Description Details
Woe from Wit (Russian: Горе от ума, also translated as The Woes of Wit, Wit Works Woe and so forth) is Alexander Griboedov's comedy in verse, satirizing the society of post-Napoleonic Moscow, or, as a high official in the play styled it, a pasquinade on Moscow. The play, written in 1823 in the countryside and in Tiflis, was not passed by the censorship for the stage, and only portions of it were allowed to appear in an almanac for 1825. But it was read out by the author to all Moscow and to all Petersburg and circulated in innumerable copies, so it was as good as published in 1825; it was not, however, actually published until 1833, after the author's death, with significant cuts, and was not published in full until 1861. The play was a compulsory work in Russian literature lessons in Soviet schools, and is still considered a golden classic in modern Russia and other Russian-speaking countries. The play gave rise to numerous catch phrases in the Russian language, including the title itself. Many of them sound rather comic today because of their somewhat archaic language....

Excerpt Details
Satire

Description Details
The Foolish Dictionary was written by Gideon Wurdz (the pen name for Charles Wayland Towne, according to ,) and was published in 1904. According to the beginning of the book, it is An exhausting work of reference to un-certain English words, their origin, meaning, legitimate and illegitimate use... This a a short but amusing dictionary which redefines words in some interesting ways. Funny and sometimes bizarre observations are sprinkled throughout. In keeping with policy to read, rather than attempt to rewrite, books - even those with offensive content - nothing has been omitted. While many of the definitions may just seem confusing or corny to modern readers, there are a couple that also might be considered objectionable, particularly in section 10, which contains offensive content of a racial nature. Summary by Maddie...

Excerpt Details
Comedy

Description Details
A short, humorous biography of famous people from 5000 BC to 1914. -- S. McGaughey From the Introduction, The editor begs leave to inform the public that only persons who can produce proper evidence of their demise will be admitted to Who Was Who. Press Agent notices or complimentary comments are absolutely excluded, and those offering to pay for the insertion of names will be prosecuted. As persons become eligible they will be included without solicitation, while the pages will be expurgated of others should good luck warrant....

Excerpt Details
Humor, Biography, History

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: At the very outset of the writer?s literary career, a friend, long since dead, gave him the subject of this Study. Later on he found the same story in a collection published about the beginning of the present century. To the best of his belief, it is some stray fancy of the brain of Hoffmann of Berlin; probably it appeared in some German almanac, and was omitted in the published editions of his collected works. The Comedie Humaine is sufficiently rich in original creations for the author to own to this innocent piece of plagiarism; when, like the worthy La Fontaine, he has told unwittingly, and after his own fashion, a tale already related by another....

Description Details
A Dictionary of English Synonymes and Synonymous or Parallel Expressions, Designed as a Practical Guide to Aptness and Variety of Phraseology is a project for new members to practice recording and using their recording setup....

Excerpt Details
Instruction, Languages, Essay/Short nonfiction

Description Details
Eliezer Izhak Perlman (1858-1922) signed his articles as E. Ben Yehuda. He was a key figure in the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. He regarded Hebrew and Zionism as symbiotic: The Hebrew language can live only if we revive the nation and return it to the fatherland, he wrote. Ben Yehuda wrote essays and articles preaching for the use of Hebrew at schools and at home. His was the first family to do so, but it took more than 20 years before there were 10 more families in Jerusalem who spoke only Hebrew at home. Ben Yehuda was the editor of several Hebrew-language newspapers and became the driving spirit behind the establishment of the Committee of the Hebrew Language, later The Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that still exists today. He was also the author of the first modern Hebrew Dictionary coining a large number of new words, many of them in use today. The following is a selection of his articles. (Summary by Omri Lernau following Wikipedia.) This recording is in Hebrew....

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction

Description Details
Welcome to Federated Search & Discover; a discovery tool which grants your library access to a mega-aggregate index of scholarly materials hosted by the World eBook Library and World Heritage Encyclopedia in a cloud computing environment....

Excerpt Details
Researchers, students and the public have become unsatisfied with the overall user-experience of library search engines as well as the availability and accessibility of library materials. There are thousands of resources to discover and it’s hard to know where to start. The daunting task of beginning a research project often leads researchers to simple and popular web search engines instead. The open web yields easier results but the content found is less authoritative and credible. The library loses users while researchers are left to settle for unsatisfactory resources. This has become a real problem for libraries and researchers around the world. Until now....

Description Details
Ten Days that Shook the World (1919) is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders. Max Eastman recalls a meeting with John Reed in the middle of Sheridan Square during the period of time when Reed isolated himself writing the book: ...he wrote Ten Days that Shook the World - wrote it in another ten days and ten nights or little more. He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face - had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee. 'Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night...

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914?), satirist, critic, poet, short story writer and journalist. His fiction showed a clean economical style often sprinkled with subtle cynical comments on human behaviour. In the Devil's Dictionary, he let his sense of humour and his cynical outlook on life colour a collection of dictionary-like definitions. (Summary by Peter)...

Excerpt Details
Satire

Description Details
The published dictionary was a huge book: with pages nearly 1½ feet tall and 20 inches wide, it contained 42,773 words; it also sold for the huge price of £4/10s. ($400?). It would be years before Johnson's Dictionary, as it came to be known, would ever turn a profit; authors' royalities being unknown at that time, Johnson, once his contract to deliver the book was fulfilled, received no further monies connected to the book. Johnson, once again a freelance writer, albeit now a famous one, faced a grim hand-to-mouth existence; however, in July 1762 the twenty-four year old King George III granted Johnson an annual pension of £300. While not making Johnson rich, it allowed him a modest yet comfortable independence for the remaining thirty years of his life. (Summary from Wikipedia)....

Excerpt Details
History, Languages

Description Details
These stories detail the lives of soldiers and civilians during the American Civil War. This is the 1909 edition. The 1909 edition omits six stories from the original 1891 edition; these six stories are added to this recording (from an undated English edition). The 1891 edition is entitled In The Midst Of Life; Tales Of Soldiers And Civilians . The Wikipedia entry for the book uses the title Tales of Soldiers and Civilians . Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – after December 26, 1913) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. Today, he is best known for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary . The sardonic view of human nature that informed his work – along with his vehemence as a critic, with his motto nothing matters – earned him the nickname Bitter Bierce. Despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, Bierce was known to encourage younger writers, including poet George Sterling and fiction writer W. C. Morrow. Bierce employed a distinctive style of writing, especially in his stories. This style often embraces an ab...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Mystery, Satire, Short stories, War stories

Description Details
Illuminations include some autobiographical allusions to his voyant (visionary) period, which began in 1869; but Illuminations is neither a confession nor an apology. Its several dozen short prose works and two free-verse poems transcend prose grammar by allowing their words to drift away from their dictionary definitions. Ever-elusive, relentless, overflowing with sinuous cadences, Illuminations transcends Une Saison en Enfer as it in turn had transcended Rimbaud's early verses. Some scholars even propose that some of the Illuminations may have been written after Une Saison, which supposedly marked his farewell to literature. (From Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry

Description Details
Arthur Guy Empey was an American who responded to the sinking of the Lusitania by enlisting with the British Army to fight in France. His experiences in the trenches, including his ultimate wounding and convalescence, became this book. When published in 1917, it was a major hit and helped the recruiting effort when America entered the Great War. If you've heard of the horror of trench warfare in WWI and want to see it from below dirt level, Empey offers it all here. Also included is Empey's popular Tommy's Dictionary of the Trenches which humorously demistifies the slang used by the British soldier. (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

Excerpt Details
Memoirs, War stories

Description Details
The classic story of how Rat, Mole, and the other river-bankers saved Toad from his excesses. This book has it all: excitement, sentiment, destruction of private property (plenty of that), paganism, and a happy ending. The prose is beautiful and occasionally requires the use of a dictionary - I had to look up “asperities.” Written as a children’s story, The Wind in the Willows is enjoyed by many grown-ups who relish Grahame’s ability to evoke the long summer days of childhood. (Summary by Adrian Praetzellis)...

Excerpt Details
Animals, Children, Adventure, Comedy

Description Details
This is a step-by-step presentation on how to download eBooks to your Kindle eBook reader. This tutorial covers the Kindle Fire HD device.

Excerpt Details
Today we are going to learn how students, teachers and librarians can download eBooks, from the School eBook Library, for viewing on Kindle Fire HD or Fire HDX devices. To get started, you will need: An Amazon Kindle Fire HD or HDX device An internet connection or data service And an eLibrary card for the School eBook Library Let’s begin: If your school gave you a direct link to the library, please skip this part of the tutorial, otherwise open a browser and type schoollibrary.org into your search bar. Now, open the menu and select Sign In. From here you can enter an offsite access code provided to you by your school or enter your username and password and tap “Sign In” After you log in, the homepage of the School eBook Library will load. Your homepage may look different than this one but everything in our tutorial will work the same way. Before we talk about downloading books, let’s investigate some of the exciting discovery tools for students, on the homepage. First, our eBook Finder. This is a great tool for finding interesting resources quickly. Simply type in a search term and tap search. We also have ...

Description Details
This is a step-by-step presentation on how to download eBooks to your Android device.

Excerpt Details
Today we are going to learn how library patrons can access books, articles and other resources, from the World eBook Library, for viewing on an Android tablet or Android mobile device. To get started, you will need Your Android tablet or Android mobile device An internet connection or data service And an eLibrary card for the World eBook Library Let’s begin: If your institution gave you a direct link to the library, skip this part of the tutorial, otherwise go to the library by typing ebooklibrary.org into your browser. Now, open the menu and select Sign In. From here you can enter an offsite access code provided to you by your institution or enter your username and password and tap “Sign In” After you log in, the homepage of the World eBook Library will load. Your homepage may look different than this one but all of the information in our tutorial still applies. Before we talk about downloading books, let’s investigate some of the discovery tools available to patrons on the homepage. First, our eBook Finder. This is a great tool for finding interesting resources quickly. Simply type in a search term and tap ...

Description Details
Naturalis Historia (Latin for Natural History) is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77-79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. The work became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being nothing short of an encyclopedia of learning and of art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature. The work divides neatly into the organic world of plants and animals, and the realm of inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section. He is especially interested in not just describing the occurrence of plants, animals and insects, but also their exploitation (or abuse) by man, especially Romans. The description of metals and minerals is particularly detailed, and valuable for the history of science as being the m...

Excerpt Details
Ancient Texts, Classics (antiquity), Animals, Instruction, Nature

Description Details
Naturalis Historia (Latin for Natural History) is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77-79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. The work became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being nothing short of an encyclopedia of learning and of art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature. The work divides neatly into the organic world of plants and animals, and the realm of inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section. He is especially interested in not just describing the occurrence of plants, animals and insects, but also their exploitation (or abuse) by man, especially Romans. The description of metals and minerals is particularly detailed, and valuable for the history of science as being the m...

Excerpt Details
Ancient Texts, Classics (antiquity), Instruction, Nature

Description Details
The First Crusade provides the backdrop for a rich tapestry of political machinations, military conflicts, martial rivalries, and love stories, some of which are complicated by differences in religion. The supernatural plays a major role in the action. Partly on this account, and partly because of the multilayered, intertwined plots, the poem met with considerable contemporary criticism, so Tasso revised it radically and published the revision under a new name, La Gerusalemme Conquistata, or Jerusalem Conquered, which has remained virtually unread, a warning to authors who pay attention to the critics. The original poem influenced Edmund Spenser, whose unfinished epic, The Faerie Queene, is still more complicated in plot than Tasso's poem and, being an allegory, affords the supernatural an even greater share in the action. In Milton's Paradise Lost, the council in hell (first half of Book II) owes much to Tasso's similar scene in Book IV. (Someone with sufficient background in Old English might profitably compare the tirade of Satan in Book IV to the remarkably similar speech of Satan in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis.) Moreover, Milton's ...

Excerpt Details
Historical Fiction, Poetry

Description Details
The World Public Library Association is the world’s largest aggregator of eBooks. Founded in 1996, the World Public Library Association is a global coordinated effort to preserve and disseminate historical books, classic works of literature, serials, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other heritage works in a number of languages and countries around the world. World Public Library is a IRC 501(c)(4) Organization, organized Not for profit, but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. Our mission is to serve and aid the public, students, and educators, by providing the world's most complete collection of electronic books, documents, and articles online, as well as offer a variety of services and resources that support and strengthen the instructional programs of education, elementary through post-baccalaureate studies. Access to the complete holdings of the World Public Library is open to the general public for personal use, members receive an eLibrary Card allowing them unlimited accessto our complete holdings....

Excerpt Details
Franklin D. Roosevelt - “The public library is a nation’s act of believing in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future.” The traditional library is changing, fast. Paper books,and the multi-level structures that house them, are becoming a thing of the past while digital books, eBooks, pave the way for a new future of instant, worldwide accessibility to knowledge. The World Public Library is at the forefront of this movement. I. History A. Purpose of the Library 1. Origins Hi, I’m Mia with the World Public Library and I would like to invite you on a journey through the library’s past present and future. Along the way we will explore what has made the library such a unique and important place historically and what the World Public Library is doing today to make the library more useful and vital than ever before. It’s impossible to think about the progress mankind has made without calculating the role that the library has played. Any city that has had a great impact on learning has had a great library behind it, fu...

Description Details
These articles, pamphlets, and stories relating to the Girls Scouts of America touch on the history, activities, ideals, and traditions of this remarkable girls' organization. Though some of the articles appear redundant, they were selected to represent a contemporary view spanning five years of the organization's early popularity (1917-1921). Of significance are the detailed descriptions of Girl Scout involvement in war work during what is now known as World War I. Girl Scouts were prepared through their training for merit badges to be independent, resourceful, reliable, and helpful. They were able to make their own clothes, grow and cook their own food, care for the sick, and start a small business--skills that prepared young women for their future roles as homemakers, workers, and citizens.A version of the story The Brownies is still part of the Brownie Girl Scout literature into the 21st century. http://books.google.com/books?id=lZNHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA709#v=onepage&q&f=false The Encyclopaedia and Dictionary of Education edited by Foster Watson (1921) provides the following explanation under the entry for Girl Guides: The 'Brownies' a...

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction, Children, Philosophy