Welcome to the library. This is where you can find reports by myself and others (hopefully others) on various works of literature, in the form of a "Book of the Month Club". I am also giving a list of books that I recommend to anyone with the same interests as myself, and links to sites that I think are worth visiting, such as the Amazon Online Bookstore.
Poetry Section--Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Shakespeare
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no: it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
There is a really great site that has the complete works of Shakespeare on-line:
Book of the Month--Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
"Please sir, I want some more."
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.
'Please, sir', replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master...shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and...said,
'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!'
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, 'I know that boy will be hung.'
I chose Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens for this month's book because I have just finished it, and I enjoyed reading it immensely. Dickens had the wonderful talent of telling the complete story so that you feel satisfied at the end of it; not frustrated that the book is finished, but glad that you read it.
Oliver Twist is an orphan, born and raised in an early 19th century English workhouse. His mother was not an inmate of the workhouse, but died giving him birth there. Her identity and home were a mystery. Having committed, at the tender age of nine years, the absolute blasphemy of asking for more, Oliver is locked up, then given away as an apprentice to a coffin-maker.
Though Mr. Sowerberry himself is fond of and kind to Oliver, the latter suffers cruelty and deprivation at the hands of Mrs. S. and the servants. As used as he is to such treatment, Oliver can bear it no longer and runs away to London.
Reaching the environs of the capital penniless and starving, he makes an unfortunate, though temporarily useful acquaintance in Mr. Jack Dawkins, or the Dodger, who brings him home to Fagin, the ringleader of a gang of thieves and outlaws. Fagin, unsuccessful in his attempts to train the innocent Oliver in the 'business', still plots against him with a mysterious stranger for some reason. After many misfortunes and two escapes from misery, Oliver's new friends try to solve the mystery of his birth and subsequent life of poverty.
Charles Dickens was born in England in 1812, and worked as a child in a blacking factory. He gained firsthand the material for the background of many of his writings. He used his talents to build a successful career, and so rose from poverty into the world of literature. Some of his other works are:Our Mutual Friend (wills, heirs, fools and angels)
Dombey & Son (a rich businessman's unaccountable hatred of his daughter)
Bleak House (people caught in the web of chancery and secrets of the past)
Great Expectations (life & adventures of a blacksmith's apprentice turned gentleman)
David Copperfield (life, follies and adventures of a young man)
Nicholas Nickleby (adventures of NN and his mother and sister after father's death leaves them somewhat impoverished)
A Christmas Carol (Ebenezer Scrooge)
Little Dorrit (I can't remember)
Hard Times
Martin Chuzzlewit (the adventures of a young man in England and America)
The Pickwick Papers (a group of funny middle-aged men and their adventures)
Barnaby Rudge
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)
Sketches by Boz
Read Oliver Twist and send in your impressions - I will put them here for others to read. Send them to:
ra_pun_zelle@yahoo.ca
For the more zealous readers, next month's book will be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.Here are some of my favourite authors and books:
AUSTEN, Jane -- all of her works
BRONTE, Anne, Charlotte, Emily -- all works
COOPER, James Fenimore -- The Last of the Mohicans
DICKENS, Charles -- all works
ELIOT, George -- Silas Marner, Middlemarch
MARSHALL, Catherine -- Christy
SCOTT, Walter -- Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, The Talisman, etc
SHAKESPEARE, William -- all works, mostlyAs promised, here is the link to the on-line Amazon bookstore:
Amazon On-line Bookstore
You can even find the actual text of some books on the Internet, if you really want to sit in front of a computer screen reading for hours. I found Jane Eyre, but I think it is easier to go to the library, to be honest.