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Utopias, Comforting Reads, and the End of the World04/03/2020 · Michael Schmitt · permalink It's April 2020 and things are not normal. If you're like me, your reading habits have been thrown into disarray like so much else right now. I've found myself running between comfortable escapes and imagined grim futures we seem to suffering through. I thought I'd offer some collections of books available in Serial Reader for anyone else feeling the same way. The End of the WorldFrankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley describes in The Last Man a deadly plague that threatens to destroy society. Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt - a sequel of sorts to The Lost World - Professor Challenger and associates try to survive a planet-wide wave of death. Finally, Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year vividly chronicles the Great Plague which ravaged London in 1665. Comforting ReadsIt's more than ok to look to escape and what better option than the adventures of Rat, Toad, and Mole in The Wind in the Willows? Or perhaps the hilarious idiocy of Wooster and his friends in My Man Jeeves? Or take a more relaxing approach with The Book of Tea: an essay aimed at explaining the connection between teaism, Taoism, and the aesthetics of Japanese culture to a western audience. UtopiasExplore how the world may be made better with ruminations on utopias, from Thomas More's Utopia, to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's vision of a peaceful world absent of men in Herland, to the utopian adventure that awaits in Anna Adoplh's Arqtiq. Other RecommendationsIf reading in short bursts really isn't working for you these days, I highly recommend Standard Ebooks for high quality public domain books, or Libby for checking digital books out from your local library. Hope everyone stays safe and sane! We can do this đȘ |
It's Getting Spooky: New Dark Mode features and app icons in iOS, scary story suggestions for Halloween09/25/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Dark Mode support and customizable reading themes now available in Serial Reader for iOS
A new update is rolling out today for Serial Reader on iOS devices with support for iOS 13, especially Apple's new Dark Mode feature! Serial Reader will now automatically shift from light to dark themes when your device activates Dark Mode. Additionally, you can now select different reading themes to use for light and dark modes! By default the reading screen will shift to a black theme automatically when Dark Mode is enabled. However, you can customize which particualr reading theme should be used by tapping the Settings icon in the top right while reading, then selecting the "Theme" option. Maybe you'd prefer a light reading theme in Dark Mode, or you'd like a parchment-style theme regardless of what mode is enabled - whatever your preference, you can now customize Serial Reader to look just the way you want! There are also a new selection of alternate app icons to choose from in iOS for Serial Premium folks, including a fun new Halloween option!  Speaking of Halloween, starting today you'll find some spooky story suggestions while browsing for new books in Serial Reader. And come October, don't miss the Halloween collection of scary stories! |
New Serial Wednesdays: Shakespearean Comedies, Doppelgangers, Undercover Reporting07/31/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." How foolish indeed to go so long without such classics as The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice available in Serial Reader! The wrong has been righted this week with the addition of several Shakespearean comedies, joining others already available like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Jumping forward a few hundred years, we come to an unsettling short story of an eerie doppelgĂ€nger from Edgar Allan Poe, which may have been an inspiration for Jordan Peele's horror film "Us" From fictional horrors to those all too real: read Nellie Bly's undercover investigation of the brutality and neglect in late 19th century insane asylums with Ten Days in a Mad-House. Her work "pioneered a path for women in newspapers and launched what morphed into serious investigative journalism," writes The Washington Post. Bly's work is being recognized at long last with a monument in her honor in New York. Other new additions this week include a philosophical monument in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, treasured children stories from Beatrix Potter, and a sci-fi short story from Mack Reynolds. Until next week, happy reading! |
New Serial Wednesdays: Disney Favorites and UFOs07/24/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink This week's collection of new books available in Serial Reader include two favorites: "The Adventures of Pinocchio" and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp." They join several others that have been transformed into treasured movies by Disney -- find them all in the new Disney Favorites collection of books! Also new this week is a fascinating book called "The Book of the Damned" by Charles Fort. It's an investigation of various scientific anomalies: strange things falling from the sky, strange disappearances, sightings of supposedly mythological animals, and yes - UFOs. (It's worth noting some claim Fort viewed the whole endeavor as a bit of a joke.) Rounding out the new selections are a collection of short stories by H.G. Wells, a romance from Victoria Cross, and a novel mixing Irish mythology and philosophy from James Stephens: Until next week, happy reading! |
New Serial Wednesdays: Myths, Poems, and Arctic Adventures07/17/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Iceland by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos
As I type this the thermometer outside my window is threatening to cross 90 degrees. The weather report assures me it'll be 100 before the day is out. If you're in a similar predicament, take a moment and consider soaring to the ice cold Arctic pole in a fantastic turn-of-the-century flying machine built by the heroine of Arqtiq, a fascinating feminist utopia sci-fi novel from Anna Adolph. Liza Daly writes of the 1899 book, in her excellent exploration of Adolph's novel, "it's the writing style that makes the book truly unique. The prose feels modernistâstaccato, ungrammatical, weirdly punctuatedâbut with a hypnotic rhythm that lends the whole work a kind of dreamlike intelligibility... At times it reads like the output of a neural netâit resembles the contours of human prose, but is thoroughly alien." Also new in Serial Reader this week are two new collection of poetry from William Blake and -- returning to the cold weather theme -- Robert W. Service with his "ballads of the Yukon." And finally take a dive into myths, sagas, and legends with Bulfinch's Mythology and James Stephens' Irish Fairy Tales. The former is one of the most popular collections of classical mythology, while the latter was described as "a work of true genius" by The Millions' Austin Ratner. If you'd like to keep up with new book additions, check out the RSS feed and email newsletter. Until next week, happy reading! |
New Serial Wednesdays: Sagas Old and New06/19/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink This week's collection of new books includes coming of age stories, sagas passed down through the ages, and at least one mystery to untangle. Starting in the far past, Albert T. Clay's 1920 translation of "The Epic of Gilgamesh" is now available. Fast forward two thousand years or so and join Julius Caesar as he strives against the peoples in Gaul, the Rhine, and Britain in "Commentaries on the Gallic War" from 58 BC. Speaking of Britain, the other three new titles come from lauded authors of the British isles. Virginia Woolf's "Night and Day" and Catherine Carswell's "Open the Door!" both follow the romances, struggles, and lessons of women in early 20th century Britain. Finally, J.S. Fletcher's "Scarhaven Keep" travels to mysterious Scarhaven on the coast of England to untangle an actor's disappearance. Until next week, happy reading! |
New Serial Wednesdays: Hawaii Edition06/05/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Houses of Kalanimoku, Prime Minister of the King, 1819
When adding new books to Serial Reader I often follow a theme that grabs my attention and this time it's Hawaii! I have family who live on the islands so I'm a little surprised at myself that it's taken this long to add some Hawaiian books. These three titles are just the start - I have several more Hawaiian books I'm working through adding at the moment! Rounding out the rest of the new additions are some often-requested titles I'm happy to finally offer in Serial Reader: Until next week, happy reading! |
New Serials: A cornucopia of updates from Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Dante, Virginia Woolf, Jules Verne and more02/10/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink I've been adding oodles and oodles of new books to Serial Reader over the past week or two and really need to take a break to highlight them all, before this becomes a blog post with like three dozen books! (Just checked and we're only at two dozen - whew.) There's a few much-requested books I've finally added (sorry sorry sorry), including Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" and the remaining installments in Dante's Divine Comedy: The poetry collection in Serial Reader has always been a little lacking so I've been on the hunt for great titles to add. Two new ones to report here, including works from William Blake and Gertrude Stein: Some more perilous choices now available include the next installment in Tarzan's adventures, sci-fi exploits from Jules Verne and Carey Rockwell, and thrilling reads from the early days of America: And finally, there's a handful of new philosophical and religious books to choose from including works by Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Laozi: Serial Reader now features more than 600 titles! If there's any books you'd like me to add, don't hesitate to reach out and let me know. Thanks for your support! |
Stories of the First World War01/20/2019 · Michael Schmitt · permalink With the introduction of Edith Wharton's A Son at the Front to the public domain, it seemed a good opportunity to highlight the many World War I works available through Serial Reader. They range from autobiographical - like E.E. Cummings' The Enormous Room and Henri Barbusse's Under Fire - to adventurous - such as in John Buchan's Richard Hannay series - to how the shockwave of war impacts those called to fight and their families as Rebecca West, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton explore. Further reading:
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Stories of Chicago11/15/2018 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Map of Chicago, 1938
Journey through Chicago's history - and a bit into a sci-fi future! - with this collection of Windy City books in Serial Reader! They include the unforgettable descriptions of the stockyards from muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair and, from another journalist, a collection of treasured columns emblematic of the city. The big city threatens to overwhelm Caroline Meeber in Sister Carrie, some of the very same pressures Jane Addams sought to save people from through her social programs centered around the Hull House. Finally, Paul W. Fairman uses Chicago as the backdrop to a chilling '50s sci-fi adventure. |
New Serials: Adventures Around the World & Living the Good Life11/10/2018 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Quite the selection of new books now available in Serial Reader! Travel through Africa in search of Livingstone, or with Mary Kingsley looking for scientific specimens (and smashing down Victorian norms for women). Or head further back in time with Tacitusâ histories. Thereâs a new play from Henrik Ibsen (author of âA Dollâs Houseâ), novels from the Philippines and the old west, plus the handbook on living the Christian good life âThe Imitation of Christ.â Find them all in the Serial Reader app! And donât forget to request books youâd like to see added soon! |
New Serials: The Adventures of ArsĂšne Lupin05/06/2018 · Michael Schmitt · permalink A collection of the adventures of Franceâs beloved gentleman thief and master of disguise ArsĂšne Lupin are now available in Serial Reader! Follow Lupinâs exploits as he robs the rich, evaded justice, seeks hidden treasure, and even takes on Sherlock Holmes, er, âHerlock Sholmesâ (ah, copyright). |
Mary Shelley's Slow Apocalypse02/28/2018 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Plague in Phrygia. Engraving by M. Raimondi after Raphael af Wellcome.
Writing in The Millions, Will Wlizlo discusses Mary Shelley's apocalyptic sci-fi novel The Last Man, in which a plague threatens to wipe out humankind. A slow-paced plague, that is. "The obliterating pandemic takes a dreadful seven years to finish us off. Can we imagine a slow apocalypse now?"
Read Wlizlo's full article at The Millions. Further reading:
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New Serials: Father Brown, Gods of Mars, Southern Horrors and more02/10/2018 · Michael Schmitt · permalink I've been adding quite a few new serials lately, in part to support a fun new feature coming soon in the Serial Reader app. Here are eight recently added titles worth highlighting including English mysteries, American atrocities, adventures on Mars and more. Be sure to also check out the Black History Month collection of stories! |
New Serials: Julius Caesar, The Crux, Alice Adams and more12/10/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Six new serials added this week! A play by Shakespeare that should have been added long ago, a quick Christmas tale, revolutionary thoughts on religion by a founding father and more. |
New Serials: Tom Jones, Egil's Saga, Up from Slavery, and more12/03/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Nine new serials to announce today! Some captivating biographies, challenging essays, genre-defining science fiction, and more. |
Dangerous Willows: Tolkien and Blackwood10/24/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows... This passage is from Algernon Blackwood's classic weird tale 'The Willows,' in which two travelers are beset upon (possibly) by a hostile nature -- either of this world or from the nebulous Elsewhere. Blackwood's writings would inspire and influence countless authors -- H.P. Lovecraft, William Hope Hodgson, Henry Miller, and Clark Ashton Smith to name a few -- including one fellow Englishman who was a 15-year-old student when "The Willows" was published: J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien would later cite Blackwood as the source for his iconic phrase "the Crack of Doom." More than that though, Blackwood's themes of a malevolent nature -- "the treachery of natural things in an animate world" as Jared Lobdell writes in The World of the Rings -- are found throughout Tolkien's writings. There's the murderous Old Man Willow and his "cunning mazes" in the Old Forest, Mount Caradhras, Mirkwood, Fangorn and the Ents... the list goes on. "Blackwood's evocation of landscape, as with Tolkien's, is unusually convincing," writes Michael D. C. Drout in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Compare Blackwood's passage above with this from The Fellowship of the Ring: A dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves... Beyond homicidal trees, there's Blackwood's Wendigo. A horror from the deep untouched woods, it's "the Call of the Wild personified," as one character describes it, which calls to travelers with a voice that "resembles all the minor sounds of the Bush--wind, falling water, cries of the animals." Drout points out that the Wendigo, "with its dreadful aerial entity and wailing cries from above that cause panic in hearers" may have "contributed to one of the most important sources of terror to be found in Lord of the Rings: the airborne NazgĂ»l." Here's Blackwood, describing a character having heard the Wendigo's (or its victim's) terrible cry: Scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself running wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and boulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after the Caller. Behind the screen of memory and emotion with which experience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged, picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and heart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice. And then Tolkien's NazgĂ»l: The NazgĂ»l came again... their deadly voices rent the air. More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry. At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war, but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death. And as the Wendigo captures, corrupts, and mimics its victims to the horror of their companions, so too do the NazgĂ»l ensnare others and turn them into wraiths like themselves. Tom Shippey writes one of Tolkien's achievements was opening "a new continent of imaginative space for many millions of readers, and hundreds of writers â though he himself would have said that it was an old continent which he was merely rediscovering." It's delightful to discover that a fellow English writer, Algernon Blackwood, may have had a small part in building Tolkien's rediscovered continent. Further reading:
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Creepy Non-Horror for Halloween10/18/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink If you're not a fan of horror, but still wants something spooky to read this Halloween season, LitHub has you covered with a great book list. Included is Franz Kafka's The Trial. This one you don't really understand in high school, but once youâve lived for a while as an adult, it gets a lot scarier. All of a sudden you begin to identify with K, pursued, prosecuted, condemned by a nameless, faceless, remorseless authority, the rules constantly changing and never explained to begin with... I'll throw out my own recommendation from my collection of Halloween reads in Serial Reader: The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. More psychological thriller and weird fiction than horror, The Willows is the story of two friends on a canoe trip down the Danube. They find themselves stranded on a shrinking sandbank surrounded by ominous willows blowing in unceasing wind. It's a short story (8 issues on Serial Reader) packed with creepy atmosphere but lacking any straight-up horror or gore. The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it! You can read both The Trial and The Willows in Serial Reader. Further reading:
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New Serials: The Blue Lagoon, The Celtic Twilight, and The Good Soldier10/07/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Three new serials to announce today! A dose of romance, adventure, passion, intrigue, and mysterious folklore. |
Serial Reader 3.0 Update: Goodreads Sync, Rewind, and More08/28/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Today Serial Reader version 3.0 arrives for iOS and Android devices with some exciting new features: Goodreads syncing, issue rewinding, and more. Read on to learn what's new! Goodreads sync A new option in Settings allows you to link your Goodreads account to Serial Reader! Once you do, Serial Reader will automatically sync your reading data to Goodreads. When you start a new book, it'll be added to your currently reading shelf. When you finish a new issue, your progress will be updated. And when you finish, the book will be added to your read shelf. Serial rewind Whenever you get more than 2 issues behind in a book, an option will now appear in your Unread Issues list offering to rewind the serial to your first unread issue. I found when I fell a few issues behind in a serial, it was incredibly difficult to motivate myself to catch up. In beta testing I've used this feature more than I'd care to admit. It's kept me committed to reading books I likely would have just abandoned. I hope you enjoy it! Dark theme for iOS I've added a new dark theme for iOS users. Switch it on in Settings. It's great for night-time reading! Custom delivery times in iOS Premium users in the iOS app can now specify different delivery times for serials. Now you can get a new issue of "Pride & Prejudice" in the morning and a new issue of "Crime & Punishment" at night! You can set up your new delivery dates in the Settings section of each serial (where you can also pause and delete serials). Android users: fret not! I'm working on adding this feature to the Android version as quickly as I can. New BooksIf you haven't browsed the titles available in Serial Reader for a while, there are dozens of new books waiting for you! I've added new works by Dickens, Hugo, Sinclair, Austen, Twain, Fitzgerald, and more. Find the full list by browsing the "Added Recently" section in the app, or the full list online here. Thank You!It's been nearly 2 years since I released Serial Reader. Back then it was merely an experiment to try to break my own bad reading habits. I never would have guessed then how many people would enjoy using this app. At launch, Serial Reader had two or three dozen titles. Now it has nearly 450. And those books have been read - as in, from start to finish, 100% done - more than 150,000 times. Readers have earned more than 50,000 badges, finished more than 725,000 issues and blazed through nearly 2 billion words. Thank you. Thank you so much for using and enjoying Serial Reader, for supporting its development, for suggesting books and new features, for your kind words (even when reporting annoying bugs!) and for sharing it with your fellow readers. Making Serial Reader has been an incredibly rewarding experience because of you. I can't wait to see what the next 2 years will bring! đ -Michael |
New Serials: The Old Curiosity Shop, Love & Friendship, Main Street, and more08/26/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Nine new serials to announce today! They include adventure, romance, science fiction, social commentary, and of course - pirates. |
Dealing with tragedy with King Lear08/17/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
"Lear in the Storm" by George Romney
Nadine Dunseith writes in Folger's Teaching Shakespeare blog about teaching King Lear in times of grief. In this case, after the tragic deaths of two students.
Further reading:
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Jane Eyre's classic twist08/16/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Sophie Hannah lists the top 10 twists in fiction, including Charlotte BrontĂ«'s Jane Eyre.
Further reading:
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Edith Wharton: Interior Designer08/15/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Five years before publishing her first novel and eight years before The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton -- along with architect Ogden Codman -- published an interior design guide called "The Decoration of Houses." Within the book, Wharton attacked the excesses so common in Gilded Age design, calling overdecorated rooms "tiresome" and flashy patterns "unbearable." It's an attitude that would show up later in her fiction where she would attack what she called "an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class."
The work was "an immediate success, and encouraged the emergence of professional decorators in the new style." Architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson has described it as "the most influential book ever published by an American on interior decoration and design."
Lapham's Quarterly has more quotes from the manual. Further reading:
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's Unfinished Hollywood Novel08/13/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Anne Margaret Daniel writes about F. Scott Fitzgerald's final unfinished novel in the Huffington Post. Between his arrival in Hollywood in 1937 and his death towards the end of 1940, Fitzgerald had an incomplete first draft of "The Last Tycoon."
Further reading:
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New Serials: Tales of the Jazz Age, Roughing It, Winesburg08/12/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Three new books are now available from Serial Reader! Together they span iconic eras in American history: from Mark Twain's wild west of the 1860s to the preindustrial quiet town of Winesburg, Ohio, to the big city lights of the Jazz Age. Roughing It by Mark Twain:
Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson:
Further reading:
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Thoreau's Impossible Wilderness08/11/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Robert Pogue Harrison reviews several new works on Thoreau in The New York Review of Books. While the author of Walden is forever associated with the American wilderness, Thoreau couldn't escape the reaches of modern life.
"It is vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves," Thoreau wrote. "There is none such." Laura Dassow Walls writes in her new biography of Thoreau:
Instead, Thoreau sought and marveled at the wilderness tucked in amongst modern life. "One canât help but marvel at the rapture that the sight of things like huckleberries, turtles, or wildflowers would inspire in him." Further reading:
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Aphra Behn: Author, Playwright, Spy08/10/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
Literary Hub published an adaptation of Janet Todd's introduction from Aphra Behn: A Secret Life.
Behn's role in the Netherlands was to turn the son of a regicide there into a double-agent so he could "report on the doings of the English exiles who were plotting against the King." The pen name she would later use - Astrea - was likely her codename. Further reading:
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Agatha Christie: "Proto-Feminist"08/09/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink Joan Acocella profiles Agatha Christie in The New Yorker:
Further reading:
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Lev and Sonya Tolstoy08/09/2017 · Michael Schmitt · permalink 
The New Statesman profiles Andrew Donskov's book Tolstoy and Tolstaya.
Further reading:
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