Each website listed is free of charge, though some may require an account. Don't forget to save your TBR list on a legal site, or a physical paper, so you don't run the risk of losing any of them. If you can't find a book on a legal site, try a pirating site, but always remember to buy the physical (or kindle) copies of the books you enjoyed and appreciated so that we can keep supporting authors!
Around forty-three hundred years ago, in a region that we now call Iraq, a sculptor chiselled into a white limestone disk the image of a woman presiding over a temple ritual. She wears a long ceremonial robe and a headdress. There are two male attendants behind her, and one in front, pouring a libation on an altar. On the back of the disk, an inscription identifies her as Enheduanna, a high priestess and the daughter of King Sargon.
Some scholars believe that the priestess was also the world’s first recorded author. A clay tablet preserves the words of a long narrative poem: “I took up my place in the sanctuary dwelling, / I was high priestess, I, Enheduanna.” In Sumer, the ancient civilization of southern Mesopotamia where writing originated, texts were anonymous. If Enheduanna wrote those words, then she marks the beginning of authorship, the beginning of rhetoric, even the beginning of autobiography. To put her precedence in perspective, she lived fifteen hundred years before Homer, seventeen hundred years before Sappho, and two thousand years before Aristotle, who is traditionally credited as the father of the rhetorical tradition.
The poem, written in the wedge-shaped impressions of cuneiform, describes a period of crisis in the priestess’s life. Enheduanna’s father, Sargon, united Mesopotamia’s city-states to create what is sometimes called history’s first empire. His domain stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing modern-day Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, including more than sixty-five cities, each with its own religious traditions, administrative system, and local identity. Although Sargon ruled from Akkad, in the north, he appointed his daughter high priestess at the temple of the moon god in the southern city of Ur. The position, though outwardly religious, was in practice political, helping to unify disparate parts of the empire. After Sargon’s death, the kingdom was torn by rebellion; the throne went briefly to Enheduanna’s brothers, and then to her nephew. In the poem, a usurper named Lugalanne—a military general who possibly led an uprising in Ur—drives Enheduanna from her place at the temple.
Things I hope to have posted by the end of next year! I know it's a lofty goal to have every single author on this blog, but I don't expect it to happen, I just would like to see it get started next year. I'll finish it someday.
POEMS (possibly have a new section for poems, like I introduced a new section for plays at the end of 2022)
PLAYS
SHORT STORIES
ESSAYS
BOOKS
and I'd like to get most of these books posted as well; not all of them, though, because some (like The Hobbit) are too long, while others (like The Old Man and the Sea) are too boring.
Inspired by The Honest Avocado's list of "Five Books to Read When You're Stressed", I decided to make a (much longer) list of my own. The links embedded in the title of each book will take you to Goodreads, for those of you who want to add any to your TBR list, and the second link that I give at the end will take you to a website where you can read it online for free.
Will be adding to this list as I come across more books! Will also flesh out the list so that there's more variety, and will probably add a reason for each book, so that you can read about each one, similar to the way Honest Avocado does their list.
1. The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce Lankester Brisley (z-lib.org) (OverDrive)
2. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (PDF)
3. A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck (PDF) (OverDrive)
4. A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck (the "sequel" to A Long Way From Chicago, and just as good, and relaxing) (OverDrive) (Archive.org)
5. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell (PDF)
6. Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore (Archive.org)
7. I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño (I read this whenever I'm feeling sick, fsr it's such a calming book. Similar lull to The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell, but with less unhappiness) (World Documents)
8. Black Horses for the King by Anne McCarthy (Archive.org) (silo.pub)
9. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (PDF) (Yumpu) (All Free Novel) (PubHTML5) (onlinereadfreebooks)
10. Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson (and every single book of that series, it's so relaxing and calming because it's set in such a sleepy town where nothing goes on) (Archive.org)
11. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (first three are really good at destressing) (OverDrive - there are a billion and one ways to read each of the books in the series online, so I'll leave that up to you. If you search each FULL title and then stick "read free online" to the end of each search, it comes up with the most options)
12. The Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright (same thing here as with the Penderwicks series - take the full title of each book and add "read free online" to the end of it and then hit search and it should pull up a bunch of options)
13. Kirie, Pirie, and Kalikoolin's Pipe by Edward Maze (no online version available)
14. Fair Weather by Richard Peck (Archive.org)
15. The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo (PDF)
16. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (PDF) (Yumpu)
17. Meet Me In St. Louis by Sally Benson (no online version available)
18. Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli (z-lib.org) (onlinereadfreebooks)
19. Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier (onlinereadfreenovel)
20. The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance by Russell Roberts (z-lib.org)
21. Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff (z-lib.org) (onlinereadfreebooks) (OverDrive) (LearningAlly - only if you have an account)
22. Willow Run by Patricia Reilly Giff (z-lib.org) (onlinereadfreebooks)
23. The Language of Spells by Garret Weyr, Freymann-Weyr (z-lib.org) (if you make an account with Epic, where you can only read one book for free per day, but it's available there if you want to read it)
LINK. https://www.go2reads.com/mulan-sword-grace-lin
(will be on here soon)
