Month: October 2017

James Fenimore Cooper

Columbus Day is just behind us, and it feels like a great time to revisit a tale of early America…  The Last of the Mohicans: Another example of a story many have been drawn to by a movie, The Last of The Mohicans, written in the early 1800s by James Fenimore Cooper, is set in the 1750s, and tells the story of the last members of a dying Native American tribe.

The volume selected here is called The Leatherstocking Tales… written by the American writer James Fenimore Cooper, the Leatherstocking Tales is a classic series of five historical novels featuring the hero Natty Bumppo. This collection includes the following:

The Deerslayer
The Last of the Mohicans
The Pathfinder
The Pioneers
The Prairie

Copies of The Leatherstocking Tales have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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L. Frank Baum

If your first thought when you saw the name L. Frank Baum was of The Wizard of Oz, it makes a lot of sense.  Dorothy and her friends are likely his most famous characters.  But Oz is not the only world in which he wrote, and Dorothy and her friends are not the only characters L. Frank Baum shared with readers.

American Fairy Tales is a collection of stories he wrote that were originally printed in five major newspapers in March through May of 1901.  The collection includes a story with a theme that as taken on a variety of forms in books, television, and movies in the century plus since this collection was first written, “The Dummy That Lived” features a department store mannequin come to life.

Copies of American Fairy Tales have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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An Antarctic Mystery

Jules Verne wrote a variety of adventure stories, among them An Antarctic Mystery in which the narrator starts his adventure in the Kerguelen Islands.  With descriptions of Penguins, and other  exotic animals, as well as of the long periods of ice and cold, Jules Verne takes his reader to another place, and allows them to explore a part of our planet they may never have the chance to visit.

Written in 1897, the modern audience has higher odds of getting to, or at least seeing the places he describes, and the animals are now featured in our entertainment, and have become regular fixtures in more of our zoos… and yet, over a hundred years later, this fictional work is still taking many readers to a place they may never get to visit in person.

Copies of An Antarctic Mystery have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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Columbus: From Beginning to End

It can be easy to simply let three day weekends come along, and enjoy the time off from responsibilities and things we would rather not be doing, and not take a moment to recall why they were put on the calendars in the first place.

Columbus Day is a holiday that is seen from a variety of perspectives, for a lot of reasons.    When I think of Columbus day, I think of exploration, of people who were looking for a new way, a new path, to a known destination.  People who are willing to take chances and try new things.

There are few places on Earth that have been left unexplored at this point, whether they have been explored by humans, or technology, which perhaps is why the current generation of explorers is looking to the stars (and the deepest, darkest depths of the seas) more and more.

This is a chance to imagine, and think about, life hundreds of years ago — to think about how different travel was, and the adventure of those explorers who were daring to try something new… and also to realize how far our cultures and societies have come, and perhaps think about ways in which we can continue to explore, and improve, the world around us.

Copies of Christopher Columbus: From Beginning to End have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

Written in 1883 by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, born around 1844 in Nevada, the granddaughter of the Chief of the Piutes tribe, Life Among the Piutes chronicles not just her life among the tribe, but her first memories of seeing what her grandfather called “our White Brothers”, emigrants coming across the land they lived upon, followed by settlers, and relates attempts at peaceful coexistence, and the struggles the the Piutes faced as they came to understand not all of their White Brothers wanted to undo the troubles of the past, and forge the happiest of futures.

Written with eloquence and passion, this book takes the reader back in time, to a place that no longer exists, and gives the reader a chance to glimpse first contact between two vastly different peoples, through a child’s eyes.

From the description posted on Amazon.com:

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (c. 1844 – 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist and educator.
Winnemucca published Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), a book that is both a memoir and history of her people during their first 40 years of contact with European Americans.

It is considered the “first known autobiography written by a Native American woman.”

Anthropologist Omer Stewart described it as “one of the first and one of the most enduring ethnohistorical books written by an American Indian,” frequently cited by scholars.

Copies of Life Among the Piutes have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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A Princess of Mars

Perhaps the single most significant thing to keep in mind when reading A Princess of Mars / John Carter: Mars Series #1, or watching the Disney film John Carter, is that the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel (and the Barsoom series) came first.  Not simply before the film was made in 2012, but before most of the Science-Fiction and Fantasy works you are inclined to be reminded of as you make your way through the story.

According to Wikipedia It was first serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine from February–July, 1912.  So, as you make your way through the novel, or watch the movie, each time you are tempted to think, “I’ve encountered this before” stop yourself for a moment, and rephrase that thought… instead of being disappointed in a Darth Vader like moment, wonder instead if the folks who brought your Darth Vader in the 70s, did not perhaps encounter John Carter, the Barsoom series, and the Princess of Mars on their way to making the Star Wars films.  When John Carter is taking a giant leap for Mankind, consider for a moment how many members of NASA, from those who never leave the Earth, to the Astronauts who have sent us messages from their trips to the stars, were inspired by Science Fiction, and the works of authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Copies of A Princess of Mars have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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Pride and Prejudice

 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is a novel of manners by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of the British Regency. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman, Mr. Bennet living in Longbourn.

Set in England in the early 19th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s five unmarried daughters after the rich and eligible Mr. Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr. Darcy, have moved into their neighborhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth.

A story that has appealed to generations, for approximately two centuries, Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice deals with timeless issues, reminding readers that some things are universal.

Copies of Pride and Prejudice have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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Louisa May Alcott

Perhaps the most famous work of Louisa May Alcott is Little Women, the story of four sisters during America’s Civil War.

A seemingly simple story, of four sisters trying to get by, this is another tale that generation after generation has enjoyed reading since it was first publishing in two halves, in 1868 and 1869.  One version on Amazon had a particularly interesting description that ends with a line that might very well capture why so many people have been drawn to this work…

Little Women “has been read as a romance or as a quest, or both. It has been read as a family drama that validates virtue over wealth”, but also “as a means of escaping that life by women who knew its gender constraints only too well”. According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from Romantic children’s fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new format. Elbert argued that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the “All-American girl” and that her multiple aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.

If you have not read Louisa May Alcott‘s Little Women before, perhaps now is your chance to step back in time, and glimpse what may have been one of the first attempts to capture in writing the “All-American Girl.”

For those who have already visited with Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, this may be one of those books in which you find more on a repeat visit to the March family.

Copies of Louisa May Alcott‘s Little Women have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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The Complete Wizard of Oz

When it comes to the Wizard of Oz folks seem to fall into a few different categories.  There are those who have indeed read All fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum, there are those that have read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and in a few cases not realized there were more books to pursue, no matter how much they enjoyed that work,  and then there are those who will vow by any means you request that they can quote the L. Frank Baum work… and when you start asking questions you discover that they are devotees of a movie that catapulted Dorothy to another place, where she introduced a vast audience, and multiple generations to some of the most memorable characters many of us have ever encountered… folks who might just want to spend a little time with the books that started so many on the journey to make the film they first fell in love with, and provided them the route through which they came to the yellow brick road, and they came to know, The Wizard of Oz.

According to Amazon.com, the edition linked to here includes:
Fourteen Complete Works

All fourteen of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, in order and unabridged. Books included:

1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)* Includes Original Illustrations by W.W. Denslow!
2. The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
3. Ozma of Oz (1907)
4. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
5. The Road to Oz (1909)
6. The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
7. The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
8. Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)
9. The Scarecrow of Oz (1915)
10. Rinkitink in Oz (1916)
11. The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)
12. The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
13. The Magic of Oz (1919)
14. Glinda of Oz (1920)

Copies of The Complete Wizard of Oz have been added to the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library.  The first 100 people to sign up should receive a free copy added to their Kindle Library.  To sign up, click this link, and follow the prompts at the Amazon page.  Once you have joined the CheerUp.Fun Free eBook Library, as recommended books are selected and shared during the month, they will be added to your Kindle Library.

You can change your settings / leave the Library at any time through your Amazon account.  You will find books under the Manage Content / Devices Option, on your Content Tab, and the settings tab has a section for "Change your Whispercast Membership".  Next to Organization Cheerup.Fun are options to change device or opt-out.

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