Excerpt: Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

Excerpt: Second April by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Contents SPRING ............................................................................................................................................. 5 CITY TREES .................................................................................................................................... 6 THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG .................................................................................................... 6 JOURNEY........................................................................................................................................11 EEL-GRASS.................................................................................................................................... 12 ELEGY BEFORE DEATH ............................................................................................................. 12 THE BEAN-STALK ........................................................................................................................ 13 PASSER MORTUUS EST .............................................................................................................. 14 PASTORAL................

Excerpt: The Pickwick Papers, Volume One by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt: Paz by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

Libro de poemas

Só a través dun sentimento puro pode chegar unha aceptación profunda. Sólo a través de un sentimiento puro puede llegar una aceptación profunda. ...

Is there anything that is essentially required to complete any task? There are two virtues required: sincerity & morality. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, “If these two things are present in this era of time cycle, then that is more than enough. Even if one of them is present, it will indeed take one to final liberation.” What is meant by sincerity? To remain sincere to one’s own self, to remain sincere to things he is decided on. A sincere person would never go against his goal. It is sincerity when no bad thought arises for anyone during any circumstance. Insincerity is also a good attribute. It can take one to final liberation faster. Nonetheless, one remains in the middle of the two i.e. he neither remains sincere nor he remains insincere. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, “It will do if one achieves half the level of sincerity & morality.” In current compilation wonderful details are presented on sincerity-insincerity that will help reader progress on the spiritual path. ...

Following in the vein of my Coffee-Break collections, this is a collection of short (all under 15 minutes) stories for kids. Focus is on fables and fairy tales published before 1923. (Summary by BellonaTimes)...

Fairy tales, Children

Olive Green is the pseudonym for the prolific late 19th Century/early 20th Century author, Myrtle Reed. She wrote over thirty-three books and hundreds of magazine articles and pamphlets during her short lifetime. Ms. Reed was best known for writing romance novels that often included themes of everlasting and unrequited love, ironic revenge, mystery, and the occult. Her best known book is Lavender and Old Lace , which later became the basis for Arsenic and Old Lace . Ms. Reed used the name Olive Green to write books and articles about domestic homemaking and cooking. Her cookbooks include How to Cook Fish , What to Have for Breakfast , and One Thousand Simple Soups . Myrtle Reed committed suicide in 1911 just after the publishing of her last novel, A Weaver of Dreams . Her collection of stories about women who led important and independent lives, The Spinster Book , is also available for /the-spinster-book-by-myrtle-reed/ listening on . Summary by http://www.breadchick.com/ Mary aka Breadchick...

Cookery, Advice, Instruction

Robert Frost, who lived from March 26, 1874 to January 29, 1963, was a winner of 4 Pulitzer prizes and one of America’s best loved poets. This selection of his poems is a short walk through the variety of his simplistic natural themes and complex social understandings. (Summary by Becky Miller, Canal Winchester, Ohio)...

Nature, Poetry

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

Children, Fiction, Literature

Wopsy is the story of a very young Guardian Angel, sent to watch over a pagan baby in Africa. Wopsy desperately wants his baby's soul to become white and clean in baptism, but what is a small guardian angel to do when there is no missionary priest in the village? The author was a member of the missionary order of priests known as the White Fathers (So named because of the white habits they wore). He wrote the Wopsy series of books in order to encourage missionary vocations in young children. (Summary by Maria Therese)...

Children, Religion

Excellent murder mystery. On September 9, 1905, the NY Times Saturday Review of Books described this book as follows: That painstakingly ingenious person, Fergus Hume, has devised another of his hide-and-seek, jack-o'-lantern murder mysteries. It begins with a queer and rich old woman found stabbed to death in her chair and not a clue to the murderer. Then so many clues turn up that even the story-book detective is bewildered. Then nearly everybody turns out to be somebody else under an alias, and all the clues lead nowhere... (summary by Dawn Larsen and J.M. Smallheer)...

Mystery

Uncle Remus' stories feature a trickster hero called Br'er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit), who uses his wits to slide out of trouble and gain the advantage over the slower witted other animals, many of whom are trying to eat him. Br'er Rabbit stories were mostly collected directly from the afro-american oral story-telling tradition and are said to be a direct interpretation of Yoruba tales of Hare. This book contains 11 unique stories and was the last one published before the author's death. (Introduction by Phil Chenevert)...

Animals, Children, Fairy tales, Fantasy, Fiction, Teen/Young adult

These are 25 fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen - A collection of something for everyone - the very popular stories, the less well-known stories and favorites, that both children and grownups can enjoy. (Summary by Neeru Iyer)...

Fairy tales

Since this series of books is intended for all young people from one to one hundred, it opens with about eighty of the old MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES. Nothing better was ever invented to tell to little folks who are young enough for lullabies. Their rhythm, their humor, and thei pith will always cause us to prize them as the Babies' Classics. Editors: Hamilton Wright Mabie, Edward Everett Hale, William Byron Forbush.(Gutenberg Text)...

Children, Fairy tales

Peculiar happenings aboard the schooner Helen B. Jackson when one night during a storm, the small crew found themselves diminished by one. Somebody had gone overboard, and it was surmised that it was one of the twin Benton brothers. But oddly enough, it seemed that the 'presence' of the missing twin continued to exist on board during the following weeks. For example, one extra set of silverware was found to be used after each meal, but nobody claimed to be using them. What then did happen that stormy night, and which brother, if indeed it was one of the brothers, was the man who went overboard? (Summary by Roger Melin)...

Adventure, Sea stories, Mystery

The author was raised as an American Indian and describes what it was like to be an Indian boy (the first 7 chapters) and an Indian Girl (the last 7 chapters). This is very different from the slanted way the white man tried to picture them as 'savages' and 'brutes.'Quote: Dear Children:—You will like to know that the man who wrote these true stories is himself one of the people he describes so pleasantly and so lovingly for you. He hopes that when you have finished this book, the Indians will seem to you very real and very friendly. He is not willing that all your knowledge of the race that formerly possessed this continent should come from the lips of strangers and enemies, or that you should think of them as blood-thirsty and treacherous, as savage and unclean. (Summary by author's preface)...

Children, Historical Fiction, Teen/Young adult

Uri Nissan Gnessin was a Russian Jewish writer, generally considered a pioneer of modern Hebrew literature. His first book was published in 1904. In 1906 he co-founded the Hebrew-language publishing house Nisyonot (Attempts), and after moving to London in 1907, he co-edited (with Hayim Yosef Brenner) Ha'Meorer , a Hebrew periodical. Later he emigrated to Palestine but returned to Russia, then moved to Warsaw, where he died in 1913 of a heart attack. Gnessin wrote in a unique style of prose notable for its expressionistic language form. The story Etsel is about a young man suffering severe heart disease, unable to love or accept the love of several women around him. (Summary by Wikipedia and Omri Lernau)...

Literature

The story told in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel, A Little Princess , was first written as a serialized novella, Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s , and published in St. Nicholas Magazine , in 1888. It tells the story of Sara Crewe, an intelligent, wealthy, young girl at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara’s fortunes change when her father dies, and she goes from being a show pupil and parlor boarder at the school to a drudge, but eventually she finds happiness and a home again. (Summary by Treesh)...

Children

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates an entertaining adventure of Middle America in the 1800's - afloat on a raft on the Mississippi River. Huck escapes his civilized life when he arranges his own murder and turns back into the backwoods, downriver yokel he started as, and in the process springing a slave, Jim, from bondage.Huck and Jim experience life as a series of tableaus as the river sweeps them through small towns on their way South. At each stop, Huck engages his talent for mixing fact with bald-faced lies to endlessly get himself out of situations... and of course, putting him into others!Much has been written about the statement Twain is making about slavery in this book, but it's really secondary to the story. The facts of how black people were treated in this period give Huck and Jim their license for life on the run. Modern listeners will be intrigued by the unencumbered life of the pair; they make do with coffee, fish from the river, and little else (but of course, when they do need something extra, they don't mind helping themselves to it without recourse to money!)Huck and Jim have run-ins with de...

Literature, Adventure, Humor, Travel, Teen/Young adult, Children