Well, it’s the season where people are happy to give… So, staying with the tradition, we give to you 10 exclusive gems from our catalog.

Giving books is probably as old as books themselves. Meant as a “gift book” to highlight the facets of the writing of G. K. Chesterton,  The Wit and Wisdom of Chesterton is a collection of his non-fiction essays.

Once books became mass produced, you had to find something else for the more excentric recipient. So it came that Thomas Dallam, on order of Queen Elizabeth I, had to deliver an organ across Europe. Dallam’s Travels with an Organ to the Grand Signieur, 1599 – 1600 describes his exciting journey.

Assume you have found the perfect gift to impress a woman – and then it disappears during delivery! What happened to The Stolen White Elephant and whether it could be recovered can be read in the short story by Mark Twain.

Not quite stolen, but not in the right hands either is Lady Windermere’s Fan, a present from her husband. Will she be able to get it back in time without her husband noticing its absence? Have fun with the twisted plot of Oscar Wilde’s play.

Another fun story is the one of The Dragon of Wantley. Owen Wister retells the “true” story of the dangerous dragon that terrorized Yorkshire in the 13th century, and how it was slain just in time for Christmas.

Imagine you know the one thing your partner wishes for – but you cannot afford it. Would you give up your own most prized possession – like Jim and Della do in O. Henry’s short story The Gift of the Magi – to make your beloved happy?

More short stories suitable for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were written by Edward Everett Hale and collected together in this little book – a true gift!

Another collection – this time of poems – is Christmas Roses. They were written by Lizzie Lawson and Robert Ellice Mack, not all of them revolve around Christmas, but they are beautiful in any case.

A somewhat more sober but still humorous view on what he calls The Feast of St. Friend has Arnold Bennett. Especially his opinions on giving gifts are as modern as if written yesterday and not more than 100 years ago.

Nobody wants to be sick during the holidays, but that’s exactly what happens to Lloyd in The Little Colonel’s Christmas Vacation, which turns out to be longer than expected. However, there is a lot to do – and to learn – in the book by Annie Fellows Johnston.

Enjoy – and Happy Gift Giving and Receiving too!

October is the month of many independence and liberation days all over the world. Let’s do a little celebration of freedom with 10 gems from our catalog.

Independence often starts with the refusal to accept things as they used to be. So does Kate, A Daughter of the Land, who, instead of staying home to help her parents as she is meant to do, is leaving home. Read the novel by Gene Stratton Porter to find out more.

Herminia’s defiance goes even further when she – though in love with Alan and pregnant with his child – refuses to marry him. Grant Allen tells the story of The Woman Who Did – elope to Italy with her lover to avoid becoming an outcast of English society.

Society is cruel to people who are different. Homosexuality is as big an issue today as it was 100 years ago, when Henry Blake Fuller wrote Bertram Cope’s Year, describing the life of a young man who is the center of both female and male attention.

Change will come though – as sure as it does in Henrik Ibsen’s dramatic masterpiece Rosmersholm, dealing with social and political changes, as played out by the free thinking heroine Rebecca who opposes Rosmer’s more traditional convictions.

Challenging traditions often means to challenge religion, and also this remains a hot issue today. On St. Bartholomew’s Eve in 1572, thousands of French protestants were murdered because of their beliefs. Read G. A. Henty’s story about two boys caught between the lines.

The conflict in Ireland also had religion at its roots. In 1916, the Easter Rising took place in order to win independence from Britain. Read The Insurrection in Dublin, a non-fiction account of the rebellion by novelist James Stephens.

Also Scotland was – and on political level still is – seeking independence from Britain. One of the best known names in history is Robert Bruce, and we hear more of his struggles in the narrative poem The Lord of the Isles by Sir Walter Scott.

In the fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison, the young lords of Demonland fight against the occupation of their country by King Gorice of Witchland. When the first battle is won, all seems well, but they are really just at the start of the story.

A similar setting, but in real life, took place in the 17th entury in the Low Countries, now called the Netherlands. George Edmundson tells about the struggle of independence from Spain – the king of which had just inherited Holland – in his book History of Holland.

John Stuart Mill’s thoughts On Liberty sound easy and straightforward: “Everyone should be free to do, think, or believe anything – as long as it does not harm others”. But can living in a society really be that simple?

Enjoy – and celebrate your freedom!

Banned Books Week gives us a good excuse to contemplate past and current cencorship with 10 gems – all banned at some time and place – from our catalogue.

Let’s start with Areopagitica, a small pamphlet written by John Milton opposing the censorship laws in the UK at the time – and promptly banned by their application to the text.

Censorship is not a new phenomenon. The epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, describing the first crusade, written in 1581 by Torquato Tasso, was banned for undermining the rule of the French kings.

Governments still don’t like to be criticised. The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thoughts about political justice is banned today in Iran.

You can’t please everyone at the same time. Adam Smith’s book on economy The Wealth of Nations was banned in the UK and France for criticising mercantilism and in communist countries for being too capitalist in its views.

Voltaire’s satire on religion and philosophy, Candide was widely banned, for example by Geneva and Paris, and was put on the Church index of forbidden books as well. We also have this book in the original French and in a German translation.

The Catholic Church was always keen on protecting her sheep, and many author’s complete oevre made it onto the index. Emile Zola is only one of them, and his book L’Assommoir about the conditions of the working class in Paris.

Jack London’s Call of the Wild about a freedom seeking dog was deemed too radical for Italy and Yugoslavia in 1929 and it was subsequently burned by the Nazis. We have this book in a Dutch translation as well.

South Africa banned Black Beauty by Anna Sewell – because of the contents advocating animal welfare? No, because of the word “Black” in the title…

Somewhat better to understand is the 1821 US ban on grounds of obscenity of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, published in 1748. The ban was lifted only in 1966.

Probably the worst type of censorship is self-censorship by authors and publishers. The – at first anonymously published – pamphlet 1601 by Mark Twain was deemed unprintable until the 1960s. Times have changed though and we have produced a dramatic reading of it.

Enjoy – and: Free Speech for everyone!