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:

My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. Some of you may recall a brilliant movie some years back of the same name. It was based on this novel which was written when the author was a teenager. She went on to become a very popular author in her country of Australia. You can judge for yourself as to how childish or novel-like it sounds. I think not. The movie was presented as memoir.

Here is a sample:

Possum Gully was stagnant–stagnant with the narrow stagnation prevalent in all old country places.
Its residents were principally married folk and children under sixteen. The boys, as they attained manhood, drifted outback to shear, drove, or to take up land. They found it too slow at home, and besides there was not room enough for them there when they passed childhood.

Nothing ever happened there. Time was no object, and the days slid quietly into the river of years, distinguished one from another by name alone.

And:

“I will go and earn my own living, and when you get me weeded out of the family you will have a perfect paradise. Having no evil to copy, the children will grow up saints,” I said bitterly.

“Now, Sybylla, it is foolish to talk like that, for you know that you take no interest in your work. If you’d turn to and help me rear poultry and make dresses–and why don’t you take to cooking?”

“Take to cooking!” I retorted with scorn. “The fire that a fellow has to endure on that old oven would kill a horse, and the grit and dirt of clearing it up grinds on my very nerves. Besides, if I ever do want to do any extra fancy cooking, we either can’t afford the butter or the currants, or else the eggs are too scarce! Cook, be grannied!”

“Sybylla! Sybylla, you are getting very vulgar!”

“Yes, I once was foolish enough to try and be polite, but I’ve given it up. My style of talk is quite good enough for my company. What on earth does it matter whether I’m vulgar or not. I can feed calves and milk and grind out my days here just as well vulgar as unvulgar,” I answered savagely.

There is an account of drought here which will remind readers of Jill Ker Conway’s excellent Australian memoir, The Road from Coorain. The movie was “fair dinkum” and it is a rare book that isn’t better than the movie!

Download your free copy of “My Brilliant Career” by Miles Franklin here >>

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:

Yes, you should buy a Kindle, just so you can be introduced to Bertie Wooster (kept in line by his butler Jeeves) and Bertie’s friends, such as the incomparable Gussie Fink-Nottle!

The course of true love never did run smooth and obviously the British do not know the cautionary tale of “speak for yourself John Alden.” Here you will read a similar tale about Gussie, who is a newt loving man-about-town. As a bonus, you will learn why you should never combine public speaking with over consumption!

Of the many hysterical Jeeves & Wooster books by P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves is considered the most hilarious and falling down funny . . . by me . . . and others. Find out for yourself. What better gift to yourself than a good read and a good laugh? And it is free!

Here is a bit of Jeeves and Wooster patter from this novel, but it could have come from any of them. It is a typical exchange about Bertie’s wardrobe that fans of the series have come to expect. Wait for it . . .

“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. “Something on your mind, Jeeves?”

“I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat belonging to some other gentleman, sir.”

I switched on the steely a bit more.

“No, Jeeves,” I said, in a level tone, “the object under advisement is mine. I bought it out there.”

“You wore it, sir?”

“Every night.”

“But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?”

Download your free copy of “Right Ho, Jeeves” by P.G. Wodehouse here >>

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:

I love this book. It is a very readable story about an Irish boy and his Catholic upbringing. It is a semi-autobiographical novel of Joyce’s own childhood. But it was not novelistic enough for some of his family who wished to disown him.

Here is a taste:

On each of the seven days of the week he further prayed that one of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost might descend upon his soul and drive out of it day by day the seven deadly sins which had defiled it in the past; and he prayed for each gift on its appointed day, confident that it would descend upon him, though it seemed strange to him at times that wisdom and understanding and knowledge were so distinct in their nature that each should be prayed for apart from the others.

Or:

During the first part of the summer in Blackrock uncle Charles was Stephen’s constant companion. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with a well tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers. On week days he did messages between the house in Carysfort Avenue and those shops in the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Stephen was glad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him very liberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels outside the counter. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust or three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his grandnephew’s hand while the shopman smiled uneasily; and, on Stephen’s feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown and say:

—Take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir? They’re good for your bowels.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is to Ulysses, what The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. It is an earlier, easier, essential read before tackling the longer book.

Download your free copy of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce here >>