quote:What format should I use to download the etext?
If you're talking about Project Gutenberg Etext, it's a simple text (*.txt) file, which will open in your browser. Alternatively you can download it as a zip file, then unzip it to your hard disk. You can then open it with a decent text editor or word processor. (Note: if you have Windows 9X/ME don't try to use Notepad -- it won't open large files.)
Besides, of course, my daughter's 2 books on women's Seders, I very much enjoyed Elizabeth Strout's "Isabelle and Amy". This is a wonderful novel about a mother/daughter relationship (a bit risque in places!) by a new author whom I am going to carefully follow. She writes much like Anne Tyler.
My daughter recommends Republic.com, by Cass Sundstein, which addresses some of the issues of using the Internet for information. I am anxious to read it.
'A Pelican In The Wilderness - hermits, solitaries and recluses.' by Isabel Colegate. (Harper Collins)
I've just finished this and it was a joy to read. Some absolutely fascinating information and anecdotes about great writers and poets which are manna to a hungry mind. It's a dance through history, religion, idiosyncracy, poetry, literature, gardens, and very strange people!!
I've been looking at Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney (pronounced "tawney") by James F. Simon. My interest was piqued by a recent review, When the Court Lost Its Conscience.
PS: The review states that in a particular case Taney "also tacked on the gratuitous announcement that blacks were incapable of rising to the level of citizenship." A terrible and disgusting view, of course, but as not at all gratuitous: the case required that the Court take a position on what "citizen" meant under the constitution.
