American Literature

[sweetnpetite]

I love books! And I especially love text books. There is just something about them.

Anyway, I got these two high school literature books *for free* from the library (they where on a free cart, I didn't steal them.) They are from published 1953, but in good shape. (No, I'm not selling them, I'm sharing my excitement.)

The cool thing about them is that they are full of some really great writers and poets. Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickenson, Ogden Nash, James Thurber, Captain John Smith (In the Hands Indians) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Everson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, O Henry, Washington Irving, Shakespeare, and even a letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower, just to name a few. And that's just one book.

Some of the stories are:
Casey at the Bat, Paul Revere's Ride, The Man Without a Country, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Oh Captain! My Captain!, and Under the Greenwood Tree (Shakespear)

The other book is even better:

The devil and danial webster, the secret life of walter mitty, fire and ice, our town, sinners in the hands of an angry god, the pit and the pendalem,excerpts from Walden and Mody Dick, Gettysburg adreess, I hear America Singing, and when I heard the learn'd astronimer.

featured writeres, jack finney, william faulkner, john steinbeck, Hemingway, ray bradbury, eb white, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Benjamine Franklin, Thomas Pain, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamiilton, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe,Nathanial Hawthorne, Henry David Through, Oliver Weddell Holmes, Robert E. Lee, and James Whitcomb Riley.

Two fantastic 'anthologies' for free. I think I might start a collection. So does this make me extremely weird that I'm so excited about this?

 

[Guest]

 

[pop_54]

I love books! And I especially love text books. There is just something about them.

Anyway, I got these two high school literature books *for free* from the library (they where on a free cart, I didn't steal them.) They are from published 1953, but in good shape. (No, I'm not selling them, I'm sharing my excitement.)

The cool thing about them is that they are full of some really great writers and poets. Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickenson, Ogden Nash, James Thurber, Captain John Smith (In the Hands Indians) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Everson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, O Henry, Washington Irving, Shakespeare, and even a letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower, just to name a few. And that's just one book.

Some of the stories are:
Casey at the Bat, Paul Revere's Ride, The Man Without a Country, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Oh Captain! My Captain!, and Under the Greenwood Tree (Shakespear)

The other book is even better:

The devil and danial webster, the secret life of walter mitty, fire and ice, our town, sinners in the hands of an angry god, the pit and the pendalem,excerpts from Walden and Mody Dick, Gettysburg adreess, I hear America Singing, and when I heard the learn'd astronimer.

featured writeres, jack finney, william faulkner, john steinbeck, Hemingway, ray bradbury, eb white, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Benjamine Franklin, Thomas Pain, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamiilton, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe,Nathanial Hawthorne, Henry David Through, Oliver Weddell Holmes, Robert E. Lee, and James Whitcomb Riley.

Two fantastic 'anthologies' for free. I think I might start a collection. So does this make me extremely weird that I'm so excited about this?

Sweet darling, you're not at all weird, you are the proud owner of some classics, keep them safe, but read every bit love. You won't find too many crap erotic scenes full of cliches in that lot.

My biggest regret is the loss of our family treasure in a flood many years ago, over 150 hardback novels and childrens stories all dating back to the classics. In fact nothing younger than 1940's.

 

[sanchopanza]

When I'm finished with books I give them away. Unfortunately I gave away 2 books I now want to look at - Lolita and Brideshead Revisited, hopefully I gave them to my brother . . . I love books but I've run out of room for them.

Anybody here read more than one book/novel at a time? I end up reading about 4-6 at one time. Right now it's Invisible Man (Ellison), Wuthering Heights (Bronte), The Odyssey (Homer), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway).

 

[sweetnpetite]

When I'm finished with books I give them away. Unfortunately I gave away 2 books I now want to look at - Lolita and Brideshead Revisited, hopefully I gave them to my brother . . . I love books but I've run out of room for them.

Anybody here read more than one book/novel at a time? I end up reading about 4-6 at one time. Right now it's Invisible Man (Ellison), Wuthering Heights (Bronte), The Odyssey (Homer), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway).

ALL the time! I dont' think I ever read only one book at a time. Usually a novel or two, several non-fiction and a bunch of magazines. There's ADD for you

I never through anything away, so I can't say much about giving away a book and wanting it later. Although I have lost all of my copies of 1984 which is in my oppinion as good as literature gets.

 

[sweetnpetite]

LOL, I'm only wierd when I start to immitate Emerson and Thoreau! Those dasterdly non-conformists

Weird only to the increasingly ignorant masses among whom we must live and who believe that they know Crime and Punishment from the TV adaptation (which by the way I refused to watch as I could never imagine that book brought to the screen - how could you visually encompass all of the mental angst of Raskolnikov?).

Keep up your prospecting - you've struck gold!

Lime

 

[sanchopanza]

i've still got that. i've got about 5 copies of sons and lovers and 5 copies of kim.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Grats on the find Sweet!

I love books too and collect them when I can afford it

-Colly

 

[Parklife]

Things like that never go out of significance because the stories are the same whether you have them as individual collections or in anthologies.

I've kept most of the anthology collections I had from college.

Heck, when else would you get "Casey at the Bat".. I mean, it's not exactly a story you seek out to buy. But one that could provide plenty of good reading to a young son/daughter.

I'm a fan of lending my books out but always find that I end up losing quite a few. I just lend out "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" and "Ecco Homo" to a friend that lives in Southern California. I'm half expecting never to see them again. But then, I'm always a fan of giving away certain books as gifts. I've gifted Camus' "The Stranger" countless times.

Park~

 

[NemoAlia]

Gotta love the "Anthology of ____ Literature!" I collect 'em too, and what I don't own, I read in other people's libraries. I've made pilgramages to private collections far away in other states solely for the purpose of reading old textbooks. They say a lot about the culture in which they were compiled.

And another neat thing to look for in old textbooks: The little inscriptions and mission statements that adorn the first page or two of the book. Poetry at its most faddish, perhaps.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've had to stop buying books because there's just no more room for them, so now it has to be something that I really want or that I can't find in my library. We have a great library here: huge.

The only trouble with those HS anthologies is that they're just so sanitized and they tend to favor 19th Century authors because they're so tame and non-controversial. At the library I like to grab a "Year's Best" anthology of something: short stories or sci-fi or mystery. I Recently took out a Year's Best anthology of fantasy/horror featuring mostly British writers. Some very good stuff in there; quite amazing. Makes me sick, how good they are.

---dr.M.

 

[Quasimodem]

If there is anybody with a love for classic – and just old – books who hasn't heard about Project Gutenberg, I shall be surprised.

Project Gutenberg was begun in 1971, and is scheduled to reach its present goal of a 10,000 book library before the end of this year.

While other formats have been utilized, every ebook released is in a "plain vanilla" Ascii Text.

Anyone who was NOT aware, can find the Project Gutenberg Site here.


While there are many methods of "reading" the books, from simply scrolling the text, to text-to-speech readers, one of the simplest methods of manipulating an ebook file into a book-like format is Tom's eText Reader, a small (400KB program) which allows the operator to avoid the problems inherent in reading a continuous scroll.

This FREE program, which can read any txt, rtf, and html file – including ones from Literotica – can be found here.


Special Note to sweetnpetite:

American Literature
. . . The cool thing about them is that they are full of some really great writers and poets. Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickenson, Ogden Nash, James Thurber, Captain John Smith (In the Hands Indians) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Everson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, O Henry, Washington Irving, Shakespeare, and even a letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower, just to name a few. And that's just one book. . . .

Er ... I hate to mention it, but Shakespeare did not write American Literature.

 

[Angler]

WOW ... you have indeed found some GREAT STUFF!

I'm getting excited just reading about the books you've found!

Mark Twain ... Ben Franklin ... two of my absolute favorites.

And the rest ... man oh man ... you have some wonderful reading there.

ENJOY!!!

Angler

 

[oggbashan]

I am sitting in my own secondhand bookshop surrounded by my favourite authors.

Sometimes it is hard to sell them but I am supposed to be making a profit.

If you want to find an out-of-print book try www.abebooks.com

Sometimes I put a table outside with books priced at ten pence. When desperate I reduce the price to one penny. That is popular with students. One young lady bought 150 books for one pound fifty (about two dollars). She couldn't carry them home to her parents' house so I delivered them. She was happy; so was I. I'm not sure her parents were overjoyed.

Og

 

[Quasimodem]

Naturally, there is a somewhat different dynamic at work for someone who wishes to own the actual book.

To literally own a book, especially an old book – one published many years ago that carry not only its contents, but also its history – is quite a dissimilar experience. An ebook is the mere ghost of the contents. Actual books are a piece of history.

The problem is, that to posses all the information in the books I would like to "own," ebooks are my only solution. I'm getting too old to live in a warehouse.

 

[ffreak]

Literature books are wonderful - great reads, great inspiration, and memorable storytelling.

Now that I've found this thread, and many others who like these treasures, I've got to ask for help locating a specific story titled August Heat. There's an easy to look up version written around 1910, but the story I would like to find a copy of was written in the late 40's or early 50's and takes place in Northern Mexico - a couple of American's on vacation and the wife is a nag. They talk about how some of the people are taken from their graves when the family is unable to pay for upkeep and stored in a cave. I read this story in Junior High and I still remember it many years later. If any of you recognize this and can give me an anthology or text-book title, I'd really appreaciate it.

-FF (so many books, so little time)

 

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by oggbashan Sometimes I put a table outside with books priced at ten pence.

Our library auxiliary has a monthly sale of books which are donated or no longer wanted by the library. Hundreds to choose from. I've gotten hundreds of copies of the classics this way for a quarter each. I have to limit myself to what I can carry in one trip to the car each month.
MG

 

[sweetnpetite]

I've had to stop buying books because there's just no more room for them, so now it has to be something that I really want or that I can't find in my library. We have a great library here: huge.

The only trouble with those HS anthologies is that they're just so sanitized and they tend to favor 19th Century authors because they're so tame and non-controversial. At the library I like to grab a "Year's Best" anthology of something: short stories or sci-fi or mystery. I Recently took out a Year's Best anthology of fantasy/horror featuring mostly British writers. Some very good stuff in there; quite amazing. Makes me sick, how good they are.

---dr.M.

Also they have a disproportioate amnt of white male authors. (these two frm the '50s)

What else is interesting is the heavy patriotic slant.

(btw why does patriotic sound like patriarchy?)

 

[sweetnpetite]

she answers her own question

patriot - 1596, "compatriot," from L.L. patriota, from Gk. patriotes "fellow countryman," from patria "fatherland," from pater (gen. patros) "father" + -otes suffix expressing state or condition. Meaning "loyal supporter of one's country" is slightly later in Eng. Johnson defined it as "one whose ruling passion is the love of his country," and in his fourth edition added, "It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government." Patriotic is first recorded 1***; patriotism formed in Eng. 1726. Oriana Fallaci marvels that Americans, so fond of patriotic, patriot, and patriotism, lack the root noun and are content to express the idea of patria by cumbersome compounds such as homeland.

 

[dee1124]

Re: she answers her own question

Oriana Fallaci marvels that Americans, so fond of patriotic, patriot, and patriotism, lack the root noun and are content to express the idea of patria by cumbersome compounds such as homeland.

I suppose we do muddle along with "homeland" and such but if you translate "patria" to English it becomes "fatherland" and that word got rather a bit of bad press during the 1940's. And do any of you remember hearing the word "homeland" before certain recent, sad events? I don't.

-- Dee

 

[dee1124]

Robert E. Lee

I was reading from the top again, enjoying your enthusiasm, Sweet, and was struck by the appearance of General Lee's name in the list of authors. What is it by him they included? The last General Order he wrote to the Army of Northern Virginia? Volumes and volumes have been written about RE Lee but I never knew him as a published author.

And since you mentioned Stephen Vincent Benet, I'll give you what he wrote about Marse Robert:

For he will smile
And give you, with unflinching courtesy,
Prayers, trappings, letters, uniforms and orders,
Photographs, kindness, valor and advice,
And do it with such grace and gentleness
That you will know you have the whole of him
Pinned down, mapped out, easy to understand --
And so you have.
All things except the heart.
The heart he kept himself, that answers all.
For here was someone who lived all his life
In the most fierce and open light of the sun,
Wrote letters freely, did not guard his speech,
Listened and talked with every sort of man,
And kept his heart a secret to the end
From all the picklocks of biographers.

I'd give you also Benet's American Names but dang it! I can't find my copy.

-- Dee

Oh, yeah, Henry David Thoreau seems to have pronounced his last name "thorough" because he once punned on it that way by saying, "I do a Thoreau job."

 

[sweetnpetite]

Robert E. Lee

Letter to his Son

Letter to General Scott

Fairwell to the Army of Northern Virginia

(This book actually has quite a few letters writen by historical figures)

 

[sweetnpetite]

Aside from 1984, the other awsom book that I love from back in high school is Grapes of Wrath. I really love that book.







ONly book I started and purposly never finished- for whom the bell tolls

 

[Xelebes]

I don't spend much time reading as much as I did in grade seven and eight. There's only so much Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Isaac Asimov you can read. Right now, I've taken up my dad's hobby of reading Robert Heinlein and I have taken up reading and writing scripts for video games (I've finally broken through to making video games which nowadays requires a lot of scripting and such to keep the reader into the game.)

However, music is my passion, and spend way too much time on it to hunt down literary works of art. Finding gems by Wendy Carlos, Gustav Mahler and others has taken priority over Bronte and Dostoyevsky.

 

[sweetnpetite]

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