3298231471011403435
Jerome K. Jerome, "Three Men in a Boat," for when you need a great big laugh, or to remember what it was like being young
I second "Three Men in a Boat." I've got Jane Austen on my Kindle, too.
My female students in China really liked Jane Austen. I was a little surprised that it was portable from Regency England to modern-day China, but apparently it was.
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Weeeelll, my Kindle currently has: von Möltke's "Unter den Halbmond" (only in German), the first volume of Humbolt's "Cosmos" and of his observation on the biology of South America, and Darwin's "Geology of South America and Patagonia." And some sci-fi.All but the sci-fi is free. Note that I jut got the thing last week.
LittleRed1
I've found you can get all kinds of free stuff in different languages if you can read in them, or if you like practicing your rudimentary ability to read in them (the latter being my case -- I have to find something familiar with straightforward action and not too much allusion or philosophizing).
Anything out of copyright pretty much is available for free: Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Tacitus, Homer, Hawthorne, Hardy, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Sir Walter Scott, Plutarch. And not just the well-known stuff, either: if you go on Amazon and search for "kindle free," then substitute a large page number in the browser field in order to skim past many, many pages of pop dreck, you'll find all kinds of weird things: "Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus," Churchill's "The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan," "History of the Confederate Powder Works," "The Compleat Cook: Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether Italian, Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering Of Sauces or Making of Pastry," and a surprising number of works about the evils of gluten.
Wow, that was an interesting experience. The Free Kindle collection somehow manages to include both the best and the worst things ever written, often all on the same page!
I scrolled through quite a few pages of absolute drek before giving up and just heading to Project Gutenberg that first day. I did get most of the classics (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Beowulf), and classic Sci Fi (John Carter of Mars series). I despaired when I couldn't find much Lovecraft until my friend showed me that it was available on the Australian Project Gutenberg page. Not in a great format (it is literally ALL his works in one giant text file, with no hyperlinks) but it's all there.
Yes, scrolling one page at a time is way too tedious. But when I dropped down to page 200 or 300 by substituting the page number up there in the browser line, I got to lots of interesting stuff and had to stop myself from downloading handfuls of it.
I was unable to resist "Myths and Myth-Makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology" by John Fiske (1842-1901), which I then read happily while I was having a root canal done earlier today (my second). I think I mentioned here a year or so ago that root canals, to my amazement, are easy-peasy these days.
Maybe it's time I got an e-reader...
Maybe it's time I got an e-reader...
I have both an early Kindle and a Nook Color. The Nook is a whole lot better, but it's also an unfair comparison.
You can try them out for free: Barnes & Noble and amazon.com both have free versions of their stand-alone e-readers that you can download to your PC/laptop. These aren't fully functional compared to their stand-alones, but these aren't crippleware, either.
Eric Hines
The free book I got that impressed me most was Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast."
That's a very interesting book. I understand it was one that influenced the writing of Moby Dick.
Melville also wrote White Jacket, a somewhat fictionalized version of his own experiences as a crewman on an American sailing warship. Well worth reading...I see it's available free on Kindle.
Thanks, Eric. I do have a couple reader apps on my phone, but it's something I use on a limited basis- it's just not that comfortable to read on that screen, but at least I can steal a few minutes of reading while I wait somewhere (without having to remember to tote a book with me).
Even on screen, denser writings I tend to like in print. I ended up printing hardcopy of Politics to read along with, for instance.
This Luddite finally broke down and got a Note II for a cell phone. For a long time (and even with this thing), I've preferred actual telephones over entertainment centers that do phone calls as a side light. Even so, the screen is too small to suit me; even tablets are only barely large enough to present useful amounts of an image or a Web site, and they still don't quite have enough CPU horsepower for my needs.
Even on screen, denser writings I tend to like in print.
You and me both. And it works for me in the other direction, too. I find it very easy (physically) to write on my laptop. But when it comes to proof reading and correcting, nothing beats paper and a red pen.
Eric Hines
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