A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

"Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert."

Paper Moon
by Joe David Brown

"They say my mama, Miss Essie Mae Loggins, was the wildest girl in Marengo County, Alabama."

V.
by Thomas Pynchon

"Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia."

The Stranger
by Albert Camus

"Mother died today."

On The Road
by Jack Kerouac

"I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up."

Funeral Rights
by Jean Genet

"The newspapers that appeared at the time of the Liberation of Paris, in August 1944, give a fair idea of what those days of childish heroism, when the body was steaming with bravura and boldness, were really like."

The Blood Oranges
by John Hawkes

"Love weaves its own tapestry, spins its own golden thread, with its own sweet breath breathes into being its mysteries -- bucolic, lusty, gentle as the eyes of daisies or thick with pain."

Interview With The Vampie
by Anne Rice

I see..." said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.

The Color Purple
by Alice Walker

"You better not tell nobody but God."

As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner

"Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file."

A Separate Peace
by John Knowles

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

Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"All this happened, more or less."

Underworld
by Don DeLillo

"He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful."

Still Life With Woodpecker
by Tom Robbins

"If this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can't be done."

The Cave
by Jose Saramago

"The man driving the truck is called Cipriano Algor, he is a potter by profession and is sixty-four years old, although he certainly does not look his age."

A Question of Upbringing
by Anthony Powell

"The men at work at the corner of the street had made a kind of camp for themselves, where, marked out by tripods hung with red hurricane-lamps, an abyss in the road led down to a network of subterrranean drainpipes."

The Emigrants
by W.G. Sebald

"At the end of september 1970, shortly before I took up my position in Norwich, I drove out to Hingham with Clara in search of somewhere to live."

Possession
by A. S. Byatt

"The book was thick and black and covered with dust."

Kiss of the Spider Woman
by Manuel Puig

"-Something a little strange, that's what you notice, that she's not a woman like all the others."

Long Walk To Freedom
by Nelson Mandela

"Apart from life, a strong constitution and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla."

Everything That Rises Must Converge
by Flannery O'Connor

Her doctor had told Julian's mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y.

Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates

The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an empty auditorium.

An Instance of the Fingerpost
by Iain Pears

Marco da Cola, gentleman of Venice, respectfully presents his greetings.

Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

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.

Dune
by Frank Herbert

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

A Book Of Common Prayer
by Joan Didion

I will be her witness.

Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham

The day broke gray and dull.

Animal Farm
by George Orwell

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

Kalki
by Gore Vidal

Where to begin?

A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.

Tender is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel.

The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon

One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.

Finnegans Wake
by James Joyce

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.