Description Details
Edward Gibbon's massive history of Rome has become the definitive work on the subject. Spanning the years between the rise of Augustus and the invasion of Rome by the barbarians, it is...

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
Sonnets from the Portuguese chronicles one of the most famous romances in history. The renowned Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett wrote the sonnet sequence during her courtship by Robert Browning, and later presented them to him as a wedding gift. Robert was astounded by the quality of the poetry, and encouraged her to publish, but Elizabeth objected on the grounds that the content was too personal. At last, Robert prevailed, and Elizabeth published her sonnets. The title of the book comes from a joke between Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Elizabeth was too embarrassed to publish the sonnets as a personal chronicle, so she decided to pretend they were a translation from a foreign language. Robert’s nickname for her was “My Little Portuguese” due to her dark hair and olive complexion, and so the sequence was forever known as “Sonnets from the Portugese.” (Summary by Kirsten Ferreri)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry

Description Details
Mommsen (1817-1903) erhielt für die Römische Geschichte 1902 den Nobelpreis für Literatur. Römische Geschichte Drittes Buch Von der Einigung Italiens bis auf die Unterwerfung Karthagos und der griechischen Staaten This reading is in German....

Excerpt Details
History, Literature

Description Details
The Books of Samuel (Hebrew: Sefer Sh'muel ספר שמואל) are part of the Tanakh (part of Judaism's Hebrew Bible) and also of the Christian Old Testament. The work was originally written in Hebrew, and the Book(s) of Samuel originally formed a single text, as they are often considered today in Hebrew bibles. Together with what is now referred to as the Book(s) of Kings, the translators who created the Greek Septuagint divided the text into four books, which they named the Books of the Kingdoms. In the Latin Vulgate version, these then became the Books of the Kings, thus 1 and 2 Samuel were referred to as 1 and 2 Kings, with 3 and 4 Kings being what are called 1 and 2 Kings by the King James Bible and its successors....

Excerpt Details
Religion

Description Details
volunteers bring you fifteen different readings of Mother Night , by James Weldon Johnson. This weekly poetry project (for the week of 2/26/2006) was selected to celebrate Black History Month. (Summary by Annie Coleman)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry

Description Details
The Reverend Gilbert White was the curate of the village of Selborne, a village in Hampshire, from 1784 to his death in 1793, living most of his life in the village. The book is in the form of a collection of letters to two friends, discussing the natural history of the areas that he knew, and natural history in general. White's intense curiosity and his love for the world about him flow through his simple, straightforward style, and a gentle sense of humour colours many of his anecdotes. (Summary by Peter)...

Excerpt Details
Nature

Description Details
A biography of Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, founder of Quebec, and father of New France. ( Summary by Cathy Barratt )

Excerpt Details
Biography, History

Description Details
The Fifth Book of the Faerie Queene contayning the Legende of Artegall or of Ivstice.This masterpiece was never completed, but it continues to be one of the most beautiful and important works of literature ever written. Spenser wrote it as a paean to the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, and to the golden age which he believed she had brought to England. Sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh and commended by the foremost literary minds of his day, Spenser's book remains one of the crowning poetic achievements of the Elizabethan period....

Excerpt Details
Myths/Legends, Poetry

Description Details
Nothing spooky or supernatural, but a very personal gathering of gossip, letters, and fragments of biography of famous people who have lived in Piccadilly (in London, England) ... and of some of the buildings, now long gone. If any part of any city deserves a book to itself, it is Piccadilly. We shall stand before some house in the hours when the traffic is stilled, and I shall tell of its history, of the men and women who dwelt there, and talked and loved and gambled and lived and died. I shall follow the lines of my temperament and tastes rather than those of completeness and impartiality: it is likely that I shall be voluble about Byron and reticent about Macaulay. (From the preface)...

Description Details
This is an early novel by the phenomenally successful author of frontier, western and sports stories. It deals with historical characters and incidents in the Ohio Valley in the late 18th century, especially with the foundation of Gnaddenhutten, a missionary village intended to bring Christianity to the Indians of Ohio, despite the violent opposition of both Indians and white renegades. This turbulent adventure romance features the heroics of a semi-legendary frontiersman, Lewis Wetzel, who attempts to protect the settlers from hostile Native Americans and the vicious white outlaws the Girty brothers. (Introduction by Leonard Wilson)...

Excerpt Details
Historical Fiction

Description Details
The Epistle of Paul to Titus, usually referred to simply as Titus, is one of the three Pastoral Epistles (with 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy), traditionally attributed to Saint Paul, and is part of the New Testament. It describes the requirements and duties of elders and bishops....

Excerpt Details
Ancient Texts, Religion

Description Details
The Lancashire Witches is a highly fictionalised account of the activities of the notorious witches Demdike, Chattox and Alice Nutter who, together with others terrorised the district of Lancashire around Pendle Hill and the Forest of Bowland during the early seventeenth century. The witches named in the book were real enough, if not as witches then as people. Ainsworth, in his story brings in the dissolution of Whalley Abbey and the historic families of Assheton, Braddyll and Nowell and takes us through to the final trial and execution at Lancaster Castle in 1612. (Summary by Andy Minter)...

Excerpt Details
Historical Fiction, History

Description Details
The Gospel of Mark is a Gospel of the New Testament. It narrates the life of Jesus from John the Baptist to the Ascension, but it concentrates particularly on the last week of his life (chapters 11-16, the trip to Jerusalem). Its swift narrative portrays Jesus as a heroic man of action, an exorcist, a healer and miracle worker. It calls him the Christ (equivalent to Messiah), the Son of Man, and a few times as the Son of God. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Religion

Description Details
Charlemagne's nephew Orlando (AKA Roland) is driven insane by the infidelity of his beloved Angelica. Angelica's relationship with him and others loosely unifies multiple story lines to produce a rich tapestry of romance, fictionalized history, and pure fantasy. This romance-epic is a sequel to the less distinguished and unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato, by Mattteo Maria Boiardo. (Summary by Thomas A. Copeland)...

Excerpt Details
Adventure, Erotica, Fantasy, Myths/Legends, Tragedy, Poetry

Description Details
The first half of this book describes the devastating earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906, and the subsequent destruction caused by fire. Various eyewitnesses and victims give their account on the tragedy. In the second half, a number of different other earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are retold, like the eruption of the Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeij or the explosion of the Krakatoa, together with scientific explanations for the causes of earthquakes and the eruption of volcanos. (Summary by Availle)...

Excerpt Details
History, Memoirs, Nature, Science, Tragedy

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: First Gentleman: I cannot delve him to the root: his father Was call?d Sicilius, who did join his honor Against the Romans with Cassibelan, But had his titles by Tenantius whom He served with glory and admired success, So gain?d the sur-addition Leonatus; And had, besides this gentleman in question, Two other sons, who in the wars o? the time Died with their swords in hand; for which their father, Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow That he quit being, and his gentle lady, Big of this gentleman our theme, deceased As he was born. The king he takes the babe To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus, Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber, Puts to him all the learnings that his time Could make him the receiver of; which he took, As we do air, fast as ?twas minister?d, And in?s spring became a harvest, lived in court-- Which rare it is to do--most praised, most loved, A sample to the youngest, to the more mature A glass that feated them, and to the graver A child that guided dotards; to his mistress....

Description Details
The First Book of the Faerie Queene Contayning The Legende of the Knight of the Red Crosse or Holinesse. The Faerie Queene was never completed, but it continues to be one of the most beautiful and important works of literature ever written. Spenser wrote it as a paean to the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, and to the golden age which she had brought to England. Sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh and commended by the foremost literary minds of his day, Spenser's book remains one of the crowning poetic achievements of the Elizabethan period.(Summary by Annise)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry, Myths/Legends

Description Details
Mommsen (1817-1903) erhielt für die Römische Geschichte 1902 den Nobelpreis für Literatur. Zweites Buch Von der Abschaffung des roemischen Koenigtums bis zur Einigung Italiens This reading is in German....

Excerpt Details
History, Literature

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War by H. G. Wells.

Description Details
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett’s finest work, described by Henry James as her “beautiful little quantum of achievement.” Despite James’s diminutives, the novel remains a classic. Because it is loosely structured, many critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches; however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. Jewett herself felt that her strengths as a writer lay not in plot development or dramatic tension, but in character development. Indeed, she determined early in her career to preserve a disappearing way of life, and her novel can be read as a study of the effects of isolation and hardship on the inhabitants who lived in the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast. (summary from Gutenberg e-text)...

Excerpt Details
History