Blogging about Books

This week’s Free Ebook of the Week consists of “Roger-Isms: The Cowboy Philosopher on the Peace Conference” by Will Rogers, a piece about the Versailles Peace Conference. Since that is so short, I’m also including volume 1 of The Wit and Humor of America (with contents too long to list). Please let me know if you’d like another volume from that series next week.

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile the Kid’s Boo of the Week is “Welsh Fairy Tales” by William Elliot Griffis.

Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Suggestions always welcome.

Please spread the word.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Richard Seltzer  <a href=”mailto:seltzer@samizdat.com”>seltzer@samizdat.com</a></p>
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This week’s book is “Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories: A Complete Collection of the Funny and Witty Anecdotes that Made Abraham Lincoln Famous as America’s Greatest Story Teller”. According to the Preface: “Dean Swift said that the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before serves well of his kind. Considering how much grass there is in the world and comparatively how little
fun, we think that a still more deserving person is the man who makes many laughs grow where none grew before. Sometimes it happens that the biggest crop of laugh is produced by a man who ranks among the greatest and wisest. Such a man was Abraham Lincoln whose wholesome fun mixed with true philosophy made thousands laugh and think at the same time. He was a firm believer in the saying, “Laugh and the world laughs with you.” Whenever Abraham Lincoln wanted to make a strong point he usually began by saying, “Now, that reminds me of a story.” And when he had told a story every one saw the point and was put into a good humor. The ancients had Aesop and his fables. The moderns had Abraham
Lincoln and his stories.”

In the same vein, next week I plan to send out a collection of Will Rogers’ comments about the peace conference at the end of WWI.

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile, the Kid’s Book of the Week is “Children of the New Forest” by Marryat. Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Suggestions always welcome.

Please spread the word.

FYI — I’ve had to delay my next round of CD/DVD updates while I focus on another project. I now anticipate that the next edition of the Complete Book DVD Set will be available in early May. (One of the hazards of operating as a one-person company; there are always more things that need to be done than time to do them [and I haven't yet figured out how to save time in a bottle...] Sorry about that.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

Continuing our celebration of copyright freedom, this week’s Ebook of the Week is “Dream Psychology” by Sigmund Freud (who died in 1939). According to Wikipedia: “Sigmund Freud … (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was a Jewish-Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry.[1] Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires. He was also an early neurological researcher into cerebral palsy. Freud was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the history, interpretation and critique of culture. While some of Freud’s ideas have fallen out of favor or have been modified by Neo-Freudians, and modern advances in the field of psychology have shown flaws in some of his theories, Freud’s work remains seminal in humans’ quest for self understanding, especially in the history of clinical approaches. In academia, his ideas continue to influence the humanities and social sciences.[citation needed] He is considered one of the most prominent thinkers of the first half of the 20th century, in originality, intellectual influence and popular resonance on par with Einstein and Keynes.”
Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile the Kid’s Book of the Week, thanks to a suggestion from Penny Golden, is “Mary Jane’s City Home” by Clara Ingram Judson. Please let me know if you like me to add you to that distribution list.

Please spread the word.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

This week we continue our celebration of “copyright freedom” with “The Good Solider” by Ford Madox Ford. According to Wikipedia: “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique pioneered by Ford. It also makes use of the device of the unreliable narrator, as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads you to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford’s messy personal life. The novel’s original title was The Saddest Story, but after the onset of World War I, the publishers asked Ford for a new title. Ford suggested (perhaps sarcastically) The Good Soldier, and the name stuck.” Also according to Wikipedia: “Ford Madox Ford (December 17, 1873 – June 26, 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature.[citation needed] He is now best remembered for The Good Soldier (1915) and the Parade’s End tetralogy… In 1908, he founded The English Review, in which he published Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, John Galsworthy and William Butler Yeats, and gave debuts to Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence and Norman Douglas. In 1924, he founded The Transatlantic Review, a journal with great influence on modern literature. Staying with the artistic community in the Latin Quarter of Paris, France, he made friends with James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Jean Rhys, all of whom he would publish (Ford is the model for the character Braddocks in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises). Known in his role as critic for the statement “Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” In a later sojourn in the United States, he was involved with Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, Katherine Anne Porter and Robert Lowell (who was then a student). Despite his deep Victorian roots, Ford was always a champion of new literature and literary experimentation.”

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile, the Kid’s Book of the Week is “Penrod and Sam” by Booth Tarkington. Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that email distribution list.

Please spread the word.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

What’s you take on the iPad?

The press seems to consider it as competition to Kindle and Sony ebook readers. But it is designed as a general purpose computer, not as an ebook reader.

While it’s possible to read text on it, I see no reason why anyone would want to read on it more than they’d want to read on any general purpose computer. While it’s possible, it’s not desirable, because the backlit screen makes it hard on the eyes.

Also, the form factor matters. The Kindle and the Sony are about the size of a paperback, fit in a pocket, can easily be carried around. The iPad is too big for book reading comfort. (I understand that the DX (larger screen than the original Kindle) did not do very well.)

The free wireless connection of the Kindle also matters. The Kindle folks designed their device so there’s no need for a computer. Hence it appeals to a very wide audience.

The press makes a big deal out of Apple agreements with a few major book publishers. It looks like Apple wants to make sure that best sellers will be available for the iPad — as a way to sell iPads. It’s hard to tell if Apple wants to sell tens of thousands of different titles directly. I doubt it.

There are apps for the ipod and the iphone that handle Kindle books. And all the iPod and iPhone apps will work on the iPad from day one. (I don’t know about the Sony, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t apps for that format as well. Do you know?)

So I’d suspect that Apple would promote the apps and/or try to make deals wth with Amazon or Sony or Barnes and Noble to make lots of books available quickly, rather than start from scratch.

I also see “A spokesman for Amazon did not comment on whether they were worried the iPad would affect sales of Kindle readers, but said in an e-mail message that customers would soon be able to sync their Kindle books to the iPad.”

That sounds like a very good idea.

I expect that the iPad will develop into an alternate way of reading the same books (thanks largely to apps — making books for Sony, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon all readable on the iPad). In other words, many people would have both rather than one or the other, and do their current reading on the device that’s most convenient, keeping their books in synch; so they can read chapter one on the one and then pick up another device and continue reading where they left off.

So while the iPad will compete with Kindle and Sony and Barnes & Noble as a book reading device, it will probably increase the market for ebooks sold by those three, in a world in which people read on multiple devices, and, due to apps, devices are able to display multiple formats.

In general, the press seems to have focused on ebook devices rather than on ebooks. For instance, Computer World

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9149902/iPad_to_have_big_impact_on_e_reader_market_?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2010-01-28

“Both Yankee Group and analyst firm In-Stat are still bullish on the e-reader market. In-Stat said nearly 1 million e-readers shipped in 2008, and that number will grow to 28 million in 2013. For its part, Yankee Group said e-reader sales hit about $400 million in 2009 and will explode to $2.5 billion in 2013.”

I believe that puts the emphasis in the wrong place.

I believe that Amazon and Barnes & Noble see the devices as a way to sell books. They’d both gladly sell books to be read on other companies’ devices.

You could say that the device is the razor and the ebook is the blade, that the real money is to be made from the ebooks and that eventually the devices might be priced extremely low or even given away.

But I don’t think things will work out that way either. Yes, the real money is in the books. But the books will not be limited for reading on a single device; and the devices won’t be limited to reading books of a single format. In other words, the seller of a particular device won’t in any sense “own” the customers who buy that device.

What’s your take on this?

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

Continuing our copyright freedom celebration, and based on a suggestion from Betty Bandy, this week’s book is “The Cossacks: a Tale of 1852″ by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. According to Wikipedia: “The Cossacks is a short novel by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1863. The novel was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language.”

Meanwhile, the Kid’s Book of the Week is “Penrod” by Booth Tarkington. Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that email distribution list.

And I just updated two of our CDs, adding 10 books to “Cook Books” for a total of 121 books. http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/cookbooks.html ; and adding 9 to “Books about Classical Music” for a total of 127 books, plus 164 libretti of operas, etc. http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/bookabclasmu.html

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

In the wake of the Senate election in Massachusetts, an old friend and I were talking politics. I mentioned that the healthcare system is broken. He countered that the political system is broken. I agreed.

He suggested that one small thing that could be done to help improve the situation was term limits. I replied that that would require an amendment to the Constitution, which is no small matter and takes many years.

I counter-suggested that fixing House and Senate rules wouldn’t take an amendment, wouldn’t even take a law, and could have an immediate effect. For instance, seniority impacts committee memberships and chairmanships and how daily business is conducted. Eliminate seniority and come up with an equitable non-party way of determining committee memberships and chairmanships, and much of the bartering of favors would go away, smashing long-estabished personal power bases, and weakening the power of party organizations.

After that conversation, I ruminated on the implications. Congress people could choose which committees they wanted to be on and membership could be decided among the candidates by lot. Then chairmen could be selected by lot and stay in the post no more than a year, or even less. As a result, incumbents would no longer have a huge advantage over new-comers in elections, which would lead to shorter terms. And with no clear centers of power to focus on, lobbyists would have to dilute their efforts, paying attention to far more individuals. They would no longer be motivated to direct vast sums of money toward particular races. By reducing the incentive for corruption, corruption would decline.

But how could we get from here to there? Congress would never do it. The President doesn’t have the authority to do it. A constitutional amendment could bring about such a change, but the likelihood of that is zero, since every state legistature has the same kind of rules, with the same kind of entrenched power structures.

But there is a practical solution.

The effect of seniority and related rules is that elected representatives have vastly unequal power. If my district has a freshman congressman, if my state has a freshman senator, if either my congressman or one of my senators is not a Democrat or a Republican, then, effectively, I am disenfranchised. I am not fully and equally represented in Congress. I have, to a large extent, lost my right to equal representation.

Hence a group of citizens from such a district and such a state could bring a class-action suit against Congress, challenging such rules. Then, eventually, the Supreme Court could decide the issue.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

January is copyright independence month. In the European Union the term for copyright protection is the date of the author’s death plus 70 years. That means that on Jan. 1, 2010, works by authors who died in 1939 finally entered the public domain. So we will celebrate by sending out works by Ford Madox Ford, Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, William Butler Yeats, and Aylmer & Louise Maude (translators of Tolstoy). This week, the selection is six plays by Tolstoy, translated by Maude. These include: The Cause of It All, The First Distiller, Fruits of Culture, The Light Shines in Darkness, The Live Corpse, and
The Power of Darkness.

According to Wikipedia: “Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 – November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910), was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction. Tolstoy’s further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.” Also according to Wikipedia: “Aylmer Maude (28 March 1858 – 25 August 1938) and Louise Maude (1855–1939) were English translators of Tolstoy’s works, and Aylmer Maude also wrote his friend Tolstoy’s biography. After living many years in Russia the Maudes spent the rest of their life in England translating Tolstoy’s writing and promoting public interest in his work. Aylmer Maude was also involved in a number of early 20th century progressive and idealistic causes.”

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile the Kid’s Book of the Week is “The Bee-Man of Orn and other Fanciful Tales by Frank R. Stockton. Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Please spread the word.

Suggestions always welcome.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

Thanks to a suggestion from Penny Golden, the Kid’s Book of the Week is “The Basket Flowers” by Christoph von Schmid. According to Wikipedia, “Writer of children’s stories and educator, Christoph von Schmid was born at Dinkelsbuehl, in Bavaria, on 15 August 1768, and died at Augsburg on September 3, 1854. He studied theology and was ordained priest in 1791. Christoph von Schmid then served as assistant in several parishes until 1796, when he was placed at the head of a large school in Thannhausen on the Mindel, where he taught for many years. He soon began writing books for children which taught Christian values.[1] His first work was a bible history for children (1801). He continued with his calling as a writer of children’s books throughout his long life, one of his most noted stories being Die Ostereier (Easter Eggs, 1816) due to its popularity and also that he started signing himself as “author of Easter Eggs.”[2] Many say that he was the pioneer writer of books for youths. His original purpose for writing was to reward his students after school by reading his books to them. His writings have been translated into 24 languages. His principle juvenile works are Biblische Geschichte für Kinder, Der Weihnachtsabent, Genovena, Ostereier, Das Blumenkörbschen, and Erzählungen für Kinder und Kinderfreunde (1823–1829). His stories usually center around a disturbance to the happiness of good people which God’s righteousness finally fixes, the goal of the writer being to awaken a practical piety in his youthful readers. He also wrote poems which are scattered here and there in his work.[2] His autobiography, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, was published in 1853–1857. From 1816 to 1826 he was parish priest at Oberstadion in Würtemberg. In 1826, Christoph von Schmid was appointed canon of the Cathedral of Augsburg, where he died of cholera when he was eighty seven.” Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that list.

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.

Meanwhile, this week’s Free Ebook of the Week is “Old Christmas” by Washington Irving (from The Sketch Book of Washington Irving). According to Wikipedia: “Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”, both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846. He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of George Washington just eight months before his death, at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York. Irving, along with James Fenimore Cooper, was among the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens.” Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Please spread the word.

Suggestions always welcome.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com

This week’s Free Ebook of the Week is “The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh” by William Makepeace Thackeray.

This book comes from our Christmas CD http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/christmas.html

According to Wikipedia: “William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society… Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, with a sneaking fondness for roguish upstarts like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, Barry Lyndon in The Luck of Barry Lyndon and Catherine in Catherine. In his earliest works, writing under such pseudonyms as Charles James Yellowplush, Michael Angelo Titmarsh and George Savage Fitz-Boodle, he tended towards the savage in his attacks on high society, military prowess, the institution of marriage and hypocrisy.”

Please let me know if you would prefer to receive these books in .prc (MobiPocket Reader format), which works better than plain text for reading on the Kindle. I’m building a separate mailing list for Kindle users.
Meanwhile This week’s ebook of the week is Mardi: and a Voyage Thither by Herman Melville (both volumes). Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Meanwhile, this week’s Kid’s Book is “A Budget of Christmas Tales”, an anthology originally published in 1895 that includes:
A Christmas Carol — by CHARLES DICKENS
The Christmas Babe by MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
A Western Christmas by MRS. W. H. CORNING.
Joe’s Search for Santa Claus by IRVING BACHELLER.
Angela’s Christmas by JULIA SCHAYER.
The First Puritan Christmas Tree by ANONYMOUS
First New England Christmas by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
The Chimesby CHARLES DICKENS.
Billy’s Santa Claus Experience by CORNELIA REDMOND.
Christmas in Poganuc by MRS. H. B. STOWE.
The Christmas Princess by MRS. MOLESWORTH.
Widow Townsend’s Visitor by ANONYMOUS
The Old Man’s Christmas by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
The Christmas Goblin by CHARLES DICKENS.
The Song of the Star by C. H. MEAD.
Indian Pete’s Christmas Gift by H. W. COLLINGWOOD.
My Christmas Dinner by ANONYMOUS
The Poor Traveler by CHARLES DICKENS.
The Legend of the Christmas Tree by ANONYMOUS
The Peace Egg by JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
Please let me know if you’d like me to add you to that distribution list.

Suggestions always welcome.

Please spread the word.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com