The Common Reader First Series (Virginia Woolf)

Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure’s Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell’s Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game. It is set after the Second Afghan War which ended in 1881, but before the Third fought in 1919, probably in the period 1893 to 1898. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India. The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road. Warning: Unlike most of the books in our store, this book is in English. Uyarı: Agora Bilim Pazarı'ndaki diğer birçok kitabın aksine, bu kitap İngilizcedir.

Gordon Comstock has ‘declared war’ on what he sees as an ‘overarching dependence’ on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called ‘New Albion’—at which he shows great dexterity—and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. Coming from a respectable family background in which the inherited wealth has now become dissipated, Gordon resents having to work for a living. The ‘war’ (and the poetry), however, aren’t going particularly well and, under the stress of his ‘self-imposed exile’ from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, petty and deeply neurotic. Comstock lives without luxuries in a bedsit in London, which he affords by working in a small bookshop owned by a Scot, McKechnie. He works intermittently at a magnum opus he plans to call ‘London Pleasures’, describing a day in London; meanwhile, his only published work, a slim volume of poetry entitled Mice, collects dust on the remainder shelf. He is simultaneously content with his meagre existence and also disdainful of it. He lives without financial ambition and the need for a ‘good job,’ but his living conditions are uncomfortable and his job is boring. Warning: Unlike most of the books in our store, this book is in English. Uyarı: Agora Bilim Pazarı'ndaki diğer birçok kitabın aksine, bu kitap İngilizcedir.

I want to go Home! I want to go back to India! I am misera-ble. The steamship Nawab at this time of the year ought to have been empty, instead of which we have one hundred first-class passengers and sixty-six second. All the pretty girls are in the latter class. Something must have happened at Colombo—two steamers must have clashed. We have the results of the collision, and we are a menagerie. The captain says that there ought to have been only ten or twelve passengers by rights, and had the rush been anticipated, a larger steamer would have been provided. Per-sonally, I consider that half our shipmates ought to be thrown overboard. They are only travelling round the world for pleasure, and that sort of dissipation leads to the forming of hasty and in-temperate opinions. Anyhow, give me freedom and the cock-roaches of the British India, where we dined on deck, altered the hours of the meals by plebiscite, and were lords of all we saw. You know the chain-gang regulations of the P. and O.: how you must approach the captain standing on your head with your feet waving reverently; how you must crawl into the presence of the chief steward on your belly and call him Thrice-Puissant Bottle-washer; how you must not smoke abaft the sheep-pens; must not stand in the companion; must put on a clean coat when the ship's library is opened; and crowning injustice, must order your drinks for tiffin and dinner one meal in advance? Warning: Unlike most of the books in our store, this book is in English. Uyarı: Agora Bilim Pazarı'ndaki diğer birçok kitabın aksine, bu kitap İngilizcedir.

American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of North American society, almost as if returning a status report on their progress. This can be compared to the style of his Pictures from Italy written four years later, where he wrote far more like a tourist. His American journey was also an inspiration for his novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Having arrived in Boston, he visited Lowell, New York, and Philadelphia, and travelled as far south as Richmond, as far west as St. Louis and as far north as Quebec. The American city he liked best was Boston – "the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay. [...] The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably." Further, it was close to the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind where Dickens encountered Laura Bridgman, who impressed him greatly. Warning: Unlike most of the books in our store, this book is in English. Uyarı: Agora Bilim Pazarı'ndaki diğer birçok kitabın aksine, bu kitap İngilizcedir.