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gratefulgal828

gratefulgal828

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Invisible Man

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison

4.31 (16)

"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me."

#76
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Women in Love

Women in Love

D. H. Lawrence

2.8 (5)

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father’s house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds.

#184
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Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

4.0 (29)

All this happened, more or less.

#34
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Skinny Legs and All

Skinny Legs and All

Tom Robbins

4.0 (2)

This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. The toadstool motel you once thought a mere folk tale, a corny, obsolete, rural invention.

#406
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A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

4.0 (20)

'What's it going to be then, eh?'

#48
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The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.56 (9)

Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his tragic and obscure death, which happened just thirteen years ago, and of which I shall speak in its proper place. (Garnett, 1912)Aleksei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner of our district, extremely well known in his time (and to this day still remembered in these parts) on account of his violent and mysterious death exactly thirteen years ago, the circumstances of which I shall relate in due course. (Avsey 1994)Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. (Garnett, Great Books, 1952)Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his own day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place. (Pevear/Volokhonsky, 1990)

#135
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Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick

Herman Melville

3.47 (17)

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

#43
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Emma

Emma

Jane Austen

4.33 (18)

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

#51
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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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Great Expectations

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

4.05 (21)

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

#28
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One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez

4.2 (25)

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.(Bulgarian)<br>Много години по-късно, пред взвода за разстрел, полковник Аурелиано Буендия щеше да си спомни онзи далечен подиробед, когато баща му го заведе да види леда.(Croatian)<br>Mnogo će se godina kasnije, pred streljačkim vodom, pukovnik Aureliano Buendía sjetiti tog davnog poslijepodneva kada ga je otac poveo da upozna led.(Czech)<br>O mnoho let později, když stál před popravčí četou, vzpomněl si plukovník Aureliano Buendía na ono vzdálené odpoledne, kdy ho otec vzal k cikánům, aby si prohlél led.(Dutch)<br>Vele jaren later, staande voor het vuurpeloton, moest kolonel Aureliano Buendía denken aan die lang vervlogen middag, toen zijn vader hem meenam om kennis te maken met het ijs.(Finnish)<br>Vuosia myöhemmin, seistessään teloitusryhmän edessä, eversti Aureliano Buendía muisti kaukaisen illan jolloin hänen isänsä vei hänet tutustumaan jäähän.(German)<br>Viele Jahre später sollte der Oberst Aureliano Buendia sich vor dem Erschießungskommando an jenen fernen Nachmittag erinnern, an dem sein Vater ihn mitnahm, um das Eis kennen zu lernen.(Hebrew)<br>שנים רבות לאחר־כך, כשיעמוד הקולונל אַאוּרליאנוֹ בוּאֶנדִיָה מול כיתת־היורים, ייזכר באותו ערב רחוק שלקח אותו אביו לראות קרח.(Hungarian)<br>Hosszú évekkel később, a kivégzőosztag előtt, Aureliano Buendía ezredesnek eszébe jutott az a régi délután, mikor az apja elvitte jégnézőbe.(Italian)<br>Molti anni dopo, di fronte al plotone di esecuzione, il colonnello Aureliano Buendía si sarebbe ricordato di quel remoto pomeriggio in cui suo padre lo aveva condotto a conoscere il ghiaccio.(Macedonian)<br>Многу години подоцна, наспроти стрелачкот вод, полковникот Аурелијано Буендија ќе се присети на тоа далечно попладне кога неговиот татко го одведе да узнае што е тоа мраз.(Norwegian)<br>Mange år senere, foran eksekusjonspelotongen, måtte oberst Aureliano Buendía tenke på den ettermiddagen for så lenge, lenge siden, da faren tok ham med for å vise ham isen.(Polish)<br>Wiele lat później, stojąc naprzeciw plutonu egzekucyjnego, pułkownik Aurelio Buendía miał przypomnieć sobie to dalekie popołudnie, kiedy ojciec zabrał go z sobą do obozu Cyganów, żeby mu pokazać lód.(Portuguese)<br>Muitos anos depois, diante do pelotão de fuzilamento, o Coronel Aureliano Buendía havia de recordar aquela tarde remota em que seu pai o levou para conhecer o gelo.(Romanian)<br>Mulţi ani după aceea, în faţa plutonului de execuţie, colonelul Aureliano Buendía avea să-şi amintească de după-amiaza îndepărtată cînd tatăl său îl dusese să facă cunoştinţă cu gheaţa.(Slovak)<br>O veľa rokov neskôr, zoči-voči popravnej čate, plukovník Aureliano Buendía si spomenul na to dávne popoludnie, keď ho otec vzal so sebou a on po prvý raz videl ľad.(Swedish)<br>Många år senare, inför exekutionsplutonen, skulle överste Aureliano Buendía påminna sig den avlägsna eftermiddag då hans far tog honom med för att visa honom isen.(Vietnamese)<br>Rất nhiều năm sau này, trước đội hành hình đại tá Aurêlianô Buênđýa đã nhớ lại buổi chiều cha chàng đi xem nước đá.

#52
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Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

3.97 (30)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

#11
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The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

3.53 (19)

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

#26
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Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

4.17 (35)

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

#17
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The Awakening

The Awakening

Kate Chopin

3.38 (7)

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside, kept repeating over and over: <br>"<i>Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!</i> That's all right!"

#145
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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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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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37,186
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The Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans

James Fenimore Cooper

4.25 (4)

It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.

#212
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Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

3.87 (31)

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. i- preface by P.B. Shelley/i

#27
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Dracula

Dracula

Bram Stoker

4.33 (18)

#99
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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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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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33,712
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Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

3.89 (45)

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.

#7
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The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild

Jack London

3.65 (20)

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

#35
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To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

4.41 (64)

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

#2
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42,966
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To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

4.41 (64)

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

#2
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42,966
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The Color Purple

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

4.07 (15)

You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.

#44
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Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web

E. B. White

4.27 (26)

Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

#8
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Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh

A. A. Milne

4.19 (21)

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.

#24
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22,108
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey

4.5 (16)

"They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them."They're out there.

#59
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The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway

3.44 (25)

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

#33
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The World According to Garp

The World According to Garp

John Irving

3.82 (11)

Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.

#110
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The Jungle

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair

4.0 (3)

#167
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Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf

3.38 (13)

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.<br> <br> For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

#116
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum

3.8 (10)

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

#96
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Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence

3.25 (8)

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.Náš věk je v podstatě tragický, a tak ho odmítáme tragicky brát.

#127
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Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey

J. D. Salinger

3.0 (3)

Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather, as it had been all week and as everyone had hoped it would stay for the big weekend - the weekend of the Yale game.The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do.

#208
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Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut

3.86 (7)

Call me Jonah.

#129
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A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace

John Knowles

3.75 (4)

I went back to Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.

#154
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The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame

4.0 (18)

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home.

#54
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The Little Prince

The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4.5 (24)

Once when I was six years old I saw a beautiful picture in a book about the primeval forest called "True Stories".

#45
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The Diary of a Young Girl

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

4.4 (20)

On Friday, 12th June, I woke up at six o' clock and no wonder; it was my birthday

#21
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie

4.0 (5)

Mrs Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September—a Thursday.

#241
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Six Characters in Search of an Author

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Luigi Pirandello

3.25 (4)

When the audience arrives in the theater, the curtain is raised; and the stage, as normally in the daytime, is without wings or scenery and almost completely dark and empty.

#346
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A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf

3.5 (6)

But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction -- what has that got to do with a room of one's own? I will try to explain.

#250
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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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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Lewis Carroll

3.92 (24)

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversation in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

#15
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The BFG

The BFG

Roald Dahl

4.0 (12)

Sophie couldn't sleep. A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right onto her pillow.

#89
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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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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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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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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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Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

4.54 (13)

One evening in the spring of 1936, when I was a boy of fourteen, my father took me to a dance performance in Kyoto.Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, 'That afternoon when I met so-and-so ... was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon.'

#62
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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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A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving

4.5 (8)

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God;- I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

#117
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Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables

L. M. Montgomery

4.58 (12)

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

#57
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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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Life of Pi

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

4.35 (17)

My suffering left me sad and gloomy.

#61
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Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen

3.5 (10)

The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex.

#105
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

4.07 (14)

It was 7 minutes after midnight.

#103
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The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold

4.09 (11)

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf.

#100
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Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary

Helen Fielding

3.57 (7)

<b>I WILL NOT</b><br> Drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.

#126
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The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

3.93 (15)

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

#49
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The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

4.0 (8)

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

#81
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Hamlet

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

4.09 (11)

<B>Act 1, Scene 1</B><BR><I>Enter</I> <B>Barnardo</B> <I>and</I> <B>Francisco</B><I>, two sentinels.</I><BR><BR><B>Barnardo</B><BR>Who's there?

#39
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Roald Dahl

4.44 (16)

These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr Bucket.

#29
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All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

4.5 (10)

We are at rest five miles behind the front.

#137
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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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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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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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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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21,803
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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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9,074
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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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7,623
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The Thornbirds

The Thornbirds

Colleen McCullough

5.0 (2)

On December 8th, 1915, Meggie Cleary had her fourth birthday.

#185
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4,108
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Matilda

Matilda

Roald Dahl

4.62 (13)

It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers.

#85
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9,558
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The Twits

The Twits

Roald Dahl

3.5 (9)

What a lot of hairy-faced men there are around nowadays.

#146
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5,106
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James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach

Roald Dahl

4.0 (12)

Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life.

#87
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9,462
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High Fidelity

High Fidelity

Nick Hornby

3.0 (3)

My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:<br>1) Alison Ashworth<br>2) Penny Hardwick<br>3) Jackie Allen<br>4) Charlie Nicholson<br>5) Sarah Kendrew.

#237
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The Odyssey

The Odyssey

Homer

4.18 (11)

By now the other warriors, those that had escaped headlong ruin by sea or in battle, were safely home.Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

#40
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14,649
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Commedia

Commedia

Dante Alighieri

3.17 (6)

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,/chè la diritta via era smarrita.Mildway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

#218
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3,149
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The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

4.0 (11)

When the sweet showers of April have pierced/<br>The drought of March, and pierced it to the root,/<br>And every vein is bathed in that moisture/<br>Whose quickening force will engender the flower;/<br>And when the west wind too with its sweet breath/<br>Has given life in every wood and field/<br>To tender shoots, and when the stripling sun/<br>Has run his half-course in Aries, the Ram,/<br>And when small birds are making melodies,/<br>That sleep all the night long with open eyes,/<br>(Nature so prompts them, and encourages);/<br>Then people long to go on pilgrimages,/<br>And palmers to take ship for foreign shores,/<br>And distant shrines, famous in different lands;/<br>And most especially, from all the shires/<br>Of England, to Canterbury they come,/<br>The holy blessed martyr there to seek,/<br>Who gave his help to them when they were sick.When in April the sweet showers fall<br>And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all<br>The veins are bathed in liquor of such power<br>As brings about the engendering of the flower,<br>When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath<br>Exhales an air in every grove and heath<br>Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun<br>His half-course in the sign of the <i>Ram</i> has run,<br>And the small fowl are making melody<br>That sleep away the night with open eye<br>(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)<br>Then people long to go on pilgrimages<br>And palmers long to seek the stranger strands<br>Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,<br>And specially, from every shire's end<br>Of England, down to Canterbury they wend<br>To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick<br>To give his help to them when they were sick.<br><br><b>(translated by Nevill Coghill, 1951)</b>Once upon a time, as old stories tell us, there was a duke named Theseus;  Of Athens he was a lord and governor, And in his time such a conqueror, That greater was there none under the sum.

#75
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The Prince

The Prince

Niccolò Machiavelli

3.83 (6)

All the states, all the dominions under whose authority men have lived in the past and live now have been and are either republics or principalities.It is customary for those who wish to gain the favour of a prince to endeavour to do so by offering him gifts of those things which they hold most precious, or in which they know him to take especial delight.

#148
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Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

John Milton

4.2 (5)

#174
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Night

Night

Elie Wiesel

4.29 (7)

They called him Moshe the Beadle, as though he had never had a surname in his life.

#124
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6,507
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Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

4.29 (7)

Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.

#188
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4,006
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Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

4.09 (23)

It was a pleasure to burn.

#42
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13,957
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Bastard Out of Carolina

Bastard Out of Carolina

Dorothy Allison

3.0 (1)

I've been called Bone all my life, but my name's Ruth Anne.

#343
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1,617
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The Bean Trees

The Bean Trees

Barbara Kingsolver

4.5 (4)

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbines's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.

#263
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2,304
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Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak

4.47 (15)

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him wild thing. And so he said, "I'll eat you UP!" And so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

#46
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The Prince of Tides

The Prince of Tides

Pat Conroy

5.0 (2)

My wound is geography.

#284
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2,037
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Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

4.33 (6)

This is the tale of a meeting of two lonely, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.

#157
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4,792
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A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle

4.0 (12)

It was a dark and stormy night.<br> In her attic bedroom Meg Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind.

#72
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10,566
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The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster

4.14 (14)

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

#143
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5,229
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The Complete Stories

The Complete Stories

Flannery O'Connor

5.0 (1)

Old Dudley folded into the chair he was gradually molding to his own shape and looked out the window fifteen feet away into another window framed by blackened red brick.

#296
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1,953
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Junot Diaz

3.8 (5)

They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.

#220
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3,104
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You Shall Know Our Velocity

You Shall Know Our Velocity

Dave Eggers

3.0 (1)

I was talking to Hand, one of my two best friends, the one still alive, and we were planning to leave.

#496
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627
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Nine Stories

Nine Stories

J. D. Salinger

4.0 (4)

There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through.

#273
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2,176
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A Little Princess

A Little Princess

Frances Hodgson Burnett

4.43 (7)

Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father, and was driven rather slowly through the big thorough-fares.

#169
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Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

3.9 (10)

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

#101
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Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

2.78 (18)

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

#41
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Little Women

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

3.68 (19)

“Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

#23
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22,209
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Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

3.83 (12)

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.

#67
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The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

3.58 (45)

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want the truth."

#5
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35,612
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The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

3.58 (45)

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want the truth."

#5
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35,612
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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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26,043
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Love in The Time of Cholera

Love in The Time of Cholera

Gabriel García Márquez

4.5 (8)

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.

#106
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7,728
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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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22,930
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Hunter S. Thompson

3.11 (9)

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'

#187
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4,067
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The Shell Seekers

The Shell Seekers

Rosamunde Pilcher

4.0 (2)

She sometimes thought that for her, Nancy Chamberlain, the most straightforward or innocent occupation was doomed to become, inevitably, fraught with tedious complication.

#338
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1,648
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The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia

C. S. Lewis

4.11 (28)

There is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (From <i>The Magician's Nephew</i>, first in chronological order)Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. (From <i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</i>, first in publication order)

#12
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2025 Reading Goal

0/50

Books Read

50 books to go!