Mark Twain passed away on April 21, 1910.  Many scholars agree that the birth of the American novel occurred with the publication of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain was a storyteller, a humanitarian, and a world traveler, but did you know that Mark Twain also a philosopher? His short story, The Mysterious Stranger, predates the Matrix. [...]

The free ebook for today is Giacomo Casanova’s  ”Story of My Life”. Recently, France’s National Library purchased the original manuscript for 7 million euros.

The manuscript is written in French and,  at 3,700 pages,  is quite a long read. Most hardbacks are abridged versions.
The problem I have is finding a translation that I enjoy reading. Below [...]

The free ebook for today is a collection of very famous Japanese ghost stories translated by Lafcadio Hearn. The book , Kwaidan,  inspired a 1964 Oscar-nominated film by the same name.  Once one of Cincinnati’s well-known writers, Lafcadio Hearn was a sensationalistic journalist who wrote colorful accounts of grisly crimes.  Cincinnati Magazine published a terrific [...]

Currently working my way through George Orwell’s fifty essays.  Orwell should be better known as an essayist.  I especially liked the essay Bookshop Memories.
Copy the plain text at Gutenberg Australia where Orwell is out of copyright. Convert the text to epub in Calibre and read it on your IPhone.
Read it!

” To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause [...]