Time Reading program special edition

An account of the author's adventures, difficulties and discoveries on the Scarritt expedition into Patagonia.

This engaging correspondence between two devils is one of Lewis’s most brilliant imaginative creations and has sold millions of copies worldwide A TIMELESS CLASSIC ON ‘HELL’S LATEST NOVELTIES AND HEAVEN’S UNANSWERABLE ANSWER’. Screwtape is an experienced devil. His nephew Wormwood is just at the start of his demonic career, and has been assigned to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. In this humorous exchange, C.S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good v. evil, temptation, repentance and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better knowledge of what it means to live a good, honest life. “If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels.”

Warm, leisurely account of author's neighbors, and her everyday affairs while living for thirteen years in a remote section of the Florida hammock at Cross Creek.

Burmese Days is set in 1920s imperial Burma, in the fictional district of Kyauktada. The story involves U Po Kyin, a corrupt Burmese magistrate, who works to destroy the reputation of the Indian Dr. Veraswami, so he (Kyin) can be admitted to the European Club instead of the more likely Dr. Veraswami. The Doctor's main protection is his friendship with John Flory who, as a pukka sahib (European white man), has higher prestige. U Po Kyin, however, succeeds and is admitted to the club. Racism and classism undergird the actions of the major characters. Kyin plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. --modified slightly from www.wikipedia.com.

"'Dramatic story, written in the form of a film scenario.'"

Zut alors! This is not the real McCoy, but the archi-known "Book of Common Prayers."

Considered a masterpiece of travel literature for nearly a century, The Sea and the Jungle is a wise and witty book of firsts: ostensibly a light-hearted story of a Londoner's first ocean voyage, it is also a carefully crafted journalistic account of the first successful ascent of the Amazon River and its tributary, the Madeira, by an English steamer. One rainy morning in November 1909, Henry Major Tomlinson bid farewell to his family and set off to find his berth as purser aboard the Capella, where he would spend many storm-driven days until landfall at Para on the Brazilian coast. But his travels had only begun, as the steamer continued its journey 2,000 miles up the Amazon. Encountering tiny jungle villages and exotic flora and fauna of awesome beauty and ferociousness - the meddlesome insect life in particular attracted his attention - Tomlinson recorded all he saw in cleverly humorous style: never condescending, but always aware of the inherent inappropriateness of his presence in this strange land.

Originally published in 1932, this outstanding work of literature is more crucial and relevant today than ever before. Cloning, feel-good drugs, antiaging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media -- has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 AF (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, Brave New World is both a warning to be heeded and thought-provoking yet satisfying entertainment. - Container.

Contains 24 pieces in which the well-known humorist is largely concerned with the survival of our English language, currently being subjected to much erroneous use.

King Charles I was his own worst enemy. Self-righteous, arrogant, and unscrupulous, he had a penchant for making bad decisions. His troubles began the moment he ascended the throne in 1625 upon the death of his father James I. Charles simultaneously alienated both his subjects and his Parliament, prompting a series of events that ultimately lead to civil war, his own death and the abolition of the English monarchy. The tide of the Civil War ebbed and flowed for the next six years, culminating in the defeat at the Battle of Preston of Charles' army in August 1648 by Parliamentary forces under the command of Oliver Cromwell. The King was charged with high treason against the realm of England. At his trial, Charles refused to enter a plea. Notwithstanding the absence of a plea, the court rendered a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death declaring: "That the king, for the crimes contained in the charge, should be carried back to the place from whence he came, and thence to the place of execution, where his head should be severed from his body." Three days later, the king was led to the scaffold erected at Whitehall, London.

Discusses the earlier theories, discoveries, and experiments of such men as Max Planck, A.A. Michelson, and E.W. Morley, that formed a starting point for Dr. Einstein's work.

This book presents ideas about how mass movements work and the psychology of people that awaken/join mass movements. The author uses examples of movements of all types from the past, as well as movements that were current when the book was written; and discusses in great detail many techniques used to form and hold them together, the many motives that draw people to them, and the similarities between movements that appear on the surface to be completely different in nature (e.g., secular vs. religious, communist vs. fascist, radical vs. reactionary movements). The book is well referenced, and uses quotes from secular and religious writings (the Bible, too) associated with mass movements past and (the author's) present. This book will be of great interest to anyone who is interested in: psychology, particularly of fundamentalism and blind faith, why some psychological conditions cause people to behave as they do, and the psychology of groups; the history of change through social upheaval and mass movements; how and why secular and religious extremist/fanatical groups come into being; and why there has been and continues to be so much injustice, violence and depravity on such large scales in "civilization". The book does well at the author's stated intent to not judge the groups and personalities it discusses; however, it describes them so clearly that readers who are not good at honest introspection will probably recognize and judge themselves, and immediately feel an impulse to hate the author or declare him a blasphemer, and/or to ban the book (my local library thought it had the book, but when I wanted to borrow it they couldn't find it - I would not be surprised if a "true believer" started to read it and censored it from the library).

Meet the Wapshots of St Botolphs. There is Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; his licentious older son, Moses; and Moses's adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever's adolescence in New England, The Wapshot Chronicle is a stirring family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James

Following the tale of Tod Hackett - a brilliant young artist who is brought to an LA studio as a set designer - 'The Day of the Locust' is an exposure of the sordid reality beneath the surface of Hollywood.

"A condensation of my two-volume Admiral of the ocean sea, published at the same time. All the notes have been omitted, and a good many pages of navigational data; a chapter on ships and sailing and one on the origin of syphilis have been summarized. Otherwise the two editions are identical."--Page xx.