The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage -Free
1895

August 2004 Iraq, I'm second from the left.

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel set in the American Civil War. Stephen Crane penned this masterpiece at the young age of twenty four. Even though Crane never fought in the Civil War he interviewed many veterans to gain an understanding and an insight into the psyche of soldiers in battle. The novel deals with the themes of heroism and cowardice through the eyes of a soldier.

Crane tells the story of Henry Fleming dealing with the ideals of heroism. Fleming is a young man called to service by his country. He enlist and is soon disenchanted with military life and the monotony of it. What he is experiencing and what he expected are very different things. As word begins to spread of their impending battle he begins to question his courage.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.

Henry Fleming’s courage holds at first and through subsequent battles the chaos of war wins out. The lines break and he does not know which way to go. In the disarray Fleming loses his regiment. The young soldier is left to deal the shame of cowardice. He soon begins to envy those that are killed and wounded.

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

The dead and injured are lucky because they do not have to live with his shame. He manages to find himself and his courage and tries to prove his heroism once more. Fleming goes through great feats to prove to himself and his peers that he is not a coward.

Stephen Crane has a great style of writing. What makes is great is the realistic battle scenes juxtaposed with the psychological depth of a character dealing with the themes of heroism and cowardice. He shows us why soldiers fight, what drives a soldier to heroism. What really matters in the grand scheme of things.

The Red Badge of Courage is the best book I read last year. It is a war novel that deals with human emotions and the indifference of nature. The novel was first published in 1895 and has never been out of print. It is available for free in the Kindle Store. Download a sample or the entire book and add it to your reading list. This is a masterpiece of American literature.

There are many lists out there that tell you what you should read. With this blog, I hope to show why those books are important and why you should read them. Crane shows us that we do things not for our country but for the love and respect of the people that make up our country. By presenting the psychology of a soldier in battle, Crane makes us think about why we do things. Would you die for your family, friends or country? What is important to you?

Leave comments below. If you like the blog please leave us a review in the Kindle Store to help spread the word.

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Kindle Giveaways!

I keep coming across some kindle giveaways and I thought I would share them on here. If you don’t have a Kindle already this is the perfect way of getting one for free. Most just require your email for a chance to win. I entered these myself, you never know when you will need a backup kindle. They make great presents! Make sure you subscribe to the   free 2 week trial*  on the Kindle! 5G8RYQE7ENGS

eNotes.com

eNotes.com is giving away a Kindle Fire. Here is the info.

Kindle Fire time again! Who wants to enter our July Kindle contest? Simply visit eNotes' Facebook page, "like" us, and answer the following question on our wall: In the spirit of July 4th, what book embodies the “great American novel”, in your opinion? Why?
We will pick a random winner at the end of the month!

http://www.facebook.com/enotes

They are giving away the $199 Kindle Fire!

APCodes.com

www.apcodes.com is giving away a $79 Kindle wifi with special offers on August 8th!
Here is their info.

Simply enter using Rafflecopter below and remember, the more actions you complete, the better your chances!

Get More @ APCodes http://www.apcodes.com/amazon-kindle-giveaway-win-a-kindle/#ixzz20MHhrisI

Kindle Nation Daily

Kindle Nation Daily is a great resource for all things Kindle. They have an author sponsored giveaway. They have done this a few times before. You enter on their facebook page. Here is the info.

http://www.facebook.com/KindleNation

They are giving away a $199 Kindle Fire for liking their facebook page and subscribing to their email newsletter.

I did a search for “Kindle Giveaways” and most seemed very sketchy at best. Be careful who you give your information to. The three links above are trustworthy and have been around for some time. Good luck!

We have a new Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/KindleLiterature check it out and Like us. Please share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your kindle to have the posts delivered directly to you. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

Walden

Henry David Thoreau
Walden - Free
1854

Walden was just named by the Library of Congress’ Books that Shaped America list. Bufo Calvin of I Love My Kindle blog does a great job of linking the available titles on the list in the kindle store. I was already researching this title before the list came out. I really loved this book when I read it years ago.

Henry David Thoreau was an American philosopher, poet and author. Walden was a social experiment to see what life was like outside of mainstream society. Thoreau built a small cabin, about two miles outside of town, next to Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts. He lived a simple life of reading and writing; he analyzed his life and tried to learn what it had to teach him. Thoreau lived in solitude for two years and then spent about eight years writing and rewriting the book.

Walden’s central themes are solitude and introspection. Thoreau was a very influential philosopher and many of his ideas were penned while he was living in the cabin. He promoted solitude in order to understand what life is about. Introspection can only come through solitude in nature and was one of his goals. He said "To be awake is to be alive,” and you can only be awake when you understand who you are in relation to society.

Thoreau was a great writer and you come to almost envy his simple peaceful life. He paints a very vivid picture of his life in the cabin. You go through his daily routine from getting up early and baking his bread to tending his little garden. He inserts poems into the book that he wrote while he was out there and shows us what he learned from living this simple life. He examines his life and shows us how to examine ours. How to figure out what is important in life and what we can do to improve it.

The story is simple on the surface but as you read more you can see the social commentary that is hidden below the surface.

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."

Even though Walden was written over 150 years ago, the ideas and themes are still relevant today. Download the free book and enjoy being led to new levels of insight.

Is there anything in your life that could use some evaluation? What books have moved you to action? What books have influenced your ideas? Leave comments below.

Please share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your Kindle to have the posts delivered directly to you. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

June 2012 Roundup

June was a big month for Kindle Literature. We were mentioned by Black Clock, a great literary journal, and we made a few connections to other literary blogs. Our readership increased quite a bit and we were tweeted and recommended by a few of our readers! It’s great to get a response back from readers, that is why we have a new Facebook page, so please like and share it.


Here are last month’s posts, in case you missed some.

• Ray Bradbury - We lost a great American writer last month. Best known for Fahrenheit 451. I personally love his short stories, he wrote hundreds and hundreds of them, there is something for everyone.
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography has been a staple of american literature for over two hundred years. This is a very candid look at his successes and failures. He was a very successful person and gives many of his keys to success.
• Soliloquy - First in the Shakespeare Series. Post explains Soliloquies in relation to Shakespeare, specifically Hamlet.
• Dramatic Irony - Second post of the Shakespeare Series. Explains Dramatic Irony in Shakespeare and discusses King Lear.
• Lit Challenge: 1 book in 1 month - A new literary challenge for June. This one is how to use a Kindle progress bar to read any book in a month.
• Poe’s Poetry - Intro to Edgar Allan Poe and links to his biographies and poems available on your Kindle. Includes the full poem Alone and first stanza of Annabel Lee.
• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde’s cleaver novel about a Faustian wish come true.
• The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien’s novel about the Vietnam War. Written as multiple stories with a connected theme.

Check out any missed posts and please like our Facebook page to keep up with the happenings. Please leave us a review on Amazon, Kindle Literature. This would really help with spreading the word about Kindle Literature. Let’s have another great month!

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,064,600 Paid in Kindle Store -Let’s see if we can break one million!

You can leave comments, questions or suggestion below. 

Please share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your kindle to have the posts delivered directly to you. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien
The Things They Carried - $7.14
1990

The Things They Carried is a metafiction, a story that breaks with the conventions of a story to discuss the writing of the story. Tim O’Brien originally wrote a short story called The Things They Carried that was published in Esquire. He later revised and expanded the theme of the story into a novel consisting of twenty two stories about a platoon in Vietnam. The book is a fictionalized account of the men he knew in Alpha company.

Metafiction - n. fiction that discusses, describes, or analyzes a work of fiction or the conventions of fiction. 

 O’Brien is writing about Vietnam not because he wants to but because he has to. He is trying to show us what Vietnam was like, the people that fought the war and the price they have to pay. Fifty eight thousand is a number that we all understand but it is just a fact, it has no face. Fifty eight thousand is the number of Americans that died in Vietnam. O’Brien is showing us the faces and consequences of what war really is. He uses metafiction to break into the story, to highlight and expand what war is really like. How he sees the face of the man he killed as the face of a child that once had a life and hopes.

“And then it becomes 1990. I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now,still dreaming...”

The things they carried were many. The things they carried defined them. The things that they carried on them while patrolling; their weapons and ammunition, the pictures of loved ones, the letters from home and the more personal possessions. The things they carried were also intangible, the memories, the hopes and the horrors.

“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”

Tim O’Brien does a great job of placing us in his shoes. He is not a hero, he is just another kid that is trying to survive surrounded by death. O’Brien manages to show us a vietnam he experienced not just the one that was reported to us. He shows us the faces of the men and women in Vietnam and their humanizing stories.

Download a sample of the book and share with O’Brien a sense of what it was like to live through Vietnam, to experience it first hand.

.When I first read this book I was surprised at how different Vietnam was from what was shown in movies and books. I was surprised at how different his war was from my own. I am a veteran of the Iraq war. I try not to think about that time too much but this book made me think of the things that I carried to war with me. It reminded me of how actual war was so different from what I had seen in the movies. The anxieties that come with war.

I distinctly remember planning what I should pack for a year away from civilization. Besides the necessities of a toothbrush and shaving cream there were only a couple of things I took with me, books and Tapatio. I am not making light of war, I am being honest. Military food leaves a lot to be desired and Tapatio hot sauce can give it that kick. The books were the most important thing to me. We had a few weeks to plan and prepare to leave and I spent that time buying books to take with me. I spent a few hundred dollars buying books that I wanted to read for awhile. Of course I finished the books early in deployment and I had my family send me more. They also sent me some more Tapatio.

The Things They Carried defined the men O’Brien knew and the things I carried defined me as well, my latino heritage and my love of literature.

If you had to go to war what would you carry? If you are a veteran, what did you carry?

We have a new Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/KindleLiterature check it out and Like us. Please share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your kindle to have the posts delivered directly to you. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.