Summer Reading : Complete Works By Authors for a Kindle

I use to LOVE summer.   That was the time of the year when I could get my mom to take us to the library nearly every week, I would stack books until I could barely carry them, check them out, and happily stagger to the car to take them home.   My tastes ran toward the amazing ... fairy tales, legends, fantasy, sci-fi, history, and biography.   I shied away from mystery, romance, and day to day life books.  And usually the books were well over 300 pages each - no light reading fluff for me!  :)

I'm all grown up now ...  but .... we still bring home tons of books every week ... but my Kindle has allowed me to be more selective and stick to picture books for the younger ones.  

One of the neat things that Amazon offers is "Complete Works" of most of the classic authors ... most can be purchased for under $3 for an entire set of books!

Pros - Able to read the entire works without having tons of downloads or purchasing each book separately.

Cons - many of the sets are cumbersome to navigate, and skipping a book that you have already read - or don't wish to read - can sometimes involve sitting and hitting "page forward" for quite a while.

Fortunately - most of the collections I've picked up have eventually put out a copy with a table of contents that works passably well.

But if you have a tween or teen reader with a Kindle, and you want them to read classic authors ... this is a great and cheap way to fill up their reading time without breaking the bank or running to the library for new books or taking hours to download books individually for free.

Here are a small sampling of what is available.



   Oz: The Complete Collection (All 14 Oz Books, with Illustrated Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Exclusive Bonus Features)


   The Complete Little Women Series: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys (4 books in one)


   Charles Dickens Collection 55 Works: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, MORE! [Annotated]


   The Bronte Sisters - The Complete Novels (Annotated) + Extras


   L.M. Montgomery's Short Story Collection


   The Works of Eleanor H. Porter


   Grimm's Fairy Tales Illustrated: 200 tales with 50 illustrations


   The Works of Beatrix Potter


   Jules Verne Collection, 33 Works: A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Mysterious Island, PLUS MORE!


   Agatha Christie Collection: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary


   THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES and THE COMPLETE TALES OF TERROR AND MYSTERY (All Sherlock Holmes Stories and All 12 Tales of Mystery in a Single Volume!) ... Conan Doyle | The Complete Works Collection)


   THE COMPLETE FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES COLLECTION [Annotated] (Complete Works of G.K. Chesterton)


   Delphi Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)


   Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems (Over 100 Works, including The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, with Links to Free Audiobooks)


   The Complete Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (Annotated) (69 stories)


   The Complete Works of Shakespeare


   The Collected Novels of H.G. Wells: 25 Books in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)


   Jane Austen Collection: 18 Works, Pride and Prejudice, Love and Friendship, Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Lady Susan & more!


   Anne: The Green Gables Collection (12 Books, including Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Exclusive Bonus Features)


   Louisa May Alcott Collection 39 Works: Little Women Series (Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys), An Old Fasioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Mysterious Key, Under the Lilacs, MORE


   Edgar Rice Burroughs Anthology, 24 Works: A Princess of Mars, Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars, Tarzan the Untamed, Thuvia-Maid of Mars, MORE!


   Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)


   Complete Mark Twain Collection (300+ works) (Illustrated)


   Aesop's Fables - Complete Collection (Illustrated and Annotated) (Literary Classics Collection)


   The Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen - Complete Collection (Illustrated and Annotated) (Literary Classics Collection)


   The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories [168 Tales in the chronological order of publication]


   Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)


   Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)


   H.G. Wells Collection, Over 50 Works: The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, Time Machine, Island of Dr. Moreau, Little Wars, World Set Free, Tales of Space and Time, When the Sleeper Wakes & MORE!


   Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)


   200 GREATEST NOVELS, STORIES & POEMS EVER WRITTEN: THE COMPLETE HARVARD CLASSICS LIBRARY SHELF OF FICTION (The Complete Works Collection) 200 Works! Jane ... Mark TWAIN Tolstoy Shakespeare Poe Balzac)


   1000 Greatest Novels Ever Written - Largest eBook ever - Complete Collections of Agatha,Jane Austen, Holmes,Shakespeare,James Joyce,Plato, Poe,Anne Stories,Beatrix Potter with 36 Audio Book



Happy Summer  Reading!

Middle Ages (Grades 4 - 6) Culture

Middle Ages (Grades 4 - 6) Culture


Please Note:
Most of these books below, were mentioned in the "All Through the Ages" literature guide, however, not all of the books mentioned in "All Through the Ages" are listed here, and if there were similar book listed when I searched, I did add a few - some I recognized as books my daughters found in our public library, and others looked interesting.  Always check a book for yourself to decide if it is the right book for your child.  Also, I have an older copy of "All Through the Ages" and she has an updated copy offered on her website.  It is WELL WORTH the cost of buying your own copy.



Available via Kindle - often these are Free or far cheaper than book forms.
Some will be available via Librivox (audio) or Gutenberg (many ebook formats) or from other ebook stores.

Search for any of these topics at your local public library for similar titles.


     

Book Description

Spirited and interesting picture of life in castles and manors, monasteries and towns during the Middle Ages. The description of the customs of knights is especially full. Chapter titles include Page, Squire, and Knight; The Knight's Arms and Armor; Jousts and Tournaments; How to Capture a Castle; Daily Life in a Castle; Life on a Manor; Pilgrimages and Crusades; Military Orders, Monks, and Monasteries; Hermits, Friars, and Missionaries; Life in Town; Merchant Gilds and Craft Gilds; How Goods Were Sold; Schools and Literature; Science and Medicine; and Architecture and the Arts.

     Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #2: Knights and Castles: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #2: The Knight at Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))

              
"A good general introduction to the history of this period."--Los Angeles Times

  (free)
Over its thousand-year history the Tower stood as a symbol of the English monarchy and served as both a palace and a prison. It is a place where court intrigues, clandestine liaisons, unimaginable tortures and grisly executions took place with frightening regularity. 

    

    (free)
Relates the story of the making of an "hour book" as a wedding gift from King Louis of France to Lady Anne of Brittany and the good fortune it brought to little Gabriel, Brother Stephen's color grinder.

Inspired by the bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds Gabriel brings into the workroom, Brother Stephen conceives a new idea for an illuminated border. Instead of painting the border with scrolls and birds and flowers in the conventional way, he would decorate the book with borders of gold on which he would paint in realistic fashion the meadow wildflowers, and bees and butterflies, and all the little flying creatures. As Brother Stephen's color grinder, Gabriel makes the ink, grinds the gold, gathers the flowers, and prepares the colors for him. After the book is completed, Gabriel slips into the book a sheet on which he has penned a prayer to Lady Anne: "I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre's castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve." How his prayer is answered unfolds in the ensuing chapters.

Evaleen Stein brings the medieval world to life for younger students through her stories set in the Middle Ages. A century ago when this book was first published, a reviewer in the Louisville Daily Courier wrote, "No works in juvenile fiction contain so many of the elements that stir the hearts of children and grown-ups as well as do the stories so admirably told by this author." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

   134 Color Paintings of Giotto - Italian Medieval Painter (1266/7 - January 8, 1337)
Giotto book includes 134 high quality reproductions of his greatest masterpieces with title and date.

    

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Only available as bound books ... many of these may be at public libraries, or obtained via Inter Library Loans (ILL) from other public libraries.

         

         

         

         

         

         

History In Literature: Middle Ages (Grades 7 - 9) Overview - Specific Events - Biography

Middle Ages

Grades 7 - 9

Note:  It is unlikely that there will be many free books on this list.  However, this is a great list to take names and subjects, and compare with you own public library.   Many of these are books - not Kindle versions.

Overview:

          



Specific Events:

        

     April Queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine


   

     Marco Polo

     Xanadu

     A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

   

     Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: The Complete Version

     Joan of Arc  (Free)

     Joan of Arc The Warrior Maid   (Free)

     A Heroine of France, The Story of Joan of Arc   (Free)

     The Executioner's Knife Or Joan of Arc  (Free)

     The Story of Joan of Arc

     Beyond the Myth: The Story of Joan of Arc

     The Last Plantagenet: The Pageant of England, Vol. 4

     Harold, Last of the Saxon Kings (Annotated)


Biography:


    Harold Godwinsson

          

Harold Godwinson, (1022 – October 14, 1066 A.D.) also known as Harold II, is widely regarded as the last Anglo-Saxon King of England before the Norman Conquest. Harold reigned from January 5 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October of that same year, fighting the Norman invaders, led by William the Conqueror.


          Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (Saint Maligned Misunderstood and Mistreated)

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a figure of towering importance on the twelfth-century monastic and theological scene. 


     St. Francis of Assisi (Annotated)

     

Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226)[2] was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis.[3] St. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.



          St. Thomas Aquinas By G. K. Chesterton

   

It would be hard to overstate the influence that St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) has had on both the Catholic world and the West as a whole over the last 750 years. Even in secular circles, Aquinas is known as one of the most important medieval philosophers, and in many respects a harbinger of the Renaissance that began to flourish across Europe in the centuries that followed his life. His groundbreaking work, Summa Theologica, remains one of the most influential philosophical texts in history, earning him a place in the pantheon alongside Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. 



     Messer Marco Polo


     The Three Edwards

THE THREE EDWARDS, third in Thomas B. Costain's survey of Britain under the Plantagenets, covers the years between 1272 and 1377 when three Edwards ruled England. Edward I brought England out of the Middle Ages. Edward II had a tragic reign but gave his country Edward III, who ruled gloriously, if violently.

  St. Catherine of Siena     

Alice Curtayne St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) ranks as one of the greatest, most interesting, most influential and most popular saints in all of Church history. She was a twin, the 23rd of 25 children, a mystic, a stigmatic and a miracle-worker. Her penances were so great that she eventually ate no food-save Communion-and did not require sleep. Through her personal influence, thousands of people returned to the Faith. Her crowning achievement consisted of persuading Pope Gregory XI to return the Papacy to Rome, thus ending the "Babylonian Captivity."


     Katherine (Rediscovered Classics)

This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history—that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine. Their well-documented affair and love persist through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption. This epic novel of conflict, cruelty, and untamable love has become a classic since its first publication in 1954.



     Sterling Point Books: Joan of Arc: Warrior Saint

Could any story be more inspiring than that of Joan of Arc, the courageous maiden who fought for the glory of France and God? Guided by what she firmly believed were visions of saints, this young Frenchwoman—still just 16 years old—led her people in battle against the British occupiers. Though she proved victorious in war, Joan ultimately became a martyr when some of her own countrymen betrayed her to the English. Jay Williams captures all the tragedy and pathos of the fearless country girl who was finally recognized as a saint herself.