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simoncherian

simoncherian

Member since July 2017

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The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.95 (97)

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

#1
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Neuromancer

Neuromancer

William Gibson

3.0 (5)

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

#272
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2,183
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Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

4.0 (29)

All this happened, more or less.

#34
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16,830
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Red Harvest

Red Harvest

Dashiell Hammett

5.0 (3)

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte.

#461
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787
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

4.0 (28)

You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter.You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

#14
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#63
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Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

4.36 (69)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

#3
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37,302
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The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas

4.36 (11)

On the first Monday of April 1625, the market town of Meung, the birthplace of the author of the iRoman de la Rose/i, was in a wild state of excitement.

#139
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5,370
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The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4.29 (17)

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.

#60
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11,662
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Animal Farm

Animal Farm

George Orwell

4.17 (46)

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

#6
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33,773
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The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

4.11 (9)

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.

#195
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3,692
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The Postman Always Rings Twice

The Postman Always Rings Twice

James M. Cain

3.6 (5)

They threw me off the hay truck about noon.

#351
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1,560
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

4.32 (28)

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

#30
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19,439
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The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco

4.08 (12)

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

#131
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5,863
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Asterix the Gaul

Asterix the Gaul

René Goscinny

3.38 (8)

#198
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The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

4.0 (7)

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.

#192
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3,838
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Gulliver's travels

Gulliver's travels

Jonathan Swift

3.25 (12)

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons.

#38
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15,047
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The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

4.47 (15)

On February 24, 1815, the watchtower at Marseilles signaled the arrival of the three-master Pharaon, coming from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples.

#64
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11,441
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The Thirty-Nine Steps

The Thirty-Nine Steps

John Buchan

4.0 (3)

I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life.

#266
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2,293
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

John le Carré

3.4 (5)

The truth is, if old Major Dover hadn't dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would never have come to Thursgood's at all.

#242
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2,747
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L. A. Confidential

L. A. Confidential

James Ellroy

4.0 (2)

An abandoned auto court in the San Berdoo foothills; Buzz Meeks checked in with ninety-four thousand dollars, eighteen pounds of high-grade heroin, a 10-gauge pump, a .38 special, a .45 automatic and a switchblade he bought off a pachuco at the border -- right before he spotted the car parked across the line: Mickey Cohen goons in an LAPD unmarked, Tijuana cops standing by to bootjack a piece of his goodies, dump his body in the San Ysidro River.

#413
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His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman

4.36 (14)

Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. (Northern lights)Will tugged at his mother's hand and said, "Come on, come on..." (The subtle knife)In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with melt-water splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below. (The amber spyglass)

#77
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10,022
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. Rowling

4.53 (45)

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

#4
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36,649
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The Hobbit

The Hobbit

J. R. R. Tolkien

4.37 (30)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

#10
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28,114
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The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

3.77 (13)

<b>PROLOGUE - Clare:</b> It's hard being left behind.<b>FIRST DATE, ONE<BR></b><i>Saturday, October 26, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20)</i><BR><BR><b>Clare:</b> The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.

#95
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8,814
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The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

4.33 (12)

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.

#82
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9,741
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The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

3.15 (20)

Robert Langdon awoke slowly.

#37
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15,254
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The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood

3.93 (15)

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

#58
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12,202
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Dune

Dune

Frank Herbert

4.53 (17)

<i>A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. . . .</i><br><br><b>from "Manual of Muad'dib" by the Princess Irulan</b>In the week before their departure to Arakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

#98
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8,587
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The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

4.57 (7)

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.Todavia recuerdo aquel amanecer en que mi padre me llevo por primera vez a visitar el Cementerio de los Libros Olvidados. 

#245
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2,705
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A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

4.27 (11)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other wayin short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

#70
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10,734
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A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

4.1 (10)

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

#47
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13,299
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Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock

Graham Greene

4.25 (4)

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.Hale knew they meant to murder him before he had been in Brighton three hours. [1956 ed.]

#274
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2,156
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The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters

P. G. Wodehouse

4.6 (5)

I reached out a hand from under the blankets, and rang the bell for Jeeves.

#329
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1,710
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J. K. Rowling

4.59 (27)

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.

#20
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22,497
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

J. K. Rowling

4.61 (28)

The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it 'the Riddle House', even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there.

#16
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24,360
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. K. Rowling

4.62 (26)

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.

#25
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21,805
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Treasure Island

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson

3.55 (11)

Squire Trelawny, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

#91
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9,087
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Black Beauty

Black Beauty

Anna Sewell

3.67 (6)

The first place that I can well remember, was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.

#109
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7,629
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Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer

3.6 (10)

How does one describe Artemis Fowl? (Prologue)Ho Chi Minh City in the summer.

#140
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5,332
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#224
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Patrick Suskind

4.27 (11)

In eighteenth century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

#180
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4,199
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The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

4.0 (6)

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month.Maj je v Ajemenemu vroč, morast mesec.

#231
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2,966
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The Godfather

The Godfather

Mario Puzo

5.0 (7)

Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court No. 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

#170
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4,416
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2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke

4.5 (6)

The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended. Here on the Equator, in the continent which would one day be known as Africa, the battle for existence had reached a new climax of ferocity, and the victor was not yet in sight.

#200
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3,596
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Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton

4.0 (8)

The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialize genetic engineering.

#152
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4,877
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Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

4.09 (23)

It was a pleasure to burn.

#42
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13,959
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Watchmen

Watchmen

Alan Moore

4.7 (10)

Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985: <br>Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

#197
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3,633
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A Wizard of Earthsea

A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin

4.17 (6)

The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.

#251
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2,564
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The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Howard Pyle

3.67 (6)

In merry England in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood.

#243
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2,736
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The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

4.56 (36)

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

#13
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26,139
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Brave New World

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

4.07 (30)

A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.

#19
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23,022
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