List: Books of the Century by Waterstone
The Hobbit
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.
The Power and the Glory
Mr. Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder, into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust.
James and the Giant Peach
Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life.
The Rainbow
The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
Brighton Rock
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.]
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
As usual, at five o'clock that morning reveille was sounded by the blows of a hammer on a length of rail hanging up near the staff quarters.
Ulysses
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
Lord of the Flies
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.
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