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From the reading desk
Reading notes, reviews and guides to the collection — written here, about books you can open here.
Dreams and Dust: Don Marquis in a Grave Mood
A collection of poems that swings between war reportage, metaphysical doubt and mannered ornament, rewarding patience more than casual reading.
Captain Bonneville: Irving's Fur-Trade Journal
Washington Irving digests a soldier's Rocky Mountain journal into a chronicle of trappers, rival companies and Indian camps.
Getting Started with Joseph Conrad
A guide to the Polish-British master of English prose for readers meeting his work for the first time.
Robert Louis Stevenson's Fables: A Reader's Orientation
A short collection of moral tales, arguments dressed as stories, and one meeting with characters from Treasure Island.
An Introduction to Edgar Rice Burroughs
A prolific American writer of adventure, science fiction and fantasy, and the creator of Tarzan and John Carter.
Jack London: An Introduction for New Readers
An American writer of frontier adventure, animal stories and political fiction, and where a newcomer might begin.
Romeo and Juliet: The Text Before the Polish
A famous love story preserved with its printers' quirks intact — bawdy, quick, and stranger on the page than most readers expect.
ABC's of Science: A Homemade Cosmos in Numbered Verses
A short book that lays out an entire theory of the universe in numbered sentences, driven by one idea it repeats everywhere: magnetism and flourishment.
Seven Adventures from the XtreamFm Library
A reading list from the Adventure shelf, from a Michigan riverbank to the chessboards of Mars.
The Princess Aline: A Chase Across Europe for a Face
Richard Harding Davis follows a young New Yorker who falls for a princess he has never met and sets out to be introduced.
The Riverman: Logs, Ledgers, and a Slow-Building Betrayal
Stewart Edward White's frontier novel starts on a log-choked river and ends in a duel fought entirely on paper, over notes and mortgages.
Seven Short Books from the Literature Shelf
A reading list of seven public-domain works — fiction, a novella, and one practical guide — for readers who want something substantial to carry in short sittings.