Sometimes life just happens and plans go awry. Or, sometimes, backs just go awry. My on-again, off-again back problems have flared up over the past few days and I have just not been able to concentrate on reading. I have four very good, very enjoyable books that I am currently reading and have had to put on hold. For a bibliophile such as myself, that may be the ultimate tragedy.
But all is not lost. I have discovered a new rabbit hole, thanks to a recent post by Mike Toomey on Steve Lewis's Mystery*File website. Mike brings attention to two lesser-known websites offering out-of-copyright reading: Roy Glashan's Library and Standard Ebooks, both offering high quality reproductions of mystery, science fiction, and other genres. I was familiar with Roy Glashan's Library and have been using it for years, it being a standard stop for me to check out its near daily updates. But for some reason, I had never stumbled upon Standard Ebooks and thought I should check it out -- and you should too. Their books appeared to be carefully curated and exquisitely packaged.
Categories include Adventure, Autobiography, Biography, Children's, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Memoir, Mystery, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Poetry, Satire, Science Fiction, Shorts, Spirituality, and Travel. Their Short Story collections are carefully chosen public domain works from specific authors, many of them from the science fiction field, such as Frederik, Pohl, H. Beam Piper, Cordwainer Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Andre Norton, and others -- some of which may not be available in other single-author collections from these writers.
Their catalog shows over 1400 books thus far, some from the usual suspects, some not, but almost all look gorgeous. To give a taste, here are the first fourteen books that they offered:
- A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first adventure of John Carter on Barsoom. It knocked my socks off when I was much younger, and the fond memories still remain.
- The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe, The weird classic that has inspired writers from Jules Verne to H. P. Lovecraft and beyond.
- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James, A classic ghost story that continues to haunt.
- Walden, Henry David Thoreau, a personal declaration of independence and a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings -- still meaningful.
- The Lady of the Barge, W. W. Jacobs, a collection of twelve short stories, ranging from the humorous and the nautical to the macabre, including the classic "The Monkey's Paw."
- Candide, Voltaire, the satirical French novel from 1759 which many consider to be the author's magnum opus, originally denounced by both secular and religious authorities; Ellery Queen and others have pointed out the basic framework of a mystery novel in the book.
- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, a classic work of philosophy.
- The Time Machine, H. G. Wells, eloi and morlocks, oh my!
- The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, the sensational, muckraking novel of the Chicago meat yards that led to the implementation of food safety laws in 1906.
- The Book of Wonder, Lord Dunsany, a collection of fourteen fantasy stories by the Anglo-Irish writer, which greatly influenced future writers such as Lovecraft and Tolkien.
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, in my opinion, in a dead heat with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the greatest novel of all time.
- Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincey, an autobiographical account of the author's addiction and its effect on his life, now considered a classic; the book has influenced both psychology and abnormal psychology; Poe praised its "glorious imagination -- deep philosophy -- acute speculation."
- Tao Te Ching, Laozi, a fundamental Chinese philosophical text from 400 B.C, a spiritual and philosophic classic that still resonates today.
- Dracula, Bram Stoker, the classic vampire novel.
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