Tale of travel and of a mission in Africa 100 years ago by Frederick Marryat. Adventrue, romance, and thrills await the reading in this Fredercik Marryat tale.
Monday, October 12, 2020
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Monday, July 27, 2020
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella
by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The
book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their
human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal,
free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and
the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the
dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.
According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"),[and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole"
The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like "A Satire" and "A Contemporary Satire". Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for "bear", a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques.
Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated.[The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great commercial success when it did appear partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.
Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996. and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.
According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"),[and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole"
The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like "A Satire" and "A Contemporary Satire". Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for "bear", a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques.
Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated.[The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great commercial success when it did appear partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.
Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996. and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.
Friday, July 24, 2020
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by English author D. H. Lawrence,
first published privately in 1928 in Italy, and in 1929 in France and
Australia. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the
United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed
obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books. Penguin won the
case, and quickly sold 3 million copies. The book was also banned for
obscenity in the United States (1929–59), Canada, Australia, India, and
Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and
emotional) relationship between a working class man and an upper class
woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and its use of then-unprintable
(four-letter) words.
The story is said to have originated from certain events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from the county of Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story. Lawrence at one time considered calling the novel "Tenderness", and made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.
The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper class husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, described as a handsome, well-built man, has been paralysed from the waist down due to a Great War injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her emotional frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realization stems from a heightened sexual experience Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind.
The story is said to have originated from certain events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from the county of Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story. Lawrence at one time considered calling the novel "Tenderness", and made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.
The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper class husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, described as a handsome, well-built man, has been paralysed from the waist down due to a Great War injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her emotional frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realization stems from a heightened sexual experience Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
The White Desert by Courtney Ryley Cooper
An adventure taking place in snow and in the mountains. A railroad
is being built, and of course, there are problems. There is a romantic
entanglement, and soon, one has a full-blown adventure and tale of
suspense and intrigue.
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Whispering Tongues by Homer Greene
Two young men at a university are close, best friends, until a
certain event occurs. They have drifted rather far apart, however, due to the behavior of one of them. It falls on the one to save the other, but will he do the right thing?
Sunday, July 19, 2020
The Ward of King Canute by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
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