Books: opening and closing lines

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Let’s judge a book not by its cover, but by its opening and closing lines.
Updated: 1 day 2 hours ago

Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Mon, 2009-03-02 19:03
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/douglas-adams-and-the-hitchhikers-guide.jpg type=image/jpeg length=84738 title=douglas-adams-and-the-hitchhikers-guide.jpgdouglas-adams-and-the-hitchhikers-guide.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun./p pstrongLast:/strong The other kids at school nicknamed him Ix, which in the language of Betelgeuse Five translates as boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind

Mon, 2009-03-02 18:21
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/gonewiththewind.jpg type=image/jpeg length=35471 title=gonewiththewind.jpggonewiththewind.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. /p pstrongLast:/strong After all, tomorrow is another day./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina

Mon, 2009-03-02 18:11
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/annakarenina.jpg type=image/jpeg length=23920 title=annakarenina.jpgannakarenina.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way./p pstrongLast:/strong I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner

Mon, 2009-03-02 18:06
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/kiterunner.jpg type=image/jpeg length=43987 title=kiterunner.jpgkiterunner.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975./p pstrongLast:/strong I ran./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Ken Kesey. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Mon, 2009-03-02 18:00
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/Cuckoo.jpg type=image/jpeg length=19472 title=Cuckoo.jpgCuckoo.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong They’re out there./p pstrongLast:/strong I been away a long time./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Iain Banks. The Wasp Factory

Mon, 2009-03-02 17:48
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/waspfactory.jpg type=image/jpeg length=10180 title=waspfactory.jpgwaspfactory.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. /p pstrongLast:/strong Poor Eric came home to see his brother, only to find (Zap! Pow! Dams burst! Bombs go off! Wasps fry: ttssss!) he's got a sister./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mon, 2009-03-02 17:43
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/doriangray.jpg type=image/jpeg length=25460 title=doriangray.jpgdoriangray.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn./p pstrongLast:/strong It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club

Mon, 2009-03-02 17:36
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/fightclub.jpg type=image/jpeg length=84249 title=fightclub.jpgfightclub.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die./p pstrongLast:/strong We look forward to getting you back./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe

Mon, 2009-03-02 17:32
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/robinson_crusoe.jpg type=image/jpeg length=16698 title=robinson_crusoe.jpgrobinson_crusoe.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull./p pstrongLast:/strong All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I shall give a farther account of in the Second Part of my Story./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Fyodor Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment

Mon, 2009-03-02 17:29
div class=field field-type-image field-field-books-image div class=field-items div class=field-item odd div class=filefield-file clear-blockdiv class=filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpegimg class=field-icon-image-jpeg alt=image/jpeg icon src=http://books.trendstoday.info/sites/all/modules/filefield/icons/protocons/16x16/mimetypes/image-x-generic.png //diva href=http://books.trendstoday.info/files/books/crime_0.jpg type=image/jpeg length=59131 title=crime.jpgcrime.jpg/a/div /div /div /div pstrongFirst:/strong On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge./p pstrongLast:/strong That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended./p !-- google_ad_section_start --!-- google_ad_section_end --
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Bram Stoker. Dracula

Sun, 2009-03-01 15:53
bram_stokers_dracula.jpg

First: 3 May. Bistritz.--Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.

Last: Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.

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Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Sun, 2009-03-01 13:15
carrol.jpg

First: 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 conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'

Last: Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

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Theodore Dreiser. The Financier

Sun, 2009-03-01 12:32
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First: The Philadelphia into which Frank Algernon Cowperwood was born was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand and more.

Last: What wise man might not read from such a beginning, such an end?

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Hunter S. Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Sun, 2009-03-01 12:25
fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas.jpg

First: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

Last: I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger...a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

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Helen Fielding. Bridget Jones's Diary

Sun, 2009-03-01 12:20
bjsdiary.jpg

First: I will not drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.

Last: An excellent year's progress.

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William Golding. Lord of the Flies

Sat, 2009-02-28 15:16
LordOfTheFlies.jpg

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

Last: He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.

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Stephen King. The Green Mile

Sat, 2009-02-28 15:00
greenmile.jpg

First: This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair was there, too, of course.

Last: We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.

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Alan Alexander Milne. Winnie the Pooh

Sat, 2009-02-28 14:54
winnie.jpg

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

Last: He nodded and went out... and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh—bump, bump, bump—going up the stairs behind him.

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Joanne Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Sat, 2009-02-28 14:50
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First: It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind.

Last: His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year, or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.

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Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice

Sat, 2009-02-28 14:47
pride_and_prejudice.jpg

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

Last: Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the
persons, who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

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