Real People
Biographies, Autobiographies, Memoirs, Diaries, Journals, Official Papers, and Biographical Novels
Compiled and Indexed by Richard Seltzer B&R Samizdat Express - November 6, 2004
ISBN: 0-931968-97-6
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
Reviewed by Rochelle Caviness - January 17, 2005
Biographies and Autobiographies offer readers insights into the real lives and thoughts of people from all walks of life, often providing information that cannont be garned from traditonal history books. A edify collection of biographical information can be found in Real People: Biographies, Autobiographies, Memoirs, Diaries, Journals, Official Papers, and Biographical Novels. This is a collection of more than 500 books, diaries, biogrpahical novels, and other primary source material of a biographical nature. All of this material is contained on a single CD-rom, and all of the texts are in plain text (ASCII) format making them accessible using text-to-speech and screen maganification programs.
The documents in this collection highlight a variety of cultures and histocial periods and include, as the title suggests, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, reminiscences, diaries, journals, official papers and notebooks, and biographical novels. In the sweep of journals, diaries, memoirs, and reminiscences, both ficitional and nonfiction selections are included.
The Real People CD is useful both as an educational resource and as a source of of general reading material. Ample material is avaialbe for both children and adults, and they cover a wide range of experiences, social situations, and hisotircally significant events. You can get an idea of the breadth of material covered in this collection by browsing though a few of the titles containted in this collection, such as:
Historic Girls: Stories of Girls Who Have Influenced the History of Their Times by E.S. Brooks
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs by John Thams Codman
Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Frank Stearns
The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Charles Edward Stowe
The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story by Frank Harris
The True Story of My Life by Hans Christian Andersen
Women Workers in Seven Professions by Edith Morley
Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson
Journals of Lewis and Clark by Merriweather Lewis and William Clark
Captains of the Civil War: a Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray by William Wood
Life of Horatio Lord Nelson by Robert Southey
The Life of Marie Antoinette by Charles Duke Yonge
Mozart: the Man and the Artist by Friedrich Kerst
Lives or Parallel Lives, by Plutarch
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda
Life of Flavius Josephus
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus by St. Teresa
Memoirs of a Cavalier by Daniel Defoe
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
This is but a brief glimpse at the vast range of documens continted in this colleciton. A complete index of all of the books in this collection, along with ordering information for the CD, can be found online at: http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat/bio.html
Real People is an excellent collection of biographies and other biographical documents. For less than the price of a typical hardcover book, you can have an entire bookshelf's worth of book that will provide years of reading material, yet take up less storage space than a slice of bread. All in all, an excellent value and an outstanding resource!
Systems Requirements:
A Windows Based PC and,
A Web Browser (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape) and/or
A Windows Based Word-Processing program such as Microsoft Word, or Corel's Word Perfect.
Related Reviews:
The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller.
In this autobiography, Helen, who was blind and deaf, describes the first twenty-two years of her life. The moto she lived by was, "There are no handicaps, only challenges." (Large Print)
The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Edited by Antonia Fraser.
This outstanding reference book offers short biographical sketches of all the English monarchs since 1066, starting with William the Conquer and ending with the present day monarch of England, Queen Elizabeth II. (Audio)
