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Originally Posted by neilmarr
Re-read Mark Twain's short Letters from the Earth last night (an excellent 100-page MR ePub download). I hadn't realised until this re-read just how much of Twain had been lifted almost word-for-word for use in lectures and books by atheism's Four Horsemen -- Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, Dan Dennett and Sam Harris. You've got to admire Twain's brave stance in a time when it took real guts and involved no little risk (especially in the US south) to express such views and to poke fun not only at religion itself, but also at those who professed belief, which must have been pretty well 100% of his neighbours and 99% of his readers. Cheers. Neil
PS: Wonder if any pals in this thread with a Kindle might be wlling to download and cast an eye over the first Mobi format novel we've produced in-house. A neat book, *Notes from the Lightning God by John Schouten, but no need to actually read it unless it appeals (you'll find blurb, extract, etc in the book store section of our site below): we're just interested in being sure that on the actual Kindle machine layout is good and that a little Spanish punctuation has converted accurately. If you can spare a few mins, just drop me a line at ntmarrATbewrite.net. Use the @ sign, of course. Thanks. Neil
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You got me quite motivated to read Letters from the Earth. Your last posts are really a joy for the spirit!
I have always appreciated Mark Twain! P.S: He is better than Dickens (IMHO), fresher, the prose is more agile. MT looks like an "hippie", CD like a "square". Talented, but obsequious, while MT is a rebel at heart. I read the much exalted Tale of two cities last year and I had hard time to continue reading toward the end. Very good post!