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"A regard for decency, even at the cost of success, is but the regard for one's own dignity" was novelist Joseph Conrad's take on fame, a quote from the preface to his autobiography A Personal Record (1912). Other lives chosen by readers to examine in vol. 085 include the Borgias; the Cynocephali; Hermann von Helmholtz; Edgar Allan Poe; John Burroughs; a pre-Revolutionary War magnate named Browne, who built a mansion on the ridge of a hill; women as a social class; and an 1821 rabies victim named Thomas, who exhibited hydrophobia. Political history receives scrutiny in Some Materials and a ...

"Fine experience lies at one's own doorstep" writes Raymond S. Spears, suggesting that boating on the Mississippi River offers "taunts to daring spirits." Exploration of the natural world and the human psyche figure in many of the reader-chosen selections in vol. 094: Wasps, Seedling Fruits, The Sun's Motion, The Atomic Bomb, The Altruist in Politics, The Sexual Life of Our Time, Concerning Witchcraft, and The Making of an Aviator. Place and persons receive attention in General Hazard Stevens, James Fenimore Cooper, Will Rogers, Majorian, Racimer, Workaday London, and Palace of the Alhambra. ...

Fifteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include philosophy and thought--Phtah-Hotep, Petrarch, Diderot, Bertrand Russell, and the Weymouth New Testament; adventure and travel--a survival story by Mark Twain and a woman's sojourn in Saltillo, Mexico; immigration and war--Benjamin Franklin on the assimilation of German speakers, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the League of Nations, and an essay on potatoes and war; geology--on the origins of chalk; a critique of one-act plays, a biography of H.H. Munro (Saki), and Emerson's advice to ...

"It is difficult for the human mind to take a comprehensive view of a subject." This is how librarian Arthur Bostwick begins his essay Three Kinds of Librarians. Many volume 102 readers chose faceted inquiry into the human experience: the Balfour Declaration; Ethics and the Weather; Typhoid Fever in Melbourne; High-Grade Men; Attractive Labor; Forced Sterilization; If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime; Shall We Scrap the Calendar?; Impossibility of Witchcraft; Phenomena Called Spiritual; the Mutability of Literature; and Dining Out. Also included in the volume are biographies of two Polish ...

Twenty short nonfiction works, individually chosen by the readers. "The ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the ruffled waters of a lake, and I became bewildered in my ideas..." John James Audubon's vivid recollection of the 1812 New Madrid earthquake is one of several Vol. 072 selections with a scientific focus. Others include Luminous Plants; The Sunbeam and the Spectrascope; and biographies of two shipbuilders: Robert Fulton and Thomas Andrews. The emotive and rational sides of human nature are evinced in essays (The Game of Scandal; Bashful; Child Psychology and Nonsense); ...

Twenty short nonfiction works chosen by the readers. Is the sound of a dripping faucet music? According to Aldous Huxley, "The music of the drops is the symbol and type of the whole universe... asymptotic to sense, infinitely close to significance, but never touching it." (Water Music). Sensory and psychological exploration define several recordings in Vol. 075 (On the Pleasures of Friendship; Prohibition; The Danger of Lying in Bed; The Effects of Opium in Lowness of Spirits; How to Listen to Music; The Story of the Alphabet; Letter from William Blake; and Poets). Narrative history and ...

Twenty short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include History--Jocelyn de Brakelond's 13th century chronicle of the Bury St. Edmund monastery, Lorenzo de Medici's Florence, the voyage of the Mayflower, and Mark Twain's essay Stirring Times in Austria; Philosophy--Kierkegaard and Leibniz; Speeches, Sermons, and Diary Entries from Abraham Lincoln, Robert Ingersoll, and Queen Victoria; Literature--a tribute to George Meredith and a critique of Mencken's The American Language; and Nature and the Natural World--George Mallory outlining the route to ...

Fifteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include the history of aeroplanes, political speeches, travel, philosophy, Japan, the United Nations, Congressional law, rules of cricket and more. (Summary by Sue Anderson)Note: "On the Part Played by Accident in Discovery" by Ernst Mach was translated by Thomas J. McCormack.

Sixteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. The human condition is variously explored in Chesterton's essay "The Contented Man," Shōtoku Taishi's "Laws" outlining the proper relationships between rulers and governed in 7th century Japan, the Egyptian "Story of Sinuhe" composed circa 1800 B.C. with its theme of divine providence and mercy, "The Four Minute Men of Chicago" invoking patriotism during World War I, and in Arthur Moss' secularist essay "Natural Man." Contributing to this exploration are selections from Locke's "Essay Concerning Humane ...

Sixteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include science and natural history--carnivorous plants, tadpoles, tent caterpillars, flights of birds, horse training, dogs, children's sign language, trees in winter, and night noises in the woods; philosophy--Roger Bacon and Nicholas of Cusa; satire and literary criticism--the movies as "stupies," bustles, and facetious plots for short stories by Dorothy Parker; also an appraisal of Conrad Aiken's poetry, and an intimate look at Abraham Lincoln's early life in Illinois. (Summary by Sue Anderson)

Twenty short nonfiction works chosen by the readers. Eucken's "The Failure of Speculative Philosophy," is one of several essays devoted to timeless questions. Others are by James Howell on man, nature and the universe, Samuel Johnson on procrastination and the flight of time, Schleiemacher on the social element in religion, Ambrose Bierce on immortality, and Thomas Paine and Jonathan Swift with their famous essays, "The Age of Reason" (1794-1795) and "A Modest Proposal" (1729). Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor "Day of Infamy" speech is one of various commentaries on war, politics and ...

Seventeen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include philosophy--Bertrand Russell, Spinoza, and Epictetus; science and invention--the Wright brothers, Leibniz, arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, spider webs, and cylindrical silos; plays and cinema--Lillian Gish and Friedrich Schiller; satire--selections from Ambrose Bierce, Robert Benchley, and Seneca; biographies--Aaron Burr, and Sophia Packard of Spellman College; the murder of Archbishop Charles Seghers in Alaska in 1886; and a history of Torre Abbey in England. Summary by Sue Anderson ...

Seventeen short nonfiction works in the public domain independently chosen by the readers. Volume 61 features articles and essays on both current and timeless topics, ranging from whether marijuana is addictive (U.S. Gov.) to what constitutes foolish behavior (Erasmus, Gelett Burgess). Sermons in Stone, an essay by Oscar Wilde on classic sculptures displayed at the British Museum, is complemented by an actual sermon (The Carnal Mind, Enmity Against God by Spurgeon), while Frederick William Shelton muses on the fleeting beauty of a ripe peach (Incidents in a Retired Life). Truth and lies, luck,...

"Grandmother and Stockhausen are of the opinion that Wagner will one day totally disappear. His music, they argue, is too unhealthy." Clara Schumann's grandson's diary entries for 1894-1896 are a delight for music lovers. Other artistic and literary selections, chosen by vol. 104 readers, include Boadicea; Of the Green Children; A Search for Robinhood; What is a Child?; the Book Collector; Memoirs of Claude Seurat and of painter Georges Seurat; Schumann as Mirrored in His Letters; and Replies by Teachers to Questions Respecting Mental Fatigue. Historical perspectives on a variety of issues ...

"When money gives out, sense ensues." This pithy saying is from Yugoslav Proverbs, one of the twenty reader-chosen selections in volume 103. This collection ranges from the IRS budget, to the Fire Alarm Telegraph, to Curing Herring. Current events are discussed in Baltimore Bridge Collapse; ATT Network Outage of 2024; and Cuba: U.S. Policy Overview. Supreme Court judgments figure in Tomatoes, Fruit or Vegetable? Talent and training receive attention in Civil Service Tests of Policemen and Firemen; Measurement of Musical Talent; Unknowns in Mathematics; and Common Sense in Chess. Social action ...

"Instead of letting ourselves, at the thought of mealtime, fall into a state of chronic mental flutter that incapacitates us for any serious work, let us sit down in advance and calmly plan out the meals for a week" (Janet Hill, Meat Substitutes, 1910) Menus for meatless meals make meal planning easy, while two essays on chocolate will whet the appetite. Many reader-chosen selections in vol. 099 provide psychological insights into human motivation: Saved by a Nose; Mental Engineering; Training Human Capacities for the New Era; Easter Choir Strikes; From Alien to Citizen; Women as Munition ...

Volume 100 of the Short Nonfiction Collection celebrates 16 years (2007-2023) of volunteer readings which reflect the wide range of nonfiction writing. Volume 100 exemplifies this diversity with topics as far afield as declassified CIA documents and Bible verses (CIA Avian Training; Story of Creation; Mark Twain on Biblical Patriarchs; Hidden Years at Nazareth). Other selections highlight the natural world and scientific inquiry (White Hurricane; Ancient Meadows; Improving Natural Knowledge; Know the $100 Note); as well as the complexities of human morals, love, politics, and behavior (...

"There has always been a tendency on the part of men of brains to look with contempt on women's work in the arts." Screenwriter and novelist Anita Loos' acerbic opinion is part of "Women in Film Speak Their Minds (1925).” Ida Tarbell's "Women as Inventors" showcases female accomplishment. Vol. 081 contains commentary on a variety of human concerns: fame (The Approaching Epidemic); scandal (The Reynolds Pamphlet); religion (Infant Baptism; Christianity and Culture; John Huss; Hussites); education (Flourishing Mediocrity); entrepreneurship (The Telephone: Building the Business and Patent ...

Twenty short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Volume 63 features essays on a variety of topics: the emotion of the multitude in drama (Yeats), audience (Encyclopedia Britannica), corpulence and diet (Banting), charity (Ambrose Bierce), the forgotten man (Sumner), murder (DeQuincey), suicide (Bierce), free masonry (Albert Pike), the poetic principle (Poe), and the evils of slavery (Othello). Excerpts from Kierkegaard explore his philosophy. Biographical sketches include Calamity Jane, Joseph Glidden, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, and J. M. W. Turner, while ...

As we approach Christmas 2024, we invite you to join us in some heart-warming tales and uplifting carols and poems. We wish you compliments of the season.