The Sum of My Parts


James Sanford - 2011
    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow


Jerome K. Jerome - 1886
    This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading 'the best hundred books, ' you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change." (from the Preface to "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome Jerome)

Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther


Martin Luther
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Alarms and Discursions


G.K. Chesterton - 1911
    K. Chesterton. These essays were originally published in the 'Daily News', and cover a range of topics ranging from Gargoyles to strolls around Marble Arch. The essays contained herein include: The Surrender of a Cockney, The Nightmare, The Telegraph Poles, A Drama of Dolls, The Men and His Newspaper, The Appetite of Earth, Simmons and the Social Tie, Cheese, The Red Town, The Furrows, and many more. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, theologian, and biographer. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author."

Father and Son


Edmund Gosse - 1907
    Father and Son remains one of English literature's seminal autobiographies. In it, Edmund Gosse recounts, with humor and pathos, his childhood as a member of a Victorian Protestant sect and his struggles to forge his own identity despite the loving control of his father. His work is a key document of the crisis of faith and doubt and a penetrating exploration of the impact of evolutionary science. An astute, well-observed, and moving portrait of the tensions of family life, Father and Son remains a classic of twentieth-century literature.This edition contains an illuminating introduction, and provides a series of fascinating appendices including extracts from Philip Gosse's Omphalos and Edmund Gosse's harrowing account of his wife's death from breast cancer.

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah And Meccah: Volume 2


Richard Francis Burton - 1906
    This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1898 edition by George Bell & Sons, London.

Mozart: the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - 1905
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Letters From An Astrophysicist


Neil deGrasse Tyson - 2019
    Now, Tyson invites us to go behind the scenes of his public fame by unveiling his candid correspondence with people across the globe who have sought him out in search of answers. In this hand-picked collection of one hundred letters, Tyson draws upon cosmic perspectives to address a vast array of questions about science, faith, philosophy, life, and of course, Pluto. His succinct, opinionated, passionate, and often funny responses reflect his popularity and standing as a leading educator.Tyson’s 2017 bestseller Astrophysics for People in a Hurry offered more than one million readers an insightful and accessible understanding of the universe. Now, revealing Tyson’s most candid and heartfelt writing yet, Letters from an Astrophysicist introduces us to a newly personal dimension of Tyson’s quest to understand our place in the cosmos.

Jane Austen's Letters


Jane Austen - 1932
    They bring alive her family and friends, her surroundings and contemporary events with a freshness unparalleled in modern biographies. Above all we recognize the unmistakable voice of the author of such novels as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. We see the shift in her writing from witty and amusing descriptions of the social life of town and country, to a thoughtful and constructive tone while writing about the business of literary composition. R.W. Chapman's ground-breaking edition of the collected Letters first appeared in 1932, and a second edition followed twenty years later. Now in this third edition of Jane Austen's Letters, Deirdre Le Faye has added new material that has come to light since 1952, and re-ordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence. She has provided discreet and full annotation to each letter, including its provenance, and information on the watermarks, postmarks, and other physical details of the manuscripts, together with new biographical, topographical, and general indexes. Teachers, students, and fans of Jane Austen, at all levels, will find remarkable insight into one of the most popular novelists ever.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark


Mary Wollstonecraft - 1795
    Her scenic descriptions and political comments about Norway and her encounters with an impoverished peasantry and Danish townsfolk greedily obsessed by commerce are no less vivid than the outbursts of melancholy in these letters written to Gilbert Imlay, her unfaithful lover and father of her baby. This book attracted William Godwin to its author, who was soon to become his wife and the mother of Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, making this a key work for the understanding of the Godwin-Shelley circle. This new edition is enriched by a new introduction by Sylva Norman, which puts Wollstonecraft's letters into their political and social context and provides enlightening information about Mary's life, loves, and deeply held convictions.

Land of July: A Real Life Scandal of Sex & Social Media at a Connecticut High School


Robert M. Marchese - 2018
    Land of July tells the true story of a teacher/student sex scandal that not only shocked an entire school and small suburban community, but made national news. It’s a story filled with countless anecdotes about marriage, trust, infidelity, grief, and the desperate search for hope and family in the face of ruin. Practically ripped from the daily headlines, Land of July is as salacious as it is sobering. At its best, it’s a cautionary tale that might just inspire an awakening of morality; at its worst, it’s one man’s tumultuous journey to hell...and possibly back.

Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language


Samuel Johnson - 2004
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare


Leo Tolstoy - 1906
    He was the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His first publications were three autobiographical novels, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856). They tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the differences between him and his peasants. As a fiction writer Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). In their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of 19th-century Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realist fiction. As a moral philosopher Tolstoy was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). During his life, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that William Shakespeare is a bad dramatist and not a true artist at all. Tolstoy explained his views in a critical essay on Shakespeare written in 1903.

Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings


Edward Bulwer-Lytton - 1848
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

What is Coming? A Forecast of Things after the War


H.G. Wells - 1916
    For it is the lot of prophets who frighten or disappoint to be stoned. But for some of us moderns, who have been touched with the spirit of science, prophesying is almost a habit of mind.