The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Product Description

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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Product Details

• Published on: 1992-10-01
• Released on: 1992-10-01
• Format: Kindle eBook

Customer Reviews

A Pleasant Surprise
I grabbed this for the Kindle since it was free, and like the previous reviewer, I only had a vague idea of the story from various cartoon versions.

I was very pleasantly surprised. I've not read anything else by Washington Irving. The story is simple; the prose is easy to read but in spots is downright beautiful. Some of the scenic descriptions border on poetry. Irving writes with a dry sense of humor; and he has faith in the reader's ability to connect the dots, so he doesn't spell everything out.

It's a short read - in print I guess it would be 30 to 40 pages. One GREAT thing about reading it on Kindle is having the dictionary function, as there were a number of archaic terms with which I was not familiar.

I give it 5 stars for the combination of price and quality of writing. If you'd like some good writing, a peek into America (upstate New York) at the end of the 18th century, and a little wit, go ahead and grab it - especially if it's free!

The True Story of the Headless Horseman
Have you ever heard of the Headless Horseman? Have you ever heard the stories about him and how he attacks people in the woods? Have you ever wondered whether or not the story is real?

Find out for yourself by reading Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I enjoyed reading this book and i think anyone who has a liking for mysterious legends and superstitions should read this book beacause of the interesting legend the town believes in. There are few characters to keep track of and the story is not hard to follow. The book is long but the reading goes quickly.

The story is set in the late 18th century in a town in New York called Sleepy Hollow. The town believes in a legend of a headless horseman who rides through the woods at night anf attacks people. The main character is a man named Ichabod Crane who is a schoolteacher from Connecticut. He moves to Sleepy Hollow in search of work and ends up going from home to home working as a tutor. One of his students is 18 year old Katrina Van Tassel who comes from a wealthy family. Ichabod gets the idea that he will try to marry Katrina in order to obtain the family's wealth. However, Katrina's boyrfriend Abraham "Brom Bones" Brut has other plans for Ichabod. As the tension rises, Ichabod continues trying to win Katrina until a breathtaking surprise appearance by the town's legend creates as mysterious an ending as they come.

The book has many strengths and few weaknesses. The author manages to create a mood in the book that keeps you always on th edge of your seat waiting for the legend of the Headless Horseman to come into play. The story is simple and easy to follow but is still very interesting. The characters are developed well and have personalities that you can understand and relate to. One such character is Brom Bones who is easily seen as an arrogant egotist. The only weakness of the book was one based on my personal opinion. The end of the story leaves too much to be concluded for my liking.

All in all, this book was a great story. The author wrote the characters in such a way that you had definite feelings towards each one of them. Also, the story line was definitely not without surprise. But if you want to discover what surprises I am talking about then I suggest you read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Ichabod what a name
Up to this point I had only seen the Disney cartoon the Legend of Sleepy Hallow which I loved as a kid. The story was very well written and I got caught up in the words and transported to Sleepy Hallow.

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Last Light

Last Light

Product Description

What if America suddenly lost all its electrical power, its communications, its transportation, its financial system, its government leadership, and its media? What if an upper middle-class neighborhood of families who hardly know each other's names, suddenly had to form a functioning, self-contained community? How would people in the 21st Century, spoiled by microwaves and fast food, air travel and speeding cars, television and air conditioning, learn to function if they no longer had cars that ran, grocery stores, postal service, running water, computers, big screen TVs? If they had to hunt to eat or grow their own food? If they had to dig wells for water? If they had to learn to wash their clothes in the nearby lake? If they had to establish a neighborhood school and a neighborhood church? And what if the crisis created looters and killers who thought they could rob and murder without consequences? This series combines elements of Growing up Gotti with Little House on the Prairie. After an unexplained catastrophic event in the atmosphere knocks out all electronics in the world, these well-to-do families who've accumulated so many things are suddenly left helpless. Their Mercedes and BMWs sit in their driveways, useless. Their expensive, well-appointed homes have no electricity, no refrigeration, no phones. Even their battery-operated electronics don't work. No one is certain whether the country is under attack. Without communication, there is no way to find out. One family of Christians--the Brannings--realizes the needs of those around them. After wrestling with their own anger, fear and despair, and struggling in prayer with the Lord, they begin to realize that they have a job to do. They begin trying to unite the neighbors in a common effort to survive, and instead of hoarding, they realize that Christ has called them to sacrifice and give. But a couple is found dead in their neighborhood, and they realize that there is a killer among them. As they struggle to protect their own family and property, their 22-year-old daughter Deni falls prey to the killer, and takes off with him across the country, desperate to make her way to the East Coast where she thinks her life will be better. It doesn't take long for her to realize he's the killer and that she's in danger. But getting back home is more difficult than she ever imagined, and she is forced to turn back to Christ in repentance and humility, knowing He is the only One who can help her get home.

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Product Details

• Published on: 2009-05-11
• Released on: 2009-05-11
• Format: Kindle eBook
• Number of items: 1

Customer Reviews

Not what I was expecting
I have to be honest, I had no idea "Last Light" was written by a "Christian Writer" when I bought this book. To be completely honest if I had known this book was written by a "Christian Writer" I don't think I would have purchased it. I would have been worried that instead of a taut Sci-Fi/Thriller that the book's jacket promised, I would be buying a 300+ page sermon. My normal reading fare falls more along the lines of Stephen King, James Rollins or Dean Koontz, which if they feature a character strong in faith, it's usually a precursor to the evil they do, and tells the reader they are not to be trusted. So when I got home and found I had bought novel by a "Christian Writer" I wasn't exactly thrilled. I started the book, and got hooked pretty quickly. The idea of living without all of our electric and mechanical conveniences was a pretty cool idea. The characters are pretty well drawn, especially the quick tempered Deni, who like it or not we all can relate to very easily. The pace of the book is quick, and the murder mystery carries the story along nicely. I see other reviews that say they didn't care for the murderer storyline, but liked the rest of the novel. I don't quite understand that, as the murder mystery is easily 1/2 the book if not more. Most of the key action revolves around who the killer may be, and neighborhood's reactions to the killer's presence. I believe Mrs. Blackstock gives an honest portrayal of they way people would react in the circumstances surrounding the catastrophic events that take place in her novel. I didn't plan on liking this novel, and there were a few times I felt the book got too "preachy", but "Last Light" kept me turning pages and coming back for more. And though this seems to be the first book in a series, it's not a cliffhanger. The story stands on it's own without leaving you with unanswered questions that require reading the next book in the series. I will most likely pick up the follow up novel, and recommend this book to fans of suspense novels.

Another great Blackstock series launched with "Last Light"
Those who have read any of Terri Blackstock's more than two dozen books can attest to the undeniable fact that she is truly an extraordinary writer. Her suspenseful novels meet or exceed the best of this genre; while remaining true to her deeply held Christian faith (her books are always '...lovingly dedicated to the Nazarene'). "LAST LIGHT," the first of four books planned for her current 'Restoration' series, sets an even higher standard, with her challenging theme of our planet being stripped of its electricity, and other forms of power which most of us take for granted. After reading "LAST LIGHT," the only disappointment is having to wait for the remaining books in what promises to be yet another great series! --RON HOWE (a.k.a. Toby Martin II).

Scared Me
I have read most of Blackstock's books and have enjoyed them a great deal. I was very excited when this one came out and started reading it right away. Although the murder mystery part was not as captivating as some of her other novels, I was totally drawn into the Brannings "new" world. It scared me at times just thinking about what could happen and at other times I wondered if that's not what we need to have happen. I loved the book and can't wait for the next one to come out.

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Indigo Ocean Dreams: 4 Children's Stories Designed to Decrease Stress, Anger and Anxiety while Increasing Self-Esteem and Self-Awareness

My Big Animal Book (My Big Board Books)

The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, No. 3)

Peek-A Who?

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

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Eclipse (The Twilight Saga)

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle)

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Hippos Go Berserk

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

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Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

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The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights

The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights

Product Description

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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Product Details

• Published on: 2004-06-28
• Released on: 2004-06-28
• Format: Kindle eBook

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Customer Reviews

Not the version I would suggest
It's curious to me that this is the best-selling version of the King Arthur story in the kindle store, because it's a singularly flawed collection, well-eclipsed by other variants that are also available for free online; I suspect its popularity is an artifact of the search engine, not the book's own merits.

The author, Sir James Knowles, was an architect and friend of Tennyson, best known for founding the Metaphysical Society; this is, therefore, a very Victorian Arthur. In this case, "victorian" means "bowdlerized to the point of inanity." The story of Merlin's enchantment of Uther and Igraine to arrange Arthur's conception is almost completely elided ("When Uther, therefore, was at length happily wedded" -- yep, that's the whole story); Sir Tristram is apparently completely chaste with Iseult (King Mark just doesn't like him for some indiscernible reason) and even when Lancelot and Guinevere are caught together and the entire course of the story turns on adultery, such that bowdlerization was completely impossible, Gawain suggests that "it may well be that Lancelot was in her chamber for no evil." The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is simply not included at all.

I suppose that kind of bowdlerization might be acceptable in a children's version of the Arthur stories, but this edition isn't good for that either, for two reasons: 1) like many free kindle ebooks, all illustrations have been removed, and 2) it's a kindle edition, and who gives a $250 ebook reader to a child too young to read a story with adultery in it?

There are other problems also. The King of Gaul (Sir Bors) is an ally for the first third and last third of the book, but in the middle, Gaul has a different king, Flollo, and Arthur conquers Gaul six ways from Sunday (mostly as a stopover in his conquest of Rome); timelines don't add up; so on, so forth. I didn't feel the author did a good job of telling the Arthur legends, in any particular. In short, this is a bad version of the King Arthur story and the general reader would be better off not wasting time on it.

I'm sure people are going to say "hey, it's an early victorian version, don't hold it to such high standards," but there's no reason for a modern reader to read these, any more than there's reason to read Sir Thomas Bowdler's "Family Shakespeare". For more "historical" versions of the Arthur legend, either of this versions' main source materials -- Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ or Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_ -- are superior reads (though I'll admit you'd want to skim Monmouth heavily). My own personal favorite, Howard Pyle's three-book version of the Arthur story ("The Story of King Arthur and His Knights," "The Story of the Champions of the Round Table," and "The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur") is similarly available for free online in the public domain, can be found with excellent illustrations by Pyle himself, is written in a fashion suitable for children and adults, and does a far better job of capturing the romance of the Arthur legends.

But whatever version you pick, this one is a poor place to start. It does have some strengths -- chiefly an encylopedic compilation of at least some version of almost every PG Arthur-related tale -- but the author's victorian mores seem to have twisted far too many of the stories into unrecognizability. Not recommended.

Fairly interesting, and you don't need to read it all to get a good takeaway
I enjoyed this book, or what part of it I read, anyway. It is the rather un-nuanced account of the adventures had by a group of knights (of the Round Table, of course). There is no character development and very little overarching plot to tie the stories together, but there is something oddly compelling about it. There is a great deal of smiting, and rending helms asunder, and rescuing fair maidens in distress (can you imagine???? The evil giant makes ladies actually do manual labor, though they be of high birth!).

You get the general idea pretty quickly, I've read half and feel like I've gotten all I will get out of this book. It's free though, so I am glad I checked it out.

Classic
Classic King Arthur stories, with all the smiteth-ing and destresseth damsels one might wish.

A bit of a slow read due to the older writing style and inclusion of every name of every knight present at every battle, but the book contained everything from Merlin's predictions to the Quest for the Holy Grail to Arthur being bore off to Avalon, although it lacked the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Ten Little Fingers (Board Books for Babies)

Where the Wild Things Are

QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance by QI

The Going-To-Bed Book

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (Baby Board Books)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Open the Barn Door (A Chunky Book(R))

Indigo Ocean Dreams: 4 Children's Stories Designed to Decrease Stress, Anger and Anxiety while Increasing Self-Esteem and Self-Awareness

My Big Animal Book (My Big Board Books)

The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, No. 3)

Peek-A Who?

The Book Thief

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

Eclipse (The Twilight Saga)

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle)

The Twilight Saga Collection

Hippos Go Berserk

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

The Shack (Special Hardcover Edition)

Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)

Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens

iPhone For Dummies: Includes iPhone 3GS