[dreams]

I will try to keep up as best as I can. Please let me know if you see any errors or additions needed.

*** (3) - The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky [GA Russell, montsnmags, adityadubey]
upload on MR by Roy White lrf & mobi/prc | upload by =X= lrf & mobi/prc & IMP | feedbooks | manybooks

Spoiler:

The Washington Post says: "[Dostoevsky is] at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great . . . The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his art – his last, longest, richest, and most capacious book." (quoted at Amazon's website)

*** (3) - Walden by Henry David Thoreau [twobits, lila55, montsnmags]
upload on MR by Strether lrf & mobi/prc | feedbooks | Project Gutenberg

Spoiler:

One of the great books of American letters and a masterpiece of reflective philosophizing. Accounts of Thoreau's daily life on the shores of Walden Pond outside Concord, Massachusetts, are interwoven with musings on the virtues of self-reliance and individual freedom, on society, government, and other topics.

(2) - Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain [jgaiser, voodooblues]
upload on MR by Madam Broshkina mobi/prc & IMP | feedbooks

Spoiler:

Wikipedia: Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain detailing his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War.

The book begins with a brief history of the river from its discovery by Hernando de Soto in 1541. It continues with anecdotes of Twain's training as a steamboat pilot, as the 'cub' of an experienced pilot. He describes, with great affection, the science of navigating the ever-changing Mississippi River.

In the second half, the book describes Twain's return, many years later, to travel on a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. He describes the competition from railroads, the new, large cities, and his observations on greed, gullibility, tragedy, and bad architecture. He also tells some stories that are most likely tall tales.

*** (3) - Call of the Wild by Jack London [voodooblues, doreenjoy, lene1949]
upload on MR by Madam Broshkina lrf & mobi/prc | feedbooks

Spoiler:

From Wikipedia: 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 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.

(1) - A Sportsman's Sketches by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev [bokolobs]
Upload on MR by Patricia Clark lrf & mobi/prc & IMP | Project Gutenberg

Spoiler:

There is something christmassy about this book for me, sitting up in bed with a scotch or coffee on the night stand while devouring the short pieces. i read it every year.

“The first of Turgenev’s masterpieces . . . A Sportman’s Notebook conveys the vastness and beauty of rural Russia. It shows also the eccentricity, cruelty and nobility of many of its inhabitants . . . [Turgenev] was a careful writer, alive to each nuance of language and subtlety of style.”
—from the Introduction by Max Egremont

*** (3) - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens [adityadubey, doreenjoy, lene1949]
Upload on MR by HarryT (Illustrated) epub & lrf & mobi/prc | Project Gutenberg

Spoiler:

"Great Expectations" opens unforgettably in a twilit and overgrown churchyard on the eerie Kent marshes. There, the orphan Pip is disturbed to meet an escaped convict, Magwitch, but gives him food, in an encounter that is to haunt both their lives. How Pip receives riches from a mysterious benefactor, snobbishly abandons his friends for London society and "great expectations", and grows through misfortune and suffering to maturity is the theme of one of Dicken's best-loved novels.

In "Great Expectations", Dickens blends gripping drama with penetrating satire to give a compelling story rich in comedy and pathos: he has also created two of his finest, most haunting characters in Pip and Miss Havisham.

On a personal note I must add that this is one of my favourite of Dickens' novels and, indeed, one of my "all time" favourite books.

Contains the original black and white illustrations by Charles Green.

*** (3) - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins [lila55, lilac_jive, Altoanto]
Upload on MR by HarryT lrf & mobi/prc | Upload by AlexBell (Illustrated) epub | Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

"Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelations, amnesia, locked rooms and locked asylums, and an unorthodox villain made this mystery thriller an instant success when it first appeared in 1860, and it has continued to enthrall readers ever since. From the hero’s foreboding before his arrival at Limmeridge House to the nefarious plot concerning the beautiful Laura, the breathtaking tension of Collins’s narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing." (Amazon)

*** (3) - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas [lene1949, adityadubey, Altoanto]
Uploaded on MR by HarryT lrf & epub & mobi/prc | Uploaded by crutledge mobi/prc | Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

From Amazon: Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.

*** (3) - A Room With A View by E. M. Forster [montsnmags, Ea, edbro]
Uploaded on MR by weatherwax epub | Upload by BenG lrf | Upload by MicheleC mobi/prc | Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

"This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.

Back in England she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor, and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion.

The enduring delight of this tale of romantic intrigue is rooted in Forster's colorful characters, including outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen and outspoken patriots. Written in 1908, A Room With A View is one of E.M. Forster's earliest and most celebrated works."

***(3) - War of the Worlds by H G Wells [NickC42, Altoanto,voodooblues]
Uploaded by HarryT epub & mobi/prc & lrf | Upload by JSWolf lrf | Project Gutenberg | feedbooks | Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

H.G. Wells's science fiction classic, the first novel to explore the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets, it still startling and vivid nearly after a century after its appearance, and a half-century after Orson Wells's infamous 1938 radio adaptation. The daring portrayal of aliens landing on English soil, with its themes of interplanetary imperialism, technological holocaust and chaos, is central to the career of H.G. Wells, who died at the dawn of the atomic age. The survival of mankind in the face of "vast and cool and unsympathetic" scientific powers spinning out of control was a crucial theme throughout his work. Visionary, shocking and chilling, The War Of The Worlds has lost none of its impact since its first publication in 1898.