What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
Suggest books for me
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Quotes needed to make a Literary Clock - COMPLETED!
What a cool idea! And I thought my Book Clock was neat. 
I will definitely see what I can come up with to help when I get the chance. Good luck in any case.
Mod
Wonderful idea, by the way!
From Growing Up Pains to the Sacred Diary: Nothing Is Wasted, in google book preview you can see a quote for 12.19 a.m. "12.19 a.m. Dozed off for one and a half minutes. Dreamt I was awake, and woke up worried about not being asleep". Share and Share Alike 00.43 "They stared at each other for a second then both scrutinised the paper. Tessa gasped. 'The time on this is 00.43. Just after midnight'. Her eyes widened in horror as everything started to slot into place. 'He said he was in Cardiff that night doing a book singing'.
For the purposes of searching for an exact phrase use quotation marks, for example "12.43 a.m." instead of simply 12.43 a.m.
And if everything else fails, take a look at https://books.google.pl/books?id=Gjd5... you can find there many of the missing quotes, but most of them probably would look like "12.28 a.m. Steam cloud develops rapidly on NE side." :D
From Fated by Benedict Jacka:"Out of perverse curiosity, I lifted my watch and looked at the time, watching the seconds ticking off. Lyle had finished his call at 9.38 a.m. Exactly as the display ticked over to 9.39 a.m, there was a distant banging at my front door. I hate show-offs."
From The Shifter by Janice Hardy:“Punctual as well as smart,” Zertanik said as the clock tower chimed midnight. He held the door open for me and I walked past him, leaving my conscience on the porch. It curled up next to my principles.
This quote has a few different times you could use, I'm having trouble scrolling down the spreadsheet with my iPad, but I can see you still need 12:27 and 12:28 a.m.From They're Watching by Gregg Hurwitz:
By no- showing, I was taking my fate into my own hands. And if they reacted with wrath, I would be ready for them. If the lawsuit returned, I was no worse off than I'd been two days ago. In the quiet dark, I began listing the precautions I'd start taking at first light.
12:27 A.M. 12:28 A.M.
I wasn't going to that hotel room.
TONIGHT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING.
Who was waiting in Room 1407? A face from the past, a wronged friend, a man in a dark suit, legs crossed, silenced pistol in his lap? Or a stranger with a gift, nothing more to me than I was to Doug Beeman? How long would the person wait before figuring out that I wasn't coming through that door?
12:48 A.M. 12:49 A.M.
I wasn't going to that hotel room.
From Tales of Enticement by Anthony Hulse, for 12:36 A.M. (easy to shorten, I'm just trying to include large snippets so you can choose to cut words/sentences before or after the given times depending on your preference):“Tick, tock, look at the clock. Tick, tock, look at the clock,” the parrot repeatedly said.
Whitaker reached for his pencil, and after he poked the offending bird, it hissed, the eyes of the parrot now jet-black. The shocked clockmaker now covered the cage with a sheet and slumped into his armchair.
A tremendous clap of thunder caused his heartbeat to accelerate. He now found it difficult to breathe.
“Tick, tock, look at the clock. Tick, tock, look at the clock.”
Whitaker’s frightened eyes focused on one of his many clocks. It was six minutes past twelve. His heartbeat accelerated, the reciting of the parrot incessant.
“Shut up! Shut up, be damned!”
“Tick, tock, look at the clock.”
For 12:43 A.M. from Stalin, the Russians, and Their War: 1941-1945 by Marius Broekmeyer:The German capitulation was signed on 9 May at forty-three minutes after midnight. Stalin declared 9 May the Day of Victory, so that Prague could still be "liberated" by Soviet troops and not by Vlasov's army, which had, in fact, driven the Germans out of Prague.
How many quotes are you willing to use from a single book? The one that jumped to mind 600 Hours of Edward.The main character has Aspergers, and is time obsessed - every chapter opens and closes with his records of the time he got up and went to bed, and it's peppered with other comments including times (lots and lots of times.) (For anyone else reading this, it's also very funny and sweet. But wow it has a lot of times in it.)
One of my favourites:
"When Dr. Buckley emerges from her office to summon me in, I look down at my digital watch, and the time is 9:59:28. I tell Dr. Buckley that it is not quite time for my appointment, and so we stare at each other for thirty-two seconds."
Or one for a time you're actually missing, 7:28 (you'll probably want to trim this one, but it's very Edward):
"The sound of a lawn mower jolts me awake. I turn to face the clock, and it reads 7:28. This is an oddity. Every previous day this year, I have awoken at 7:37, 7:38, 7:39 or 7:40. Now, on the 288th day of this year (because it is a leap year), I am awake 7:28. Further, I am all but certain that I have never awoken at this particular time. I will have to check my data, as I don't like to trust assumptions. I prefer facts."
Thank you Krazykiwi, Perspehone, Anna and everyone else. I will do my best to add in times given!Otherwise I do realise some books can provide a lot more times. The top runners at the moment with 12 entries are The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Infinite Jest. I am loathe to go much higher than that, as I am trying to keep a wide range of books and authors. But still I will keep my mind open.
Looking for Alaska “July 23—12:51 A.M . Report of brown bear going through garbage in 1900 block Dora Way for more than an hour in the same area.” “Doctor Who: The Left-Handed Hummingbird "12.52 a.m. The sailors worked in small swarms, tugging the canvas loose to reveal the lifeboats underneath."
(I found this on the quotes about clocks page)Saikyō Densetsu Kurosawa 9
“In times like these I always cheered myself up with a certain story. I forgot just when I first heard it, or who I heard it from... but, back when I was young it would cheer me up when I was feeling depressed. Basically, you think of life in terms of a single 24 hour day. So if you take the average human lifespan, to be around 72 years, then dividing that by 24... that comes to 3 years per hour. Meaning, that if you were 18 it'd only be 6 AM! 6 in the morning is nothing! Schools aren't even open by then! It's only been a couple of hours before sunrise, the day's just begun! So if you're 18, you can still fix you life by then! In fact even if you were 30 year old, that's still only 10 AM! The sun's still high, and there's still 2 hours until noon! You still have the whole afternoon to fix your life! You could still make something of yourself. I've always been thinking that, but... I'm now 45 years old! 45 divided by 3 is 15 meaning, that the time 3PM! Ring Ring Ring! I can hear the clock, ringing in my mind! There's only 2 hours before work is over at 5PM! I can't redo anything, it's almost time to go home already.”
Try experimenting with Google books.Google "Google Books" to get to the page, then try different keywords for the times you're looking for.
I had some success with using the words in quotes ("Twelve past nine")
I also tried using the digital numbers and didn't get a lot of good results until I added some other keywords.
4:12 digital clock got a result down past the math workbooks that I don't think you'll want to include, but just using that as an example.
I got results for:
"On the digital clock"
"glanced at the time"
"looked at the clock"
So you may want to try keywords along those lines too.
Then I got a bit more specificI tried:
7:43 "looked at" clock
And I got several results to choose from.
01:02:00 a.m. The Make-Believers She got up and felt her way in stocking-feet to the living room; it was empty, the lamp turned low, the rocker still. The clock showed a minute or two past one."01:03 a.m. Fickle
marleybones @ February 1 01:03 am Look, guys, we needn't go so far as to put the Peacock in the middle of the action. But even if she weren't a personal friend of Mr. Suicide's, couldn't she have gotten to know him a little while he designed her necklace? After all, a commission like that makes people rather friendly.
01:18 a.m. Death's Memoirs
Time is 01:18 A.M. There is only so much to say in the scriptures of times forgotten. Unspoken language older than clay, most memories still too rotten to be used ever again. (...)"
01:19 a.m. Haunted Husband
"Go to bed before he comes in," she ordered herself for the umteenth time. Still, she sat looking at the clock. The minute hand shifted to nineteen past one and her nerves grew more on edge.
1:34 a.m. The Mother Who Loved Halloween"November 4, 1:34 a.m. Sirens scream bloody murder in the distance. They yell like a lost child. Always growing closer, always growing louder. He can hear the urgency in their tone, as he lies sleepless. He knows they are coming for him. And then they stop."
Blood on My Hands "Sunday 1:36 A.M.IN THE PICKUP I’ve just finished telling Slade about how Katherine relentlessly worked on me, how it seemed to have become her personal mission to get me to break up with him, how foolishly dazzled I was by the life she was offering, how it got to the point where I felt like I had to choose between her and him. And Katherine was there every day, while he was far away."
Mossad "01:21 A.M.—Gail Folliard checks into the exclusive hotel Jumeriah and gets a room on the eleventh floor. When asked by the reception clerk for her home address, she answers without batting an eye: 78 Memmier Road, Dublin, Ireland. It would later be established that this address was nonexistent."
01:35 a.m. The G File "Police probationer Wagner yawned and looked at his watch: twenty-five to two."
Thanks everyone (especially Anna!). Slowly updating the sheet - less than 400 minutes to go. Also I will try some of the methods you suggest. Otherwise I may have to wait for some free time in the holidays to really try whittle this down.
Mod
One of the play's first stage directions is "The English clock strikes 17 English strokes" (1). This whole "17 strokes" thing already clues us in that there's something fishy going on. So, is it supposed to be 17 o'clock? Over course of the play, the clock goes totally crazy, sometimes striking whenever it pleases, sometimes striking according to the emotions of the characters.
In many ways, the clock becomes just as much of a character as any of the human beings prancing around onstage. All this wacky behavior from the clock seems to symbolize the wackiness of time itself in the play. At many points, it seems as if time doesn't even exist. And, if it does, it's all kinds of messed up.
Might be worth checking out the play.
Mod
Smart Women by Judy Blume
And so, when he told her on May 15 at 5:28 in the afternoon that he had to be moving on, she passed out. She was in his bed at the time.
Mod
One Hot Mess
I was as jittery as a virgin in a sorority house all day Thursday. By Friday I was certifiable. My phone rang at 5:34 in the afternoon. I had twenty-six minutes before my next client. It was Solberg.
Mod
The Unburied by Charles Palliser
"...at that moment I looked again at my watch because I wanted to be back at the Cathedral as Evensong ended at about twenty to six in order to talk to the choirmaster before he left. I saw I only had four minutes before it ended."
"So that occurred at precisely twenty-four minutes before six?
"Exactly."
"Who was the woman? Has she been summoned as a witness?"
Mod
Elizabeth the First Wife
The first message came in at 5:43 in the afternoon, while I was at Vitality Yoga, attempting to prolong my vigor with mindful breath and deep core awareness, or at least that's what the brochure promised.
Mod
Death of a Dutchman
"Do you expect to make an arrest? What's to stop this woman leaving the country?"
"Up to now, I'm afraid nothing."
And since they knew there wasn't a train until 7:41 in the evening, they had all dashed off to the airport in Pisa.
Mod
Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson
Still seated, Haver looked up at the clock and said out of the blue: "My father died exactly twenty-five years ago."
Lindell looked up. "Exactly?"
"Yes, exactly. Twenty-eight minutes past eight, on this exact date twenty-five years ago."
Lindell waited for more, but Haver pulled himself out of his chair.
"I'm going home," he said.
"How did he die?"
"A bee sting. Silly, isn't it? We were sitting out that evening. Dad was having a beer....."
Thank you Lobstergirl! Filled in some nice gaps in the day.
00:28 a.m. Being Gay Being Bi Whatever "It's twenty eight minutes past midnight on a Sunday morning at the junction of Wardour Street. It's like 'Piccadilly Circus'! Hundreds of guys, bis, les, straights — you know, let there be no doubt about gay men being fit. The average member of the armed forces would be shamed by the physical fitness displayed here - stunningly beautiful men."
00:36 a.m. Return To Sender: An Alex Glauberman Mystery "Alex went back inside, noted that the time was thirty-six minutes past midnight, and dialed 9 1 1 to report that he had found a dead stranger in the driveway. Then he rinsed his mouth, blew his nose, and dug a pair of winter gloves from the bottom drawer of his bureau. He pulled the wool liners out of the leather. He wanted another look, but he did not want to take the chance of leaving his fingerprints behind."
00:48 a.m. Dolphins Under My Bed "We rise for the shipping forecast at forty-eight minutes past midnight and set off shortly afterwards. The forecast is for a moderate breeze from the southwest, possibly strengthening to Force 5. If it occurs, it will give us a sail. For the moment there is only the lightest of breezes and the sea is still very bumpy."
00:19 a.m. Praetorian "The villas were all modern concrete buildings built by the Italian invaders. "Right there," Hood said. The men gathered around him. It was nineteen minutes past midnight. "That's the villa. Rommel is in there, gentlemen. Let's make it his last resting place.""
Thank you Anna! I really appreciate it.
Which ones do you not have right now?
Hi Sandra, I have a spreadsheet of all the times I have (with blanks for the missing times). You can find it here:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1arGPmSO-AZYAXgR_7AK-jIypXlEOuQiwScfwPfSJ_Ys/
00:28 a.m. The Moon Stealers and the Quest for the Silver Bough "One night, he said to himself again. Hearing his voice inside his head reassured him that he was not alone. But, during his whole life Peter had never been alone, not truly. He pulled his hand up so that he could just see his wrist-watch without heat escaping from inside the sleeping bag. The luminous clock face read: Twenty-eight minutes past midnight."
1:21 a.m. Vanished Pg 213I nodded and looked at the clock: 1:21 a.m. Her fingers moved across my skin. “You're soaking Were you dreaming?” I turned and looked at her in the darkness of the bedroom.
00:49 a.m. Postmortem "A very unfortunate thing happened, you see. Apparently Lori Petersen called the police shortly after she got home from the hospital early Saturday morning. We learned this from one of the dispatchers on duty at the time. At eleven minutes before one A.M., a 911 operator got a call. The Petersen residence came up on the computer screen but the line was immediately disconnected."
00:51 a.m. Santa Anna of Mexico (it's a book about a Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna): "Inés Garcia de Lopez de Santa Anna finally passed away at nine minutes to one in the morning, while staying in Puebla"
Thank you everyone! (Anna you are a star!). So I have kept on chipping away at it and there 272 times to get. Slowly getting there.
OK, been chipping away at when I have got the chance. Got it down to 50 or so times to get. Almost there:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1arGPmSO-AZYAXgR_7AK-jIypXlEOuQiwScfwPfSJ_Ys/edit#gid=0
Otherwise I am also thinking to making a literary clock online. Ah well, lots to do!
I should add if anyone has a quote for one these times, please let me know in this discussion:00:09, 00:27, 00:51, 00:52, 00:56, 01:39, 01:47, 01:49, 01:52, 02:09, 02:22, 02:39, 02:44, 02:46, 03:16, 03:24, 03:26, 03:29, 03:32, 04:09, 04:28, 04:29, 04:33, 04:37, 04:39, 04:44, 05:27, 05:32, 05:38, 05:39, 05:41, 05:44, 05:51, 06:13, 06:18, 06:21, 06:24, 06:26, 06:34, 06:39, 06:41, 07:24, 07:33, 07:36, 07:49, 08:51, 09:29, 09:31, 09:49, 13:43, 13:46, 14:32, 14:34, 14:49, 15:26, 15:43, 15:54, 18:36, 18:38, 18:43, 19:24, 19:36, 19:38, 19:39, 20:31, 21:41, 21:44, 22:16, 22:24, 22:29, 22:45, 23:28
02:09 a.m. The Turin Shroud Secret by Sam Christer"Nic speeds the images up some more, thirty-two times normal speed, then a flash of light on the screen makes him take notice. He glances at the time log. It’s just after two in the morning – 02.09:15 to be exact."
02:22a.m./02:44a.m. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall"The officers in the radio car got the alarm at two twelve. They were at Odenplan and made it here in between three and four minutes. They reported to Criminal at two seventeen. I got here at two twenty-two. Called you at two twenty-nine. You got here at sixteen minutes to three.' Ronn looked at his watch. 'It's now eight minutes to three. When I arrived he'd been dead at the most half an hour."
Thank you Anna! I will add them to the list.
Complete! www.literaryclock.com A big thank you to everyone! We have 1645 quotes covering all 1440 minutes in the day.
I made the website above for you (and any other book lovers you know) to enjoy. Any feedback would be very welcome!
Otherwise, now on to my next step, actually making a physical clock with an e-ink display as described in the first post of this discussion. Wish me luck!
That website is really neat. Thanks for sharing it!ETA: If you're interested in minor corrections, I noticed that the 3:08 timeslot has a 2:59 time quote in it.
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
The Princess Bride (other topics)Coraline (other topics)
The Abominable Man (other topics)
The Turin Shroud Secret (other topics)
Santa Anna of Mexico (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Maj Sjöwall (other topics)Sam Christer (other topics)
Kjell Eriksson (other topics)
Charles Palliser (other topics)
Judy Blume (other topics)
More...
For Christmas, I am trying to make a Literary Clock for a book lover. For each minute of the day, it will come up with a quote that contains that time, the book it is from and the author. So far I have a time in literature for 976 minutes, but still need quotes for a further 463 minutes of the day (for example, I have nothing for 17 minutes past midnight) to complete it. You can find all the times I am missing. Please do write any times you have, any corrections, comments or advice in this thread and I will update as often as I can.
If you would like a little more detail on where I have got the times and how I intend to make the clock, I will explain below.
First up, I went through my personal library and dug out some of the quotes with times in them to start the ball rolling.
Secondly, I found that the Guardian newspaper have previously asked their readers to submit time quotes to make a literary clock. Though they did not find quotes for all minutes of the day (you can a web version of their clock for the times they did get here.) Their quotes did help me to more than double the amount of minutes I had.
Now to dive in really deeply for the third stage, I started trawling through 19,000 or so English fiction books from the Project Gutenberg. This uncovered some real gems - I think my favourite two minutes come from the 1915 novel "The Man Who Rocked the Earth":
- He was thrifty, of Scotch-Irish descent, and at two minutes past three had never had an adventure in his life.
- At three minutes past three he began his career as one of the celebrities of the world.
Anyway the times gained from this left me where I currently am. I hoping the well versed readers of this group can help me fill in the gaps. I apologise that the more popular times, like midnight and noon have already been taken. Though if you would like to take what I already have and make your own list, for personal use, I would be delighted.
Finally for the actual clock, I was thinking about using a RaspberryPi attached to an e-Ink screen (slightly inspired by this autocomplete poetry installation). Though questions about this are probably best for another forum.
I hope placing a slightly tangential discussion to this group is OK and thank you in advance for any help you can provide.