Tuesday, July 15, 2025
WHEN WE FLEW AWAY BY ALICE HOFFMAN
Monday, June 16, 2025
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN BY MARK TWAIN
Con
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
2nd (1st US) edition book cover | |
Author | Mark Twain |
---|---|
Illustrator | E. W. Kemble |
Language | English |
Series | Tom Sawyer |
Genre | Picaresque novel, children's novel |
Publisher | Chatto & Windus / Charles L. Webster And Company. |
Publication date | December 10, 1884 (UK and Canada) February 18, 1885; 140 years ago[1] (United States) |
Publication place | United States |
Pages | 362 |
OCLC | 29489461 |
Preceded by | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
Followed by | Tom Sawyer Abroad |
Text | Adventures of Huckleberry Finnat Wikisource |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literatureto be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood".[2][better source needed] It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist,[3][4] criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".
Plot
[edit]
In St. Petersburg, Missouri, during the 1840s, Huckleberry Finn has received a considerable sum of money following The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watsonbecome his guardians. Despite preferring life as an errant boy, Huck stays so he can be part of Tom Sawyer's gang. Huck’s father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic, tries to appropriate Huck's fortune. When this fails, Pap imprisons him in a remote cabin.
After a delirium tremens crisis in which Pap tries to kill Huck, Huck fakes his own murder and settles on Jackson's Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck and Jim decide to go down the Mississippi River to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After a flood, they find a timber raft and a house floating downstream. Inside the house, Jim finds a man who was shot to death but prevents Huck from seeing.[5] Huck sneaks into town and discovers there is a reward for Jim's capture and he is suspected of killing Huck; they flee on their raft.
Huck and Jim come across a grounded steamboat on which two thieves discuss murdering a third. Finding their raft has drifted away, they flee in the thieves' boat. They find their raft and sink the thieves' boat, then Huck tricks a night watchman into a rescue attempt, which fails when the steamboat sinks. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog. When they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the event. Jim is disappointed in Huck when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim's strong feelings and apologizes.

Huck is conflicted about supporting a runaway slave, but when two white men seeking runaways come upon the raft, his lies convince them to leave. Jim and Huck realize they have passed Cairo. With no way to go upriver, they decide to continue downriver. The raft is struck by a passing steamship, again separating them. On the riverbank, Huck meets the Grangerfords, who are engaged in a 30-year feud with the Shepherdsons. After a Grangerford daughter elopes with a Shepherdson boy, all of the Grangerford men are killed in a Shepherdson ambush. Huck escapes and is reunited with Jim, who has recovered and repaired the raft.
Jim and Huck are joined by two confidence men claiming to be a King and a Duke, and they rope Huck and Jim into aiding in several scams. In one town, the King and the Duke cheat the townsfolk over two nights with a short, overpriced stage performance. On the third, the grifters collect the admission fee from previous audience members bent on revenge, then flee the town. In the next town, the swindlers impersonate the brothers of the recently deceased Peter Wilks and attempt to steal his estate. Huck tries to retrieve the money for Wilks's orphaned nieces. Two other men claiming to be Wilks' brothers arrive, causing an uproar. Huck flees but is caught by the King and the Duke. He escapes but finds they sold Jim to the Phelpses. Huck vows to free Jim, despite believing he will go to hell for it.
The Phelpses mistake Huck for their nephew Tom, who is expected for a visit, and Huck plays along. Their nephew is Tom Sawyer, and when he arrives he pretends to be his brother Sid, and develops a theatrical plan to free Jim. Huck attempts to warn the King and the Duke that Jim alerted the local residents to their scam but sees them tarred and feathered and being run out of town on a rail.
Tom is wounded during Jim's escape. Instead of fleeing, Jim stays to tend to him and is arrested and returned to the Phelpses.[6] Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck's and Tom's true identities. She explains that Miss Watson has died, and that she freed Jim in her will. Tom admits he knew but wanted to "rescue" Jim in style.[7] Jim tells Huck Pap was the dead man in the floating house. Huck declares he will flee to Indian Territory to escape adoption by the Phelpses.
THE ADENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN BY MARK TWAIN
Saturday, May 24, 2025
THE CAFE ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD BY JOHN STRELECKY
Why are you here?
Do you fear death?
Are you fulfilled?
With this food for thought and the guidance of three people he meets at the cafe, John embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way he discovers a new way to look at life, himself, and just how much you can learn from a green sea turtle.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
LULA DEAN'S LITTLE LIBRARY OF BANNED BOOKS BY KRISTEN MILLER
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome” dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.
That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch—including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA—all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
GUNCLE BY STEVEN ROWLEY
Friday, March 28, 2025
ON FIRE ISLAND by JANE ROSEN
As a book editor, Julia Morse lived and breathed stories. Whether with her pen to a manuscript or curled up with a book while at her beloved Fire Island cottage, her imagination alight with a good tale, she could anticipate practically any ending. The ending she’d never imagined was her own.
To be fair, no one expects to die at thirty-seven. So when the unthinkable happens to Julia, rather than following the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, she chooses to spend one last summer near those she loves most.
As she follows her adoring, novelist husband Ben to their—unexpectedly full—home on Fire Island, she discovers the ripple affect her life has had on the trajectory of so her baseball loving, young-at-heart neighbor who believes it’s best not to go it alone, two bright-eyed teenagers eager to become adults, and her best friend who must shake off heartbreak for a new chance at love.
With poignant comedy and insight, On Fire Island is an ode to the stories all around us and to the brightest types of loves…for the people closest to you and the places that shape you.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT BY ELLE COSIMANG
Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.
When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.
Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moment, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS BY KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
Contents
On the Shoulders of Giants (film)
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