In 1879 John Muir went to Alaska for the first time. Its stupendous living glaciers aroused his unbounded interest, for they enabled him to verify his theories of glacial action. Again and again he returned to this continental laboratory of landscapes. The greatest of the tide-water glaciers appropriately commemorates his name. Upon this book of Alaska travels, all but finished before his unforeseen departure, John Muir expended the last months of his life. (Summary by William Frederic Bade)...

Adventure, Memoirs, Nature, Travel

Hallel (Hebrew: הלל‎ Praise [God]) is part of Judaism's prayers, a verbatim recitation from Psalms 113-118, which is used for praise and thanksgiving that is recited by observant Jews on Jewish holidays. Summary from Wikipedia...

Poetry, Religion

This is volume 5 of 5. -- An ex-convict breaks parole and starts a new life as a righteous man, but is pursued by a police inspector. Along the way, the ex-convict joins a revolution, adopts a daughter, and beats people up. Hooray. (Summary by smileyman457)...

Fiction, Romance

This is a true account by American woman journalist who, in 1889, set out to see whether she could beat the fictional journey in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Wearing one dress and carrying one handbag, Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (pen name “Nellie Bly”), reported her travels back to avid readers in America. (Summary by Mary Reagan)...

Biography

The story centers on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren, a rich woman, described by the author as on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman and her daughter, Vivie. Mrs Warren is a middle-aged woman whose Cambridge-educated daughter, Vivie, is horrified to discover the sinister way her mother acquired her fortune. (Summary by Wikipedia and Arielle Lipshaw)...

Play

Fantômas is the first of 32 novels penned from 1911 to 1913 by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. The title character is a ruthless thief and killer, a bloodthirsty successor to LeBlanc's Arsène Lupin. The first five novels were made into silent film serials. The character and the movies caught the eye of the French Surrealists who admired the primal violence of Fantômas, as well as his portrayal in the films, which are considered landmarks in French Cinema. In Fantômas , the Marquise de Langrune is savagely murdered and Inspector Juve, who is obsessed with capturing Fantômas, arrives to solve the murder. (Summary by Alan Winterrowd)...

Mystery, Adventure

Robert Frost preferred to describe the New England countryside using everyday language. He used both as tools to explore world views and life philosophies. A Boy's Will was his first poetry anthology. (Summary by Bill Boerst)...

Poetry

Fenimore Cooper - author of The Deerslayer , The Last of the Mohicans , etc - has often been praised, but just as often been criticised for his writing. Mark Twain wrote a funny, vicious little essay on the subject, in which he states: In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. (Summary by Gesine)...

Satire

A Christmas Carol (full title: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening. (Wikipedia)...

Fantasy, Holiday

Mr. and Mrs. Langmore were found mysteriously murdered in their mansion one morning. Their daughter Margaret, who was at home at the time of the deaths, is quickly suspected of having committed the crime. However, her fiance Raymond Case will not believe in her guilt and convinces the famous detective Adam Adams to investigate. This book was written by Edward Stratemeyer, head of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, under the pseudonym of Chester K. Steele. (Summary by Carolin)...

Fiction, Mystery

Jesus of Nazareth, a Biography, by John Mark, recognizes the author of the second Gospel as that John, whose surname was Mark (Acts 15:37), whom Barnabas chose as companion when he sailed for Cyprus on his second missionary journey. In making use of the new title, the plan of the Editor is to present The Gospel: According to Mark as it would be printed were it written in the twentieth rather than the first century. (Introduction from Forward, by D. Appleton & Co, Publishers, 1922)...

Ancient Texts, Biography, History, Religion

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a medieval scholar; Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. His stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasise the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions. “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” was written as two collections, presented here as two volumes in a single work. There is a short author’s preface before the first story in each volume. (Summary by Peter Yearsley)...

Horror/Ghost stories

Fiction

A wickedly funny book of advice on women's dress. However old, fat or plain you are, Dorothy Quigley will tell you what not to wear. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

Advice, Humor

This is chapter 9 of Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England from the accession of James II. This chapter covers part of the invasion of England by William, the Dutch Stadtholder, later William III of England....

History

Ecumenical creeds is an umbrella term used in the western church to refer to the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. The ecumenical creeds are also known as the universal creeds. These creeds are accepted by almost all mainstream Christian denominations in the western church, including the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican churches and Lutheran churches. A creed by definition is a summary or statement of what one believes it originates from the Latin credo meaning I Believe....

Religion

volunteers bring you 21 different recordings of My Madonna by Robert W. Service. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of August 12th, 2007.

Poetry

Porcelain and Pink is a comic one-act play from the 1922 short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. The plot involves a young woman in a bathtub and a case of mistaken identity. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...

Comedy

This is a collection of 12 short stories of mystery and humor, which are, as the title says, for amusement only. (Summary by Carolin)

Humor, Mystery

volunteers offer you 9 different recordings of Going down Hill on a Bicycle by Henry Charles Beeching. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 25th, 2010....

Poetry