Heading to the online library

It’s Friday night, and I’m between books. I’ve read the New York Times from top link to bottom and I’ve visited each of my favorite blogs to see if by any chance, they’ve been updated. Nothing happening (it is Friday after all). I decide it is time to click to the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page to see what’s new.

English language libraries are a bit rare here in Prague and new books pricey, so I've gotten in the habit of reading ebooks. The Online Books Page is a prolific indexer of electronic books - some days they add twelve or more books to their search engine. That sort of addition accumulates and in November, they celebrated adding their 25,000 book. Tonight I scroll through the newly added list, then search out an old favorite just remembered. In a zip, I've got a handful (mouseful?) of ebooks to check out.

Here are some of the notables:

The evening's most creative author name (and her work) - The Refugee’s Cookbook, by One of Them, 1906. Listed in honor of the anniversary of the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. You can't download the entire book unfortunately but you can read samples. Let me know if you think those recipes are constructible in a tent!

A favorite children’s book, refound - Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories by Thornton W. Burgess. For more Burgess books online, here's the index.

A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, by Amelia Edwards. After reading the first chapter, I suspect one of my favorite mystery characters - Amelia Peabody - of having A. Edwards inclinations.

Text to send to a British friend who thinks humor was invented in the mid 20th century. Bill Nye's Comic History of England, by Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye.

That's it for tonight. Hesky vikend*!

*Nice weekend!