My name is Cindy and I go by the moniker biker at Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DPC). Even though I live in Thailand, I have been a volunteer with DPC since October 2012 when I began proofreading and formatting. Now I spend my time mostly formatting and post-processing e-books for Faded Page.

One of our most challenging authors is William Faulkner. Faulkner can be difficult to read due to the American Deep South dialect, his unique use of punctuation, and his emphasis on characters and character development over plot or theme. He stated his goal as a writer was “to create flesh-and-blood people that will stand up and cast a shadow.” If you had ever watched the movies The Reivers or The Sound and the Fury, you would remember Steve McQueen playing Boon, and Joanne Woodward and Yul Brynner playing Quentin and Jason. You would remember the character, but not necessarily the name of the story.

Faulkner is an author that needs to be read more than once in order to observe the nuances and character dimensions more fully and to observe Faulkner’s other goal of portraying the “familiar old, old story of the human heart in conflict with itself”—Quentin and Jason, and Caddy.

To those who are new to Faulkner and want to try a sample, I would suggest starting with one of his short stories like “Barn Burning” in The Faulkner Reader and migrating to bigger pieces like “Old Man”. Although this book is a compendium of short stories, novellas and The Sound and the Fury in its entirety, we also have a complete list of Faulkner titles you can explore on this page.

If you like what we do here on Faded Page and want to help us add even more public domain books to the site, come join us and proofread a few pages. For more information about how to volunteer, check out our companion site, Distributed Proofreaders Canada.