Sunday, September 25, 2016

Get Leo Tolstoy's 20 Greatest Short Stories Annotated at a Library Near You



The number of libraries purchasing a copy of Tolstoy's short stories that I edited is growing by leaps and bounds. Follow this link to see if Leo Tolstoy's 20 Greatest Short Stories Annotated is at a library near you: http://www.worldcat.org/title/leo-tolstoys-20-greatest-short-stories-annotated/oclc/457080394

If not, you can get a copy of the Tolstoy ebook for less than $8 on Google Books. Enjoy!

#TolstoyShortStories #TolstoyAnnotated

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Review of On the Road by Jack Kerouac


Jack Kerouac
1922-1967

Jack Kerouac writes like Jackson Pollock paints. And for those of you familiar with the work of Pollock you know exactly what I mean. Kerouac promulgated a slash-and-dash style of writing, a jittery style of writing, an alcohol fused style of writing, that caused his characters to get caught up in their shoelaces and--though On the Road--made them go nowhere in particular no matter how many times they crisscrossed America.

On the Road has very little plot and even less character generation of unique speech and idiosyncrasies. It may have been better if Kerouac had dispensed with punctuation altogether and made it a 300+ page run-on sentence. Truman Capote said "That's not writing; that's typing." His Columbia English lit teacher must have told him that writing a novel is a race. Kerouac took her up on it, claiming to have written On the Road in a three week maniacal flurry of writing (sorry, typing).

Touche Capote!

Kerouac is said to have died in 1967 (nearly one year after my birth) of internal bleeding due to alcohol abuse. Don't you believe it. I say Kerouac died of an acute case of diarrhea of the keyboard. He is pictured above in his 1943 Naval enlistment photo, Kerouac became a symbol of the early beat culture. On the Road was published in 1957 and is his most famous novel.

Despite my view of it, it is a novel of importance because Kerouac's rambling style was largely a first in literature. I wonder why? There is no question that it gives the novel a pure, unfiltered feel that can only come off as genuine. You take it flaws and all, just like life. For that it has value.

Several big names in music have dedicated songs to the novel and the man: “Black Cowboys” by Bruce Springsteen; “Idiot Wind” by Bob Dylan; “Hey Jack Kerouac” by 10,000 Maniacs.

Andrew Barger
Author of The Divine Dantes trilogy
http://www.AndrewBarger.com


#OnTheRoadReview #JackKerouac

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Score 40% Off My Books with This Barnes & Noble Coupon!

40% Off
Barnes & Noble

Through September 5th you get 40% off my book at Barnes & Noble using coupon code: LMQCJGX26KQFK  Plus bag free shipping on orders over $25. Happy Labor Day weekend for those of you in the States. Here are great choices to use your 40% off B&N coupon:


Best Ghost Short Stories 1850-1899: A Phantasmal Ghost Anthology contains the best ghost stories from the last half of the 19th century. Published in August of 2016, it includes scary short stories from popular American and Victorian authors including: Bram Stoker, M. R. James, Joseph Le Fanu, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Nesbit, and Francis Marion Crawford. The ghost story anthology is annotated and includes story backgrounds and author photos. Boo!


Thanks to Edgar Allan Poe, Honore de Balzac, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others, the half century from 1800-1849 is the cradle of all modern horror short stories. Andrew Barger, the editor of this book as well as Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems, read over 300 horror short stories to compile the 12 best. At the back of the book he includes a list of all short stories he considered along with their dates of publication and author, when available. He even includes background for each of the stories, author photos and annotations for difficult terminology. A number of the scary short stories were published in leading periodicals of the day such as Blackwood's and Atkinson's Casket. Read The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 today!


"Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace" branded Tolstoy as one of the greatest writers in modern history. Few, however, have read his wonderful short stories. Now, in one collection, are the 20 greatest short stories of Leo Tolstoy, which give a snapshot of Russia and its people in the late nineteenth century. A fine introduction is given by Andrew Barger. Annotations are included of difficult Russian terms. There is also a Tolstoy biography at the start of the book with photos of Tolstoy's relatives.

#BarnsandNobleCoupon #BestGhostShortStories #BestHorrorShortStories