Wrapped Up In Books

If you happen to be in a mood for some reading, may I humbly recommend two ebook collections:

Manybooks.net has a fine range of texts, with handy previews to give you an idea of what you're getting. There's the option of assorted download formats, for those of you with fancy gadgetry. Here are a few examples of the titles available on the site.

• In Defense of Women - H.L. Mencken
  
  

  A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition. The mark of the so-called intuition is simply a sharp and accurate perception of reality, an habitual immunity to emotional enchantment, a relentless capacity for distinguishing between the appearance and the substance. The appearance, in the normal family circle, is a hero, magnifico, a demigod. The substance is a poor mountebank.

  
  


• Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! - Annie H Ryder, 1886
  
  

  Do not be afraid of useful fancy work. One can rest delightfully while making a row on an afghan, or knitting on a bed slipper. I always pity a boy who never seems to have any way of occupying himself while he rests. He whistles, puffs a cigarette, perhaps, or whittles away at the window-seat. Girls have no need of being lazy while they rest. They certainly will not sit in lawless indifference if they know the blueness of discontent. Cheerful people are workers; and, when they find any tendency to go "mooning" over their tasks, they shake themselves into broad daylight.

  
  
  


• A Parody Outline of History - Donald Ogden Stewart
  
  The Courtship of Miles Standish - in the manner of F Scott Fitzgerald
  
  

  This story occurs under the blue skies and bluer laws of Puritan New England, in the days when religion was still taken seriously by a great many people, and in the town of Plymouth where the "Mayflower", having ploughed its platitudinous way from Holland, had landed its precious cargo of pious Right Thinkers, moral gentlemen of God, and - Priscilla.
  
  Priscilla was - well Priscilla had yellow hair. In a later generation, in a 1921 June, if she had toddled by at a country club dance you would have noticed first of all that glorious mass of bobbed corn-colored locks. You would then, perhaps, have glanced idly at her face, and suddenly said "Oh my gosh!" The next moment you would have clutched the nearest stag and hissed "Quick-yellow hair-silver dress-oh Judas!" You would then have been introduced and after dancing nine feet you would have been cut in on by another panting stag.

  
  

Blackmask Online also has a wide selection, complete with descriptions and reviews of the well-categorized titles, a positive boon to the uncertain consumer. It's also home to a fine collection of pulp fiction - finally, a chance to see the stories behind the delightfully lurid cover art...

For those quaint old-fashioned souls who prefer an actual book when you're reading, you could do worse than head to What Should I Read Next? if inspiration temporarily deserts you.