I checked out two books from the Harvard Classics, or the"Five Foot Shelf" series. The first book I started is a selection of American historical readings in chronological order from the dicovery of the new world to the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg address to the treaty clising the Spanish-American war. The second book is Two Years Before the Mast. In the early 1800s a college student signs on up for two years at sea to improve his health after having measles. The book is a factual account of the author's two years at sea, based on his diary, of the life of an ordinary seaman.