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55th Page
Title: The House of the ScorpionAuthor: Nancy Farmer
Paragraph: 15
Quote: ""You're lying! Tell them, Willum! You thought it was funny. You said the beast-the boy-was in good condition!""
Garrison wrote: "TITLE: Flight
AUTHOR: Sherman Alexie
When I open my eyes, I'm in a hospital room. For a moment I wonder if I'm back to being myself, to being Zits, but then I see Art sitting in a chair at the foo..."
I love Sherman Alexie!
Title: Deadville
Author: Ron Koertge
'When did you start lying?' I ask.
Andy was eavesdropping, too. 'Too my folks? I'd be like three and my mom would say, 'Where are you going, honey?' And I'd say, 'To the moon.' '
Author: Ron Koertge
'When did you start lying?' I ask.
Andy was eavesdropping, too. 'Too my folks? I'd be like three and my mom would say, 'Where are you going, honey?' And I'd say, 'To the moon.' '
Hemingway, Ernest. To Have and Have Not. New York: Collier, 1937.“I dropped him in about seven hundred fathoms,” I said. “He’s going down all that way. That’s a long way, brother. He won’t float till the gas brings him up and all the time he’s going with the current and baiting up fish. Hell,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about Mr. Sing.”
Yes! I just had a meeting of the minds with Laszlo! Great minds think alike! :)
Book: The Murder at the VicarageAuthor: Agatha Christie
"'Oh it's quite true. I suppose I've said it rather bluntly, but I never can go into hysterics over anything. I've hated him for a long time, and yesterday I shot him.'"
Book: Fire In The Hole, and other storiesAuthor: Elmore Leonard
Lourdes read the story in the newspaper that said Dr. Wasim Mahmood, prominent etc., etc., had suffered gunshot wounds during an apparent carjacking on Flagler near Currie Park and was pronounced dead on arrival at Good Samaritan. His Mercedes was found abandoned on the street in Delray Beach.
After attempting to take his own life on the morning of the execution, he attempted to take the life of one of the town officers with the same knife. He was kept in fetters till hoisted from the cart by a pulley.Young, Alex F. The Encyclopaedia of Scottish Executions: 1750 to 1963. Kent, UK: Dobby, 1998.
---
Physicians and mechanics likewise can often make spot diagnoses, as if thinking, “This reminds me of symptoms I’ve seen before, when the problem was X.” The diagnosis isn’t dictated by logic--other ailments could produce the same symptoms. But it’s quick and usually right.
Myers, David G. Intuition: Its Power and Perils. New Haven: Yale UP, 2002.
Instructed to go to the last day of his life, Heinrich described having a heart attack in the field at the age of sixty-seven. He said his body was placed in a family crypt at the foot of a bluff, and that on it was carved: "Here's to the man who could raise corn and hell to match." Asked whether he liked such an epitaph, he roared, "God damn right, I do."
Montgomery, Ruth. Here and Hereafter. A Fawcett Crest Book: United States. 1968.
Montgomery, Ruth. Here and Hereafter. A Fawcett Crest Book: United States. 1968.
Vanessa wrote: "Thank you for sending ne this notification. If your interested, you can click on the following link and check out my first published book.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetr......"
Vanessa wrote: "Thank you for sending ne this notification. If your interested, you can click on the following link and check out my first published book.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetr......"
I look forward to reading this, Vanessa! And discovering the origin of the title. :)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetr......"
Vanessa wrote: "Thank you for sending ne this notification. If your interested, you can click on the following link and check out my first published book.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetr......"
I look forward to reading this, Vanessa! And discovering the origin of the title. :)
NOVEL: The WomanAUTHOR: Jack Ketchum
Brian was tired of shooting these damn hoops. Despite what his father might think he wasn’t tall enough or fast enough to be really good at the game no matter how long and lean he’d gotten or how many free throws he landed. Nor would he ever be. His competition on the playground was proof of that if he ever needed any. He drifted over to the tetherball pole. A game in progress.
NOVEL: The Sisters Brothers
AUTHOR: Patrick DeWitt
I found the woman downstairs in the lobby, sitting behind her counter, mending a pillowcase with a long needle and thread. I had noticed her only perfunctorily when we checked in, but now I could see she was somewhat pretty, young and pale and plump and firm. Her hair was sweat-pasted to her forehead and her arm worked speedily, extending to its limit as she pulled the needle back. I knocked on the countertop and her eyes landed upon me with undisguised annoyance.
Title: NecroscopeAuthor: Brian Lumley
Dragosani had been looking thoughtful. "Tell me something,"he finally said. "When this is was all over-that night at the Chateau, I mean-was that why you asked me if it was possible for me to read Ustinov's corpse? Or rather, the mess that was left of him? Because you thought he might have been got at by the newer KGB, as well as your retired old chum from the MVD?"
Title: Kushiel's Dart Author: Jacqueline Carey
Paragraph: "We do not stand-not kneel-on ceremony in my household, Phèdre," Delaunay said kindly, reading my mind. "It is one thing to observe the courtesies of rank, and quite another to treat humans as chattel."
A Reader's Book of Days by Tom Nissley
1985 There was no single day when John M. Hull went blind. From childhood, the dark shadows in his vision waxed and waned, but they finally grew until he could no longer tell day from night. His memoir, Touching the Rock, begins after that point, a record of complete blindness written by someone who once knew full sight but found himself forgetting what it was like.
1985 There was no single day when John M. Hull went blind. From childhood, the dark shadows in his vision waxed and waned, but they finally grew until he could no longer tell day from night. His memoir, Touching the Rock, begins after that point, a record of complete blindness written by someone who once knew full sight but found himself forgetting what it was like.
OOC: Here’s something that’ll make you sad.TITLE: Dewey
AUTHOR: Vicki Myron
But life in farm country isn’t easy. A few large farms are worth a fortune, but for most farmers and the people who rely on them - farmhands, salesmen, storage facilities, processing plants, local merchants - the money is tight, the work is hard, and life is often beyond your control. If it doesn’t rain; if it doesn’t stop raining, if it gets too hot or too cold; if prices don’t hold up when your product hits market, there’s not much you can do. Farm life isn’t forty acres and a mule anymore. Farmers need large combines to plow big fields, and they can cost $500,000 or more. Throw in seed, chemicals, and living expenses, and a farmer’s debt can easily top a million. If they stumble, or fall behind the times, or simply have a run of bad luck, most can’t make it.
Title: The Shining
Author: Stephen King
Her husband was a lush. He had a bad temper, one he could no longer keep wholly under control now that he was drinking so heavily and his writing was going so badly.
Author: Stephen King
Her husband was a lush. He had a bad temper, one he could no longer keep wholly under control now that he was drinking so heavily and his writing was going so badly.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
It was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of my prison house of my disposition; and like the captives of Phillipi, that which stood within ran forth. So feel I.
The Poisonwood Bible
It was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of my prison house of my disposition; and like the captives of Phillipi, that which stood within ran forth. So feel I.
OOC: My mom loves Barbara Kingsolver, particularly that book you're reading, Cat. It must be popular. :)
I read half of the novel in two days. I hope to read all of Kingsolver now. :)
Cat wrote: "I read half of the novel in two days. I hope to read all of Kingsolver now. :)"I know the book is well-known and I keep hearing about it. Now my interest is piqued again. Would you recommend "The Poisonwood Bible?"
Title: Red RisingAuthor: Pierce Brown
Paragraph:
After realizing his error, the weakling shifts uncomfortably in his bucket seat, but I've stopped paying him any mind. Here the woman is king. Unlike the weakling's, her mask is like that of an old crone, one of the witches of Earth's fallen cities who made soup from the marrow of children's bones.
“Figures of speech” (imagery) or tropes are word pictures; they are to be found on the sensory level of poetry, and they are intended to evoke the senses of taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing, together with the inner “sense” of feelings. There are four basic kinds of tropes: descriptions, similes, metaphors, and rhetorical tropes.Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. 3rd ed. Hanover, NH: Univ. Press of New England, 2000. Page 55.
Title: ThreeAuthor: Kristen Simmons
The anxiety settled over us, heavy and palpable. My mind flashed to the Wayland Inn burning, to the Chicago tunnels bombed. Was our team's first stop already discovered, or was there simply no one there?
TITLE: HolesAUTHOR: Louis Sachar
Again, Stanley was the last one to finish digging. It was late afternoon when he dragged himself back to the compound. This time he would have accepted a ride on the truck if it was offered.
We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with his usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the “hellish arts” to which she had fallen a victim, and expressing with more exasperation than piety his wonder that Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignity of evil.LeFanu, Sheridan. “Carmilla.” New York: Paperback Library, 1970. (Originally published in 1872.)
False Memory by Dean Koontz.Martie's perception of natural menace had passed. The rainy day no longer seemed in the least strange. In fact, the world was so achingy beautiful, so right in every detail, that although she was no longer afraid of anything in it, she was terribly afraid of losing it.
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt.Melville, Herman. Moby Dick.
Warren hobbled down the street, leaning into a whipping autumn wind. He noticed three unfamiliar cars in his church parking lot, and saw unfamiliar faces staring through the windows. Coldwater was not a place where strangers went unnoticed. Families lived here for generations. Houses and businesses were passed on to children. Longtime residents were buried in the local cemetery, which dated to the early 1900s. A few of the tombstones were so worn and faded you could no longer read them.
- Albom, Mitch. The First Phone Call From Heaven.
- Albom, Mitch. The First Phone Call From Heaven.
TITLE: A Million Little PiecesAUTHOR: James Frey
He follows Lincoln out and he shuts the door and I’m alone with Joanne. She leans against the wall and closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and she exhales and I sit on the bed and I watch her and she just sits there and she breaths and I get tired of the silence and the sound of her breathing. I want to be alone and I need to figure out what I’m going to do. I speak.
OOC: This guy says “and” more times than any other word in the paragraph. I’m tempted to criticize this strategy, but then I choose not to because this might be a legitimate literary technique that I’m not aware of.
TITLE: Dana White: King of MMAAUTHOR: June White
My mother, Dana, Kelly, and I, and our two boxer dogs, Swizzle and Bowzer, were all loaded into the car for our move across the country. Every day before I started driving, I gave Dana and one of the dogs a Dramamine because they both would get carsick. About and hour after giving them both the pill, I would look in the rearview mirror and see the two of them leaning against each other, propping each other up, their heads nodding and their eyes fluttering slowly shut.
“We don’t take cases because we think they were decided wrong. Very rarely would we take a case for that reason--a death case we would. But we usually take cases because the analysis of the courts below reflects a disagreement on the meaning of federal law, and you can’t have two federal laws in different parts of the country. We will take one or both of those cases.”Antonin Scalia, in The Supreme Court. Lamb, Swain, and Farkas, eds. New York: Perseus, 2010.
Title: Slaughter House 5Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Paragraph:
There were two peepholes inside the airlock-with yellow eyes pressed to them. There was a speaker on the wall. The Tralfamadorians had no voice boxes. They communicated telepathically. They were able to talk to Billy by means of a computer and a sort of electric organ which made every Earthling speech sound.
“Welcome aboard, Mr Pilgrim,” said the loudspeaker. “Any questions?”
Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: ”Why Me?”
TITLE: Love Letters to the DeadAUTHOR: Ava Dellaira
After I got off the phone with Mom last night, I went on Google Earth and tried to see if I could find where she is. California was colored in blocky splotches of gray and brown and green, like all the other states. I knew the ranch is close to Los Angeles, but I didn’t know where exactly. I scanned around, hovering above the city, trying to find some context. When I would start to zoom in, the picture plummeted toward the ground, until it would land in a street view of a road leading nowhere in particular.
OOC: That right there is the world’s most conflicted Google search. Hehe!
TITLE: My Bloody Roots: From Sepultura to Soulfly and BeyondAUTHOR: Max Cavalera (with Joel McIver).
“We were outcasts. Society rejected us. But I liked that. I was attracted to it, and I still am today. I like the idea of not fitting in. I still get a lot of weird looks from people today. That’s why I got my neck tattoo: after that, there was no way of going back to normal society and have a normal job. I could never be a normal guy again. I made a pact with myself never to go back, and to scare the shit out of people with my neck tattoo. I loved going out with gangs, a bunch of us terrorizing people, and going to bars and listening to music. It was fun, a really good time.”
OOC: Judging from the repetitive writing style, it’s easy to tell this book is a celebrity memoir. If a regular author did anything like that, his or her editor would laugh them out of the building.
Title: "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing"Author: M. T. Anderson
"I wish thou couldst have spoken to the child, as thou hadst drawn him out and set him at his ease; to me, he was civil, but so overwhelmed in humility he could barely converse. However humble he might be, a curious thing: When I looked upon him and spake with him, he would not meet my eyes with his; he stared fixedly at some point, and made his addresses as if to the air; but when no one looked upon him, he gazed upon us all with almost a hungriness in his assessment; as if memorizing the details of our dress and carriage and conversation; chipping it unsmiling upon tablets so it might later be used to damn us at the end of Time, or at least explain us to some other Intelligence come after us."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This paragraph from page 55 is the transcript of a letter being read, and not characteristic of all the writing language. I cannot recommend more highly this book, nor its sequel to all of you. Don't miss out on one of the most extraordinary pieces of historical fiction written in many years, maybe ever!
TITLE: The Fault In Our StarsAUTHOR: John Green
I was kind of scared to go down there. Listening to people howl in misery is not among my favorite pastimes. But I went.
Powerful quote, Garrison.I keep wanting to play this game but I am kind of picky on what is a good quote or not (though I by chance all the other times just chose the first paragraph and the authors wrote amazing insights in those places!).
If it's a well-written book, there will always be something on the 55th page worth posting on the internet. If it was any other page number, it'd be the same deal. It's almost as if the purpose of this game is to entice the readers into buying their own copies of the books being represented. If it is a shilling technique, I'm sold. :)
TITLE: Diablo III: The OrderAUTHOR: Nate Kenyon
She heard a creak from somewhere down the hall. A faint line of light under her door brightened and then faded again, as if someone was moving around out there with a lantern. She got up and passed silently to the door, pressing her ear against it. Her mother was arguing with herself in a harsh whisper that was getting louder; her creaking steps became faster as she paced back and forth. Again, Leah could feel something building both within her and without, a crackling energy that was so terrifying she could hardly breathe. She shrank away from the door as light brightened under the crack, climbing up onto the narrow bed, clutching her knees to her chest and rocking.
“Our queen went to England with the whole Dutch government. And we all found out later that they had taken our national treasury, an enormous amount, along with them to England. Hitler had thought that he would march through the Netherlands within a day, seize the whole treasury, and use it to finance his huge war machine. Losing the Dutch wealth that the queen took along to England was a huge loss to his economy--and very disappointing to him.”Eman, Diet (with James Schaap). Things We Couldn’t Say. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.
AUTHOR: Jeff RyanTITLE: Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America
GENRE: Nonfiction Videogame Biography
The gaming retailers adopted the motto of the videogame playing computer WOPR from 1983’s “Wargames”: The only way to win…is not to play. They hesitated to stock any more videogames. They absolutely refused to stock any more videogame consoles. The glut of bad games had salted the earth of Sears and poisoned the well of Toys R Us. Kids would still be able to buy their GI Joes, Cabbage Patch Kids, and My Little Ponies. Toy stores, like arcades, would survive. But they’d never let another videogame system pass through their receiving bays again.
Oh! I want to try!AUTHOR: L. Jagi Lamplighter (She's awesome!)
TITLE:The Raven, the Elf, and Rachel. 2 book in The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Totally awesome books!)
GENRE: Fantasy
Siggy pulled his robe away from is chest and peeked underneath. He glanced back and forth between something under his clothes and the mirror. "Whatever it is, it is the same dark purple color as the center of my all seeing amulet."
"really?" Rachel's eyes grew larger by the second. "Could it..." She reached out and touched a smooth section of broken mirror. Under the cracked glass, she could see the antique silver of the backing. "Do you think it could be a looking glass?"
Author: Marie LuTitle: The Young Elites
Genre: Fantasy
Violetta and I sit together in our library, where I read to her from a book cataloging flowers. I can still remember those illuminated pages, the parchment crinkling like skeleton leaves. Roses are so beautiful, Violetta sighs in her innocent way, admiring the book's images. Like you. A while later, when she goes off to play at the harpsichord with Father, I venture out to the garden to look at our rosebushes. I study one of the roses carefully, and then look at my crooked ring finger that my father broke years earlier. On a strange impulse, I reach out and close my hand tightly around the rose's stem. A dozen thorns slash into the flesh of my palm. Still, I clench my jaw and tighten my grip as hard as I can. You're right, Violetta. Finally, I release the stem, staring in wonder at the blood that blooms on my hand. Scarlet stains the thorns. Pain enhances beauty, I remember thinking.
TITLE: Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook (3.5 Edition)AUTHOR: (multiple people)
Wizards conduct their adventures with caution and forethought. When prepared, they can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. They seek knowledge, power, and the resources to conduct their studies. They may also have any of the noble or ignoble motivations that their adventurers have.
OOC: Over the past few days, I’ve been creating D&D characters like crazy and adding them to my archives. I had a shortage of female characters, so I made a lot of those. I also made one after myself and named him Garrison Kelly. He’s a human sorcerer (because he’s a creative introvert like me). If you’re wondering what inspired this particular post, there you have it.
From: Last Sacrifice Author: Richelle Mead
Four sets of eyes rested on me as the full meaning sank in. If I ran now and was caught, I was dead for sure. If I stayed, I had the slim chance that in my short time before trial, we might find evidence to save me. It wasn't impossible. But if nothing turned up, I was also most certainly dead. Either option was a gamble. Either one had the strong possibility of me not surviving.
You picked a gem of a paragraph, Anne. Very suspenseful! :)
TITLE: Fifty Shades DarkerAUTHOR: E.L. James
“I’m the boyfriend,” Christian says with a small, cool smile that doesn’t reach his eyes as he shakes Jack’s hand. I glance up at Jack who is mentally assessing the fine specimen of manhood in front of him.
OOC: Wish me luck, everybody.
Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company!
Books mentioned in this topic
Debt: The First 5,000 Years (other topics)How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (other topics)
Adult Onset (other topics)
When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress (other topics)
Morning Star (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Ann-Marie MacDonald (other topics)Gabor Maté (other topics)
Marie Kondō (other topics)
Barbara Stoler Miller (other topics)
Marcus Aurelius (other topics)
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AUTHOR: Sherman Alexie
When I open my eyes, I'm in a hospital room. For a moment I wonder if I'm back to being myself, to being Zits, but then I see Art sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed. I'm still trapped inside Hank Storm. But then I wonder if I've always been Hank Storm and was only Zits in a nightmare. Maybe I didn't shoot up that bank full of people. I hope I'm just the man who shot an already dead guy in the face. Jesus, what kind of sick consolation can that be?