Archive for December 2011

25 Most Wanted: Week Ending December 18

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

3. Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

4. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

5. An Unexpected Bride by Shadonna Richards

6. Cowboy Casanova: Rough Riders, Book 12 by Lorelei James

7. The Puzzle Keeper by Megan Nafke

8. My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handle

9. The Last Letter by Kathleen Shoop

10. Her Last Letter by Nancy C. Johnson

11. The Christmas Bus by Melody Carlson

12. Double Dare by Rhonda Nelson

13. [NSFW]  To Command and Collar (Masters of the Shadowlands) by Cherise Sinclair

14. Wife by Wednesday by Catherine Bybee

15. The Billionaire Wins the Game (Billionaire Bachelors) by Melody Anne

16. The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan

17. Silent Governess, The by Julie Klassen

18. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

19. Alice in Deadland by Mainak Dhar

20. Boyfriend From Hell (Falling Angels Saga) by E. Van Lowe

21. Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker

22. Obsidian (A Lux Novel) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

23. Growing Up Amish by Ira Wagler

24. One Stiletto in the Grave (Reapers in Heels) by Jason Krumbine

25. Christmas Dog, The by Melody Carlson

Free Classics: Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Every Friday, Marilyn Knapp Litt, who blogs at ClassicKindle.com, brings us her recommendation of a free classic book to discover (or rediscover) on Kindle.  Find more of Marilyn’s recommendations at her blog,  ClassicKindle.com,  a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the Kindle. You can also get Marilyn’s blog on Kindle and I recommend that you “Like” the Classic Kindle Facebook page as well so you don’t miss anything. Here’s Marilyn’s post:

Little Dorrit – by Charles Dickens

I am fascinated by the Marshalsea debtors’ prison. It is where Dickens’ own father was sent and that fall reverberated, sending young Charles from school to an ignominious job – an experience that can be seen to color the difficult lives of many of his young characters.

The Marshalsea itself is a character in Dickens’ Little Dorrit. I think it is a somewhat overlooked novel. It is not that I would tell people not to read his more famous works, but you have to read this novel too!

“There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when the sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a debtor with whom this narrative has some concern.

He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was going out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor who was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he doubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear—like all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said—that he was going out again directly.

He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands—rings upon the fingers in those days—which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a hundred times in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail. His principal anxiety was about his wife.

‘Do you think, sir,’ he asked the turnkey, ‘that she will be very much shocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?’

The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of ’em was and some of ’em wasn’t. In general, more no than yes.”

Oddly enough this book has been filmed twice and both times was marred by audio that could not be understood. The actors talked in an undertone and mumbled all at once. I think it was an effort to convey a tone from the book, which evokes so well the busy society of the prison.

It is such an odd concept to us that people would be locked up for owing money – ensuring that they could not work to pay off their debts! But odder still is that their families sometimes moved into the prison as well, but those people could go back and forth because they were not debtors. So in a sense the Marshalsea was like a ghetto where some have access and egress during daylight hours. Of course this brings about trading and scheming in an effort to collect the money needed to leave.

The prison was torn down before Dickens wrote the novel -I visited the site in London to see a massive brick wall that is still standing. As Dickens says of its destruction in the foreword to this novel, “ . . . the world is none the worse without it.”

How ironic then that he re-created it as completely as Joyce did Dublin. The Marshalsea, with its sad and colorful inhabitants, will stand forever.

Get you free copy of “Little Dorrit” by Charles Dickens here >>>

25 Most Wanted: Week Ending December 11

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

3. Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

4. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

5. Boyfriend From Hell (Falling Angels Saga) by E. Van Lowe

6. Wife by Wednesday by Catherine Bybee

7. Christmas at Harrington’s by Melody Carlson

8. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

9. Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

10. Zane’s Redemption (Scanguards Vampires #5) by Tina Folsom

11.My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

12. Here (On the Otherside) by Denise Grover Swank

13. The Maze Runner (Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 1) by James Dashner

14. Last Breath by Michael Prescott

15. Growing Up Amish by Ira Wagler

16. Earth Angel (Falling Angels Saga) by E. Van Lowe

17. Tempest Rising by Tracy Deebs

18. The Christmas Bus by Melody Carlson

19. Her Last Letter by Nancy C. Johnson

20. Darkness Dawns (Immortal Guardians) by Dianne Duvall

21. Sold on You by Sophia Knightly

22. [FREE] Double Dare by Rhonda Nelson

23. Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy by Laura Vosika

24. Rescue Me (a quirky romance novel about secrets, forgiveness and falling in love) by Sydney Allan

25. Justice (New Species, Book Four) by Laurann Dohner

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