About joggoon
The idea for joggoon was borne out of a love for reading and good literature my wife and I both share. The love of books is a fading love. joggoon hopes to preserve good literature in a way that makes reading it a pleasing experience.
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
~Dr. Seuss
joggoon has been online for a number of years. Because it is a free site, there came a time where the time required to maintain the site and add books to the library became scarce. However, times have changed such that we now have a renewed sense of dedication to refresh the site and once again begin adding more books.
We strive for the simplicity of the user experience while also working hard to provide an optimized, configurable reader interface. While our primary focus is on young readers, we are sure adults will find many enjoyable works within joggoon as well.
Why Read Classic Literature?
Most of our authors are from the Victorian era - the 19th and early 20th centuries - during a time when so much of our present day cultures were fashioned. Novels written during this time were written as High Art, the craft of weaving stories that not only entertain, but expand one's vocabulary, improve memory, and foster creativity. These authors have much to offer our own generation if we would only take the time to read and, even moreso, encourage our children to read these works.
In contrast, today's novels tend to be written in a lower manner - easy to read, fast paced and with entertainment only as their goal. They require little deep thinking and often rely on 'fluff' and unnecessary explicit language.
Classic literature often presents a moral lesson or shares deep, real life issues that every generation shares in the struggles of life. A great part of the experience in reading these books is finding the treasures hidden within their pages. Walt Disney once remarked, "There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." When we read these books, we find characters that we can identify with and learn from in our own life's struggle, a sentiment C.S. Lewis conveyed in his comment, "We read to know we are not alone." Books are more than stories or entertainment - they are companions that can be returned to time and again.
Ebooks or Printed Books?
We love the printed word, the look, feel, and tactile experience that is gained from curling up in front of a fire and losing oneself in the mind of a classic writer.
However, we do support the use of digital technology to preserve, and distribute, classic works of literature and other sources of important information and reading. To that end, a lot of unknown classic works are out of print and virtually hard to find, let alone impossible to know about. This is where we tout the importance of ebooks. Through libraries of these works, such as joggoon, classic works of literature are not only preserved, but available in user-friendly formats.
Some have pointed out that activities such as making notes in a printed book's margins or keep it as your own as part of a collection on a bookshelf. Many of these attributes of printed works are replicated in their digital counterparts. To date, joggoon has a configurable reader interface, which includes bookmarking. We have in development more features - notes, an inline dictionary and offline reading to name a few - to enhance your reading experience and provide much of the same benefits that having a physical book in hand provides.
In addition to the above benefits of joggoon, we provide short biographies of our authors and overviews of each of the books.
joggoon is NOT a replacement for the physical book. It's existence is to help preserve these classic works, and provide a pleasing reading experience for you, the reader.
Curl up with a classic book today and get to know this long-forgotten friend. If you have a paper-and-ink version, fantastic! If you don't, look for it on joggoon!
Dedication
I have in my possession a small fragment of my grandfather's library. The collection includes novels written in the early 20th century. It is comprised of not-so-well-known-anymore authors. A good part of joggoon's purpose and motivation is to help bring these authors "back into the light."
Not so long ago, I pulled a book down off the shelf that, for whatever reason, I had not read before, nor did I remember it's title or having looked through it. My wife corrected me on that point soon after I expressed a bit of excitement at a sort of "new find."
My heart quickly warmed upon reading the inscription on the first inside page:
Nelson G. Douglass Jr.
A Merry Xmas
Dec 25th 1901
From Papa
The book? Eben Holden A Tale of the North Country by Irving Bacheller.
What I found most endearing was not just that I held in my hand a book that to date was a 112 year old first edition, my great grandfather's hand wishing my grandfather a Merry Christmas, but the grace of the language and the warmth of the story that unfolded before me. Timeless in its application. Priceless in its humanity.
It is with this profound and heartfelt gratitude that I dedicate the work that goes into bringing you, the reader, this collection of classic literature to my grandfather and his love of books.