The Call of the Wild Jack London http://feedbooks.com/book/92 urn:isbn:0753454939 en 1903 Novels Adventure The Call of the Wild is a novel by American writer Jack London. The plot concerns a previously domesticated and even somewhat pampered dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events finds him serving as a sled dog in the treacherous, frigid Yukon during the days of the 19th century Klondike Gold Rushes. Published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is one of London's most-read books, and it is generally considered one of his best. Because the protagonist is a dog, it is sometimes classified as a juvenile novel, suitable for children, but it is dark in tone and contains numerous scenes of cruelty and violence. London followed the book in 1906 with White Fang, a companion novel with many similar plot elements and themes as The Call of the Wild, although following a mirror image plot in which a wild wolf becomes civilized by a mining expert from San Francisco named Weedon Scott. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://feedbooks.com/book/92.png http://feedbooks.com/book/92.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/92.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/92.mobi The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas http://feedbooks.com/book/73 urn:isbn:037576030X en 1845 Novels Adventure The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas' most popular work. It is also among the highest selling books of all time. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story. http://feedbooks.com/book/73.png http://feedbooks.com/book/73.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/73.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/73.mobi Herbert, Frank 1920 1986 en 3 7362 Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. He is best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, deals with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics and power. Dune itself is the "best-selling science fiction novel of all time," and the series is widely considered to be among the classics in the genre. Frank Herbert was born October 8, 1920 in Tacoma, Washington to Frank Patrick Herbert Sr. and Eileen McCarthy Herbert. He graduated high school in 1938, and in 1939 he lied about his age in order to get his first newspaper job at the Glendale Star. There was a temporary hiatus in his career as he served in the U.S. Navy's Seabees for six months as a photographer during World War II until he was given a medical discharge. He married Flora Parkinson in San Pedro, California in 1941. They had a daughter, Penny (b. February 16, 1942), but divorced in 1945. After the war he attended the University of Washington, where he met Beverly Ann Stuart at a creative writing class in 1946. They were the only students in the class who had sold any work for publication – Herbert had sold two pulp adventure stories to magazines- the first to Esquire in 1945, and Stuart had sold a story to Modern Romance magazine. They married in Seattle, Washington on June 20, 1946. They had two sons: * Brian Patrick Herbert (b. June 29, 1947, Seattle, Washington), a best-selling novelist * Bruce Calvin Herbert (b. June 26, 1951, Santa Rosa, California), a gay rights activist who died from AIDS in 1993 In 1947 Frank Herbert sold his first science fiction story, "Looking for Something", to Startling Stories. Frank Herbert did not graduate from college, according to his son, Brian, because he wanted to study only what interested him and so did not complete the required courses. After leaving college he returned to journalism and worked at the Seattle Star and the Oregon Statesman; he was also a writer and editor for the San Francisco Examiner's California Living magazine for a decade. His career as a novelist began with the publication of The Dragon in the Sea in 1955, where he used the environment of a 21st century submarine as a way to explore sanity and madness. The book predicted worldwide conflicts over oil consumption and production. It was a critical success but not a major commercial one. Florence, Oregon, with sand dunes that served as an inspiration for the Dune saga Florence, Oregon, with sand dunes that served as an inspiration for the Dune saga Herbert began researching Dune in 1959 and was able to devote himself more wholeheartedly to his writing career because his wife returned to work full time as an advertising writer for department stores, becoming the main breadwinner during the 1960s. Herbert later related in an interview with Willis E. McNeilly that the novel originated when he was supposed to do a magazine article on sand dunes in Florence, Oregon, but he became too involved in it and ended up with far more raw material than needed for a single article. The article, entitled "They Stopped the Moving Sands," was never written, but it did serve as the seed for the ideas that led to Dune. Dune took six years of research and writing to complete. Far longer than commercial science fiction of the time was supposed to be, it was serialized in Analog magazine in two separate parts ("Dune World" and "Prophet of Dune"), in 1963 and 1965. It was then rejected by nearly twenty book publishers before finally being accepted. One editor prophetically wrote back "I might be making the mistake of the decade, but..." before rejecting the manuscript. Chilton, a minor publishing house in Philadelphia known mainly for its auto-repair manuals, gave Herbert a $7,500 advance, and Dune was soon a critical success. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and shared the Hugo Award in 1966. Dune was the first ecological science fiction novel, containing a multitude of sweeping, inter-relating themes and multiple character viewpoints, a method that ran through all Herbert's mature work. The book was not an instant bestseller. By 1968 Herbert had made $20,000 from it, far more than most science fiction novels of the time were generating, but not enough to let him take up full-time writing. However, the publication of Dune did open doors for him. He was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's education writer from 1969 to 1972 and lecturer in general studies and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Washington (1970 – 1972). He worked in Vietnam and Pakistan as social and ecological consultant in 1972. In 1973 he was director-photographer of the television show, The Tillers. By 1972, Herbert retired from writing for newspapers and became a full-time writer. During the 1970s and 1980s, Herbert enjoyed considerable commercial success as an author. He divided his time between homes in Hawaii and Washington's Olympic Peninsula; his home on the peninsula was intended to be an "ecological demonstration project". During this time he wrote numerous books and pushed ecological and philosophical ideas. He continued his Dune saga, following it with Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune. Other highlights were The Dosadi Experiment, The Godmakers, The White Plague and the books he wrote in partnership with Bill Ransom: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor which were sequels to Destination: Void. Herbert's change in fortune was shaded by tragedy. In 1974, Beverly underwent an operation for cancer. She lived ten more years, but her health was adversely impacted by the surgery. In the midst of this, Herbert was the featured speaker at the Octocon II science fiction convention at the El Rancho Tropicana in Santa Rosa, California in October 1978. Beverly Herbert died on February 7, 1984, the same year that Heretics of Dune was published. In his afterword to 1985's Chapterhouse Dune, Frank Herbert wrote a moving eulogy for his wife of 38 years. 1984 was a tumultuous year in Herbert's life. In the same year that his wife died, his career took off with the release of David Lynch's film version of Dune. Despite high expectations, a big-budget production design and an A-list cast, the movie drew mostly poor reviews in the United States. However, despite a disappointing response in the USA, the film was a critical and commercial success in Europe and Japan. After Beverly's death, Herbert married Theresa Shackleford in 1985, the year he published Chapterhouse Dune, which tied up many of the saga's story threads (though ending on a cliffhanger intended to lead into his planned Dune 7). This would be Herbert's final single work (the anthology Eye was also published that year, and Man of Two Worlds was published in 1986). He died of a massive pulmonary embolism while recovering from surgery from pancreatic cancer on February 11, 1986 in Madison, Wisconsin age 65. Source: Wikipedia The Gift of the Magi O. Henry http://feedbooks.com/book/3504 urn:isbn:141693586X en 1906 Short Fiction Jim Dillingham Young and his wife Della are a young couple who are very much in love with each other, but can barely afford their one-room apartment opposite the elevated train due to their very bad economic condition. For Christmas, Della decides to buy Jim a chain which costs twenty dollars for his prized pocket watch given to him by his father. To raise the funds, she has her prized long hair cut off and sold to make a wig. Meanwhile, Jim decides to sell his watch to buy Della a beautiful set of combs made out of tortoise shell for her lovely, knee-length brown hair. Although each is disappointed to find the gift they chose rendered useless, each is pleased with the gift they received, because it represents their love for one another. The true unselfish love that the characters, Jim and Della, share is greater than their possessions. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://feedbooks.com/book/3504.png http://feedbooks.com/book/3504.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/3504.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/3504.mobi Swift, Jonathan 1667 1745 en 2 27331 Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) was an Irish cleric, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet, famous for works like Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, although he is less well known for his poetry. Swift published all of his works under pseudonyms — such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier — or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of 2 styles of satire; the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. Source: Wikipedia Candide Voltaire http://feedbooks.com/book/709 urn:isbn:0553211668 en 1759 Novels Philosophy Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759) is a French satire by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, English translations of which have been titled Candide: Or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: Or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Or, Optimism (1947). The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply optimism) by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not outright rejecting optimism, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". http://feedbooks.com/book/709.png http://feedbooks.com/book/709.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/709.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/709.mobi Vonnegut, Kurt 1922 2007 en 2 51468 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was a prolific and genre-bending American author. The novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka http://feedbooks.com/book/8 urn:isbn:0553213695 en 1912 Short Fiction Horror The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://feedbooks.com/book/8.png http://feedbooks.com/book/8.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/8.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/8.mobi White Fang Jack London http://feedbooks.com/book/3533 en 1906 Novels Adventure An initiation story concerning the taming of a wild dog in the Klondike. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://feedbooks.com/book/3533.png http://feedbooks.com/book/3533.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/3533.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/3533.mobi London, Jack 1876 1916 en 43 146815 Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and other books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a huge financial success from writing. Source: Wikipedia Shelley, Mary 1797 1851 en 13 77079 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English romantic/gothic novelist and the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. She was married to the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Source: Wikipedia Dumas, Alexandre 1802 1870 fr 49 237804 Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870) was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and The Man in the Iron Mask were serialized, and he also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent. Source: Wikipedia Shakespeare, William 1564 1616 en 37 227885 William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia Lovecraft, Howard Phillips 1890 1937 en 79 355827 Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He is notable for blending elements of science fiction and horror; and for popularizing "cosmic horror": the notion that some concepts, entities or experiences are barely comprehensible to human minds, and those who delve into such risk their sanity. Lovecraft has become a cult figure in the horror genre and is noted as creator of the "Cthulhu Mythos," a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a "pantheon" of nonhuman creatures, as well as the famed Necronomicon, a grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works typically had a tone of "cosmic pessimism," regarding mankind as insignificant and powerless in the universe. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, and his works, particularly early in his career, have been criticized as occasionally ponderous, and for their uneven quality. Nevertheless, Lovecraft’s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though often indirect. Source: Wikipedia Austen, Jane 1775 1817 en 13 249860 Jane Austen (16 December 1775 - 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Her biting social commentary and masterful use of both free indirect speech and irony eventually made Austen one of the most influential and honored novelists in English Literature. Source: Wikipedia Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne http://feedbooks.com/book/199 urn:isbn:0812968565 en 1872 Novels Adventure Travel Shocking his stodgy colleagues at the exclusive Reform Club, enigmatic Englishman Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune, undertaking an extraordinary and daring enterprise: to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days. With his French valet Passepartout in tow, Verne’s hero traverses the far reaches of the earth, all the while tracked by the intrepid Detective Fix, a bounty hunter certain he is on the trail of a notorious bank robber. http://feedbooks.com/book/199.png http://feedbooks.com/book/199.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/199.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/199.mobi 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne http://feedbooks.com/book/182 urn:isbn:0812550927 en 1870 Novels Science Fiction Adventure Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, published in 1870. It is about the fictional Captain Nemo and his submarine, Nautilus, as seen by one of his passengers, Professor Pierre Aronnax. http://feedbooks.com/book/182.png http://feedbooks.com/book/182.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/182.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/182.mobi The Invisible Man H. G. Wells http://feedbooks.com/book/34 urn:isbn:0451528522 en 1897 Novels Science Fiction The Invisible Man is an 1897 science fiction novella by H.G. Wells. Wells' novel was originally serialised in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, and published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man of the title is Griffin, a scientist who theorises that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air and his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will be invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again, becoming mentally unstable as a result. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://feedbooks.com/book/34.png http://feedbooks.com/book/34.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/34.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/34.mobi The Time Machine H. G. Wells http://feedbooks.com/book/32 urn:isbn:0812505042 en 1895 Novels Science Fiction The book's protagonist is an amateur inventor or scientist living in London who is never named; he is identified simply as The Time Traveller. Having demonstrated to friends using a miniature model that time is a fourth dimension, and that a suitable apparatus can move back and forth in this fourth dimension, he builds a full-scale model capable of carrying himself. He sets off on a journey into the future. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://feedbooks.com/book/32.png http://feedbooks.com/book/32.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/32.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/32.mobi The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells http://feedbooks.com/book/35 urn:isbn:0812505158 en 1898 Novels Science Fiction War The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. It is one of the earliest and best-known depictions of an alien invasion of Earth, and has influenced many others, as well as spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, and a television series based on the story. The 1938 radio broadcast caused public outcry against the episode, as many listeners believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress, a notable example of mass hysteria. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50 or in the USA (published before 1923). http://feedbooks.com/book/35.png http://feedbooks.com/book/35.pdf http://feedbooks.com/book/35.epub http://feedbooks.com/book/35.mobi