Large Print Reviews - World Literature CD

Large Print Reviews

World Literature
Over 470 Books on One CD

World Literature
Over 470 Books on One CD
Compiled by Richard Seltzer
Seedy Press, (Nov. 30, 2001)
B & R Samizdat Express
P. O. Box 161
West Roxbury, MA, 02132
ISBN: 0915232987
Genre: World Literature

Reviewed by Rochelle Caviness - February 11, 2002

Please note: As of 12/4/2008, this CD now contains 3,075 books on 2 CDs.

Seedy Press' World Literature CD contains material from around the world, and in a number of language. Most of the material on this CD is presented in English or in English translation, and in some cases the original text is also included along with the translation. Some works, such Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, are only offered in its original language - in this case Finish.

This CD contains over 470 books, all in plain text that enables the reader to easily manipulate the text, such as enlarging the font or cut and pasting text into another document. Being in a plain text format also makes the books on this CD readable by most screen reading software programs.

The books on the CD cover a wide variety of literary traditions and languages, including: Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Russian, South African, and Spanish. Authors range from Plato to Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote ) and span the spectrum from popular fiction and the classics.

The following is a list of some of the titles contained on this CD. This list will help give you a taste of the wide variety of material contained in this collection.

Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights) Vol. 1-9, translated by Richard Burton.
A variety of Medieval and Renaissance French Literature titles, such as Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes.
27 books by Alexandre Dumas, including The Three Musketeers Saga.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
17 books by Jules Verne.
A variety of texts penned by Martin Luther.
The Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer.
A variety of Icelandic sagas.
The Divine Comedy by Dante in both Italian and English.
The Aeneid and other Roman classics in Latin.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
And many, many more books.

Accessing the material on this CD is very easy. To use this CD you will need to be using a Windows based PC, and you'll need a CD drive. You'll also need to have 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, in order to read the text. Once the text is opened, you can enlarge the font to suit your reading needs. As well, all the material on this CD is in a plain text format, making it readily accessible by most screen readers. This CD ships with DLJ Software's Readit program. This is a shareware, DOS program, that allows you to bookmark your place within a text and to adjust how fast or slow the text is displayed.

This phenomenal collection of some of the finest literature in the world cost only 29 dollars. This works out to about 6 cents per book! I don't normally discuss the cost of items, in my reviews, but in this case, I have to mention it because I feel that this CD, and the other titles offered by Seedy Press are so worthwhile and inexpensive.

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Related Reviews:

Children's Books, Compiled by Richard Seltzer.
Over 200 Children's classics on one CD, ranging from Aesop's Fables to The Wizard of Oz.
American Literature, Compiled by Richard Seltzer.
This collection represents a cross-section of the best of American Literature and contains over 380 books on one CD.
British Literature, Compiled by Richard Seltzer.
Over 720 classic works of British Literature, all on one CD, ranging from Beowulf and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Frankenstein and the works of H. Rider Haggard.

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