Id stringlengths 3 44 | Code stringlengths 7 10 ⌀ | Title stringlengths 1 220 ⌀ | Author stringlengths 4 59 ⌀ | Data stringlengths 3 10 ⌀ | Genres stringlengths 20 352 ⌀ | Summary stringlengths 11 32.8k ⌀ |
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620 | /m/0hhy | Animal Farm | George Orwell | 8/17/1945 | {"/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, calls the animals on the farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, 'Beasts of England'. When Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and turn his dream into a philosophy. The animals r... |
843 | /m/0k36 | A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | 1962 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Alex, a teenager living in near-future England, leads his gang on nightly orgies of opportunistic, random "ultra-violence." Alex's friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, Nadsat) are: Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays ... |
986 | /m/0ldx | The Plague | Albert Camus | 1947 | {"/m/02m4t": "Existentialism", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0pym5": "Absurdist fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The text of The Plague is divided into five parts. In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the streets. A hysteria develops soon afterward, causing the local newspapers to report the incident. Authorities responding to public pressure order the collection and cremat... |
1756 | /m/0sww | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | David Hume | null | null | The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics. In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a... |
2080 | /m/0wkt | A Fire Upon the Deep | Vernor Vinge | null | {"/m/03lrw": "Hard science fiction", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel posits that space around the Milky Way is divided into concentric layers called Zones, each being constrained by different laws of physics and each allowing for different degrees of biological and technological advancement. The innermost, the "Unthinking Depths", surrounds the galactic core and is incapable ... |
2152 | /m/0x5g | All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria Remarque | 1/29/1929 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef"} | The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, a German soldier who—urged on by his school teacher—joins the German army shortly after the start of World War I. Bäumer arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Tjaden, Müller, Kropp and a number of other characters). There they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky... |
2890 | /m/011zx | A Wizard of Earthsea | Ursula K. Le Guin | 1968 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Ged is a young boy on Gont, one of the larger islands in the north of the archipelago of Earthsea. His mother is dead, his much older siblings have all left home, and his father is a dour, taciturn bronzesmith with nothing in common with his son, so the boy grows up wild and headstrong. Ged discovers by accident that ... |
2950 | /m/012dq | Anyone Can Whistle | Arthur Laurents | null | null | The story is set in an imaginary American town that has gone bankrupt. The only place in town doing good business is the local sanitarium, known as “The Cookie Jar,” whose inmates look much healthier than the disgruntled townspeople. ("I'm Like the Bluebird") All the money is in the hands of Cora Hoover Hooper, the st... |
4081 | /m/01b4w | Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night | K. W. Jeter | 10/1/1996 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Living on Mars, Deckard is acting as a consultant to a movie crew filming the story of his Blade Runner days. He finds himself drawn into a mission on behalf of the replicants he was once assigned to kill. Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the beginnings of the Tyrell Corporation is being dragged out into the light. |
4082 | /m/01b56 | Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human | K. W. Jeter | 10/1/1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Beginning several months after the events in Blade Runner, Deckard has retired to an isolated shack outside the city, taking the replicant Rachael with him in a Tyrell transport container, which slows down the replicant aging process. He is approached by a woman who explains she is Sarah Tyrell, niece of Eldon Tyrell,... |
4331 | /m/01d3j | Book of Joshua | null | null | null | (Chapter 1 is the first of three important moments in Joshua marked with major speeches and reflections by the main characters; here first God and then Joshua make speeches about the goal of conquest of the Promised Land; at chapter 12, Joshua looks back on the conquest; and at chapter 23 Joshua gives a speech about w... |
4332 | /m/01d40 | Book of Ezra | null | null | null | For the Bible text, see Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version) or see King James Version The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1-6, covering the period from the Decree of Cyrus to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person; chapters 7-10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told la... |
4376 | /m/01dlg | Book of Numbers | null | null | null | God orders Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, to number those able to bear arms—of all the men "from twenty years old and upward," and to appoint princes over each tribe. 603,550 Israelites are found to be fit for military service. In chapter 26, a generation later and after approximately forty years of wanderin... |
4381 | /m/01dnz | Book of Ruth | null | null | null | During the time of the Judges when there was a famine, an Israelite family from Bethlehem—Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion—emigrate to the nearby country of Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry two Moabite women: Mahlon marries Ruth and Chilion marries Orpah. The two sons of Naomi then ... |
4382 | /m/01dpg | Book of Esther | null | null | null | Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan. Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes h... |
4386 | /m/01dqt | Book of Job | null | null | {"/m/02mdj1": "Religious text"} | The book of Job tells the story of an extremely righteous man named Job, who is very prosperous and has seven sons and three daughters. Constantly fearing that his sons may have sinned and "cursed God in their hearts", he habitually offers burnt offerings as a pardon for their sins. The "sons of God" and Satan (litera... |
4449 | /m/01f8p | Book of Hosea | null | null | null | First, Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman of ill-repute, and he did so. Marriage here is symbolic of the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. However, Israel has been unfaithful to God by following other gods and breaking the commandments which are the terms of the covenant, hence Israel... |
4451 | /m/01f9l | Book of Jonah | null | null | null | The plot centers on a conflict between Jonah and God. God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment to Nineveh, but Jonah resists and attempts to flee. He goes to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish. God calls up a great storm at sea, and the ship's crew cast Jonah overboard in an attempt to appease God. A great sea cre... |
4452 | /m/01fb1 | Book of Micah | null | null | null | * The Heading (1:1): As is typical of prophetic books, an anonymous editor has supplied the name of the prophet, an indication of his time of activity, and an identification of his speech as the “word of Yahweh”, a generic term carrying a claim to prophetic legitimacy and authority. Samaria and Jerusalem are given pro... |
4454 | /m/01fby | Book of Haggai | null | null | null | Haggai's message is filled with an urgency for the people to proceed with the rebuilding of the second Jerusalem temple. Haggai attributes a recent drought to the peoples' refusal to rebuild the temple, which he sees as key to Jerusalem’s glory. The book ends with the prediction of the downfall of kingdoms, with one Z... |
6020 | /m/01t5z | Crash | J. G. Ballard | 1973 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story is told through the eyes of narrator James Ballard, named after the author himself, but it centers on the sinister figure of Dr. Robert Vaughan, a “former TV-scientist, turned nightmare angel of the expressways”. Ballard meets Vaughan after being involved in a car accident himself near London Airport. Gather... |
6628 | /m/01y92 | Children of Dune | Frank Herbert | 1976 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Nine years after Emperor Paul Muad'dib walked into the desert, blind, the ecological transformation of Dune has reached the point where some Fremen are living without stillsuits in the less arid climate and have started to move out of the Sietches and into the villages and cities. As the old ways erode, more and more ... |
6629 | /m/01y9j | Candide, ou l'Optimisme | Voltaire | 1759-01 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman", "/m/0g_jj": "Picaresque novel"} | Candide contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of Candide constitutes the rising a... |
6630 | /m/01yb0 | Chapterhouse Dune | Frank Herbert | 1985-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The situation is desperate for the Bene Gesserit as they find themselves the targets of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete. The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and developed methods of the Bene Gesserit and exterminate the Sisterhood itself. Now in command of the Be... |
6921 | /m/01_mr | Carmilla | Sheridan Le Fanu | 1872 | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction"} | The story is presented by Le Fanu as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult doctor in literature. The story is narrated by Laura, one of the two main protagonists of the tale. Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a "picturesque and solit... |
7817 | /m/025zx | The Cider House Rules | John Irving | 1985 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage where he spends his childhood "being of use" as a medical assistant to the director, Dr. Wilbur Larch, whose history is told in flashbacks: After a traumatic misadventure with a prostitute as a young man, Wilbur turns his back on sex and love, choosing instead to help women with un... |
7923 | /m/026l0 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | 1897 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/090ts5": "Invasion literature", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02ql9": "Epistolary novel", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction"} | The novel is told in epistolary format, as a series of letters, diary entries, ships' log entries, and so forth. The main writers of these items are also the novel's protagonists. The story is occasionally supplemented with newspaper clippings that relate events not directly witnessed by the story's characters. The ta... |
8237 | /m/0297f | Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes | 1605 | {"/m/0gf28": "Parody", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/011ys5": "Farce", "/m/0g_jj": "Picaresque novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The First Sally Alonso Quijano, the protagonist of the novel, is a retired country gentleman nearing fifty years of age, living in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While mostly a rational man of sound reason, his reading of books of chivalry in excess has had a profound effect on him, le... |
8547 | /m/02ct8 | Deuteronomy | null | null | null | (The following "literary" outline of Deuteronomy is from John Van Seters; it can be contrasted with Alexander Rofé's "covenantal" analysis in his Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation.) *Chapters 1–4: The journey through the wilderness from Horeb (Sinai) to Kadesh and then to Moab is recalled. *Chapters 4–11: After a... |
8567 | /m/02cxx | Dune Messiah | Frank Herbert | 1969 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Twelve years after the events described in Dune (1965), Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul had unleashed a jihad which conquered most of the known universe. While Paul is the most powerful Emperor ever known, he is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of th... |
8757 | /m/02fck | Darwin's Dangerous Idea | Daniel Dennett | 1995 | {"/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/06mq7": "Science"} | "Starting in the Middle", Part I of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, gets its name from a quote by Willard Van Orman Quine: "Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distance objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the ... |
9000 | /m/02h3j | Death of a Hero | Richard Aldington | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Death of a Hero is the story of a young English artist named George Winterbourne who enlists in the army at the outbreak of World War I. The book is narrated by an unnamed first-person narrator who claims to have known and served with the main character. It is divided into three parts. The first part details George's ... |
9662 | /m/02mr5 | Exodus | null | null | {"/m/02mdj1": "Religious text"} | Egypt's Pharaoh, fearful of the Israelites' numbers, orders that all newborn boys be thrown into the Nile. A Levite woman saves her baby by setting him adrift on the river in an ark of bulrushes. Pharaoh's daughter finds the child, names him Moses, and brings him up as her own. But Moses is aware of his origins, and o... |
10861 | /m/02y0f | The Trial | Franz Kafka | 1925 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0pym5": "Absurdist fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | On his thirtieth birthday, the chief financial officer of a bank, Josef K., is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. The agents' boss later arrives and holds a mini tribunal in the room of K.'s neighbor, Fräulein Bürstner. K. is not taken away, however, b... |
10862 | /m/02y0x | The Metamorphosis | null | 1915 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/0pym5": "Absurdist fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | One day Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a "ungeheuren Ungeziefer", literally "monstrous vermin", often interpreted as a giant bug or insect. He believes it is a dream, and reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesmen is. He looks at the wall clock and realizes that ... |
10951 | /m/02yqq | Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | 1953 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | On a rainy night while returning from his job, Guy Montag is followed by a cheery, 17-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse initially bothers Montag with her incessant questions (and Clarisse is a bit bothered by Montag's uncalled-for reactions, such as laughing when she hasn't said anything funny), but Mon... |
11745 | /m/033fm | Farmer Giles of Ham | J. R. R. Tolkien | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Farmer Giles (Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, "Giles Bronze-beard Julius Farmer of Ham") is not a hero. He is fat and red-bearded and enjoys a slow, comfortable life. But a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blunders on to his land, and Giles manages to ward him away with a blunderbuss shot in his gener... |
12253 | /m/036xv | Gaudy Night | Dorothy L. Sayers | 1935 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Harriet Vane returns reluctantly to Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety, she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life. Some time later the Warden of Shrewsbury writes to ask for help. There has been an outbreak of anon... |
12464 | /m/038kg | Gylfaginning | Snorri Sturluson | null | null | The Gylfaginning tells the story of Gylfi, a king of "the land that men now call Sweden", who after being tricked by one of the goddesses of the Æsir, wonders if all Æsir use magic and tricks for their will to be done. This is why he journeys to Asgard, but on the way he is tricked by the gods and arrives in some othe... |
12653 | /m/03b1x | God Emperor of Dune | Frank Herbert | 5/28/1981 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The seemingly immortal God Emperor Leto II has ruled his Empire for more than 3,500 years, his lifespan lengthened due to his decision in Children of Dune to merge his human body with sandtrout, the haploid phase of the giant sandworms of Arrakis. His continued evolution has slowly transformed him, altering his human ... |
12667 | /m/03b5d | Genesis | null | null | {"/m/02mdj1": "Religious text"} | God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh after giving mankind his first commandment: "be fruitful and multiply". God pronounces the world "very good", but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and God sends a deluge (a great flood) to destroy it, saving only the righteous (Noah) and his family, f... |
12995 | /m/03dj5 | Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | 6/30/1936 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Gone with the Wind takes place in the southern United States in the state of Georgia during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877) that followed the war. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of rebellion wherein seven southern states, Georgia among them, have declared their secessi... |
13535 | /m/03j5j | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | 1899 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella", "/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef"} | 'Heart of Darkness' opens in first person narrative; our narrator establishes the setting aboard a sailboat, "The Nellie, a cruising yawl," anchored in the Thames River near Gravesend (England). It is somewhat hazy and late in the day. Aboard are four others: the Director of Companies (the captain), the Lawyer ("the b... |
13554 | /m/03j9w | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | null | null | The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark, son of deceased King Hamlet and his wife, Queen Gertrude. The story opens on a chilly night at Elsinore, the Danish royal castle. Francisco, one of the sentinels, is relieved of his watch by Bernardo, another sentinel, and exits while Bernardo remains. A third sen... |
13871 | /m/03lvx | Heretics of Dune | Frank Herbert | 1984 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Much has changed in the millennium and a half since the death of the God Emperor. Sandworms have reappeared on Arrakis (now called Rakis) and renewed the flow of the all-important spice melange to the galaxy. With Leto's death, a hugely complex economic system built on spice collapsed, resulting in trillions leaving k... |
14311 | /m/03q5b | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 1884 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Two young boys, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier ad... |
15055 | /m/03wqm | Ivanhoe | Walter Scott | 1819 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Wilfred of Ivanhoe is disinherited by his father Cedric of Rotherwood for supporting the Norman King Richard and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, Cedric's ward and a descendant of the Saxon Kings of England. Cedric had planned to marry her to the powerful Lord Aethelstane, pretender to the Crown of England th... |
15608 | /m/03_b7 | Johnny Got His Gun | Dalton Trumbo | 1939 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a p... |
17414 | /m/04fpm | Icehenge | Kim Stanley Robinson | 1984 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Icehenge is part mystery, part psychological drama, and is set in three distinct time periods. The story shifts from a failed Martian political revolution of 2248, to an expedition to explore a mysterious monument on the north pole of Pluto three centuries later, and ultimately to a space station orbiting Saturn, home... |
18187 | /m/04mbf | Leviticus | null | null | null | Chapters 1–5 describe the various sacrifices from the sacrificers' point of view, although the priests are essential for handling the blood. Chapters 6–7 go over much the same ground, but from the point of view of the priest, who, as the one actually carrying out the sacrifice and dividing the "portions", needs to kno... |
18560 | /m/04py7 | Leaf by Niggle | J. R. R. Tolkien | null | null | In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not much value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to detail, making every leaf uniquely beautiful. Niggle ends up ... |
18866 | /m/04rt6 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | null | null | The play opens amidst thunder and lightning, and the Three Witches decide that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generalsMacbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquohave just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Irela... |
19002 | /m/04svn | Microserfs | Douglas Coupland | 1995-06 | {"/m/02ql9": "Epistolary novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The plot of the novel has two distinct movements: the events at Microsoft and in Redmond, Washington, and the movement to Silicon Valley and the "Oop!" project. The novel begins in Redmond as the characters are working on different projects at Microsoft's main campus. Life at the campus feels like a feudalistic societ... |
19859 | /m/04_m6 | Moby-Dick; or, The Whale | Herman Melville | 1851-10-18 | {"/m/07m5w1": "Sea story", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | "Moby-Dick" begins with the line "Call me Ishmael." According to the American Book Review's rating in 2011, this is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next ... |
20361 | /m/053lw | Moonfleet | J. Meade Falkner | 1898 | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | In 1757, Moonfleet is a small village near the sea in the south of England. It gets its name from a formerly prominent local family, the Mohunes, whose coat of arms included a symbol shaped like a capital 'Y'. John Trenchard is an orphan who lives with his aunt, Miss Arnold. Other notable residents are the sexton Mr R... |
21725 | /m/05g5q | Neuromancer | William Gibson | 7/1/1984 | {"/m/01qpc": "Cyberpunk", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a talented computer hacker, Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, Case's central nervous system was damaged with a mycotoxin, leaving him unable to use keyboard skills to access the globa... |
21861 | /m/05h8j | Cryptonomicon | Neal Stephenson | 1999 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The action takes place in two periods: the Second World War and the late 1990s, during the Internet boom. In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young U.S. Navy code breaker and mathematical genius, is assigned to the newly formed joint British and American Detachment 2702. This ultra-secret unit's role is to hide ... |
22113 | /m/05k0h | No Logo | Naomi Klein | 2000-01 | {"/m/09s1f": "Business", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction", "/m/02j62": "Economics", "/m/0h5k": "Anthropology", "/m/06ms6": "Sociology", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book comprises four sections: "No Space", "No Choice", "No Jobs", and "No Logo". The first three deal with the negative effects of brand-oriented corporate activity, while the fourth discusses various methods people have taken in order to fight back. The book begins by tracing the history of brands. Klein argues t... |
22349 | /m/05lm8 | Odyssey | Nextext | null | null | The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War that is the subject of the Iliad, and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father’s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 bois... |
22460 | /m/05mdd | Othello | William Shakespeare | null | null | The play opens with Roderigo, a rich and dissolute gentleman, complaining to Iago, a high-ranking soldier, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. He is upset by this development because he l... |
22808 | /m/05q4s | On War | Carl von Clausewitz | 1832 | null | The book contains a wealth of historical examples used to illustrate its various concepts. Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) figures prominently for having made very efficient use of the limited forces at his disposal, though Napoleon is perhaps the central figure. According to Azar Gat, the "general message" of the... |
23279 | /m/05srj | The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch | Philip K. Dick | 1965 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The story begins in a future world where global warming has resulted in global temperatures so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for c... |
23280 | /m/05sry | Time out of Joint | Philip K. Dick | 1959 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | As the novel opens, its protagonist Ragle Gumm believes that he lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper competition called, "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tu... |
23281 | /m/05ssb | A Scanner Darkly | Philip K. Dick | 1977 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture, and from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotic... |
23285 | /m/05stq | Radio Free Albemuth | Philip K. Dick | 1985 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | In this alternate history the corrupt US President Ferris F. Fremont (FFF for 666, ‘F’ being the 6th letter in the alphabet, see Number of the Beast) becomes Chief Executive in the late Nineteen-Sixties following Lyndon Johnson's administration. The character is best described as an amalgam of Joseph McCarthy and Rich... |
24162 | /m/060xy | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | 1813-01-28 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The narrative opens with Mr Bingley, a wealthy, charming and social young bachelor, moving into Netherfield Park in the neighbourhood of the Bennet family. Mr Bingley is soon well received, while his friend Mr Darcy makes a less favorable first impression by appearing proud and condescending at a ball that they attend... |
24861 | /m/066v3 | Pale Fire | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Shade's poem digressively describes many aspects of his life. Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of what he takes to be the supernatural. Canto 2 is about his family and the apparent suicide of his daughter, Hazel Shade. Canto 3 focuses on Shade's search for knowledge about an afterlife, cul... |
24965 | /m/067ld | Pacific Overtures | Stephen Sondheim | null | null | ;Act I Conceived as a sort of Japanese playwright's version of an American musical about American influences on Japan, Pacific Overtures begins its journey to the present day in July 1853. Since the foreigners were driven from the island empire, explains the Reciter, there has been nothing to threaten the changeless c... |
25821 | /m/06fsr | Romeo and Juliet | William Shakespeare | null | null | The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet supporters who are sworn enemies. The Prince of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter, but Capulet asks Paris to wait a... |
25830 | /m/06fwq | Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead | Tom Stoppard | 1967 | {"/m/0pym5": "Absurdist fiction"} | The play opens with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz, who bets heads each time, wins ninety-two flips in a row. The extreme unlikeliness of this event according to the laws of probability leads Guildenstern to suggest that they may be "within un-, sub- or supernatural forces". The reader... |
26052 | /m/06hf1 | Ringworld | Larry Niven | 1970 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel opens in 2850. Louis Gridley Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday. Despite his age, Louis is in perfect physical condition but is bored. He has experienced life thoroughly, and is thinking of taking a trip to and beyond the reaches of Known Space, all alone in a spaceship for a year or more. He is confronted... |
26436 | /m/06l7y | Rent | Jonathan Larson | null | null | On Christmas Eve at 9 P.M. Mark Cohen, an aspiring filmmaker, begins a new documentary, as his roommate, Roger Davis, tunes up his guitar ("Tune Up #1") but they are quickly interrupted by a call from Mark's mother, who claims she was sorry to hear about his break-up with Maureen Johnson ("Voicemail #1"). Roger and Ma... |
26476 | /m/06lm3 | Rendezvous with Rama | Arthur C. Clarke | 1972 | {"/m/03lrw": "Hard science fiction", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | After a major disaster caused by a meteorite falling in Eastern Italy in 2077, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space. The "Rama" of the title is an alien star ship, initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as "31/439". It is detected by astronomers ... |
27490 | /m/06vh_ | Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | 1811 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate, Norland Park, passes directly to his only son John, the child of his first wife. His second wife, Mrs. Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, are left only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood extracts a promise from his son, that he will take care of... |
28230 | /m/06_qc | Speaker for the Dead | Orson Scott Card | 1986 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | On Novinha's request for a Speaker, Andrew Wiggin leaves for Lusitania, a colony turned into a virtual prison, with its expansion severely limited and its whole existence devoted to the work of xenologers who study the Pequeninos, the first sentient beings found since the destruction of Formics. Lusitania itself is re... |
28426 | /m/0716m | Starship Troopers | Robert A. Heinlein | 1959-12 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Starship Troopers takes place in the midst of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation of Earth and the Arachnids (referred to as "The Bugs") of Klendathu. It is narrated as a series of flashbacks by Juan Rico, and is one of only a few Heinlein novels set out in this fashion. The novel opens with Rico aboard ... |
28833 | /m/074g8 | Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | Pearl Poet | 2007 | {"/m/05qgc": "Poetry"} | In Camelot on New Year's Day King Arthur's court is exchanging gifts and waiting for the feasting to start when the king asks first to see or hear of an exciting adventure. At this a gigantic figure, entirely green in appearance and riding a green horse, rides unexpectedly into the hall. He wears no armour but bears a... |
29414 | /m/078y6 | Stuart Little | E. B. White | 1945 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story is episodic. First we learn of Stuart's birth to a family in New York City and how the family adapts, socially and structurally, to having such a small son. He has an adventure in which he gets caught in a window-blind while exercising, and Snowbell, the family cat, places Stuart's hat and cane outside a mou... |
29798 | /m/07bz5 | The Lord of the Rings | J. R. R. Tolkien | null | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/050z5g": "Chivalric romance", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | Long before the events of the novel, the Dark Lord Sauron forges the One Ring to dominate the other Rings of Power and corrupt those who wear them: the leaders of Men, Elves and Dwarves. He is vanquished in battle by an alliance of Elves and Men. Isildur cuts the One Ring from Sauron's finger, claiming it as an heirlo... |
29821 | /m/07c2t | The Doors of Perception | Aldous Huxley | 1954 | {"/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | After a brief overview of research into mescaline, Huxley recounts that he was given 4/10 of a gram at 11:00 am one day in May 1953. Huxley writes that he hoped to gain insight into extraordinary states of mind and expected to see brightly colored visionary landscapes. When he only sees lights and shapes, he puts this... |
29834 | /m/07c62 | The Time Machine | H. G. Wells | 1895 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/07s2s": "Time travel", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia", "/m/01gw42": "Scientific romance"} | The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine fo... |
29991 | /m/07ctj | The Shockwave Rider | John Brunner | 1975 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is set in the weeks following Nick's recapture after several years on the run, alternating between moral arguments with his interrogator, who is trying to discover why the program's star pupil had absconded, and flashbacks of his career. The interrogator is Paul Freeman, a graduate of another secret installa... |
29999 | /m/07cvr | The Shining | Stephen King | 1977-01 | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In 1976, Jack Torrance is an aspiring writer who is attempting to rebuild his marriage and career, both of which have been nearly ruined by two traits inherited from his late father: alcoholism and an explosive temper. During one occasion while drinking, Jack broke his son's arm. This incident shocked him into sobriet... |
30033 | /m/07d4x | Mort | Terry Pratchett | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | As a teenager, Mort had a personality and temperament that made him rather unsuited to the family farming business. Mort's father, named Lezek, felt that Mort thought too much, which prevented him from achieving anything practical. Thus, Lezek took him to a local hiring fair, hoping that Mort would land an apprentices... |
30280 | /m/07g52 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Arthur Conan Doyle | 1901 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying dead on the grounds of his country house, Baskerville Hall. The cause is ascribed to a heart attack. Fearing for the safety of Sir Charles's nephew and only known heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, coming from America to claim his inheritance, Dr James Mortimer travels to London and as... |
30292 | /m/07g75 | The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | 1937 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/017ssy": "Juvenile fantasy", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "bur... |
30706 | /m/07k85 | The Great Divorce | C. S. Lewis | 1945 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/06bvp": "Religion"} | The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the "grey town", which is either hell or purgatory depending on how long one stays there. He eventually finds a bus for those who desire an excursion to some other place (and which eventually turns out to be the foothills of heaven). He enters the bus... |
30709 | /m/07k8z | The Screwtape Letters | C. S. Lewis | 1942 | {"/m/02ql9": "Epistolary novel", "/m/03rllnc": "Inspirational", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, as seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarch... |
30757 | /m/07kmq | The Pit and the Pendulum | Nancy Kilpatrick | 1842 | {"/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0707q": "Short story"} | The story takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. At the beginning of the story an unnamed narrator is brought to trial before various sinister judges. Poe provides no explanation of why he is there or for what he has been arrested. Before him are seven tall white candles on a table, and, as they melt, his hopes o... |
30761 | /m/07knm | The Hunt for Red October | Tom Clancy | 1984 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Marko Alexandrovich Ramius, a Lithuanian submarine commander in the Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the United States with his officers on board the experimental nuclear submarine Red October, a Typhoon-class vessel equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system, described as an arrangement of pump-jets nic... |
30762 | /m/07kp1 | The Cardinal of the Kremlin | Tom Clancy | 1988 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | CIA analyst Jack Ryan attends a diplomatic conference in Moscow as part of an American delegation to the Soviet Union. He learns that the CIA’s most highly-placed agent, codenamed "CARDINAL", is none other than Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov, the personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and a national war ... |
30763 | /m/07kpf | Debt of Honor | Tom Clancy | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In New York City, Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata purchases a controlling interest in an American hedge fund. He flies to Saipan — the site of his parents' suicide during the American invasion of the island at the close of World War II — to buy a large tract of land. Meanwhile, in eastern Tennessee, a ca... |
30971 | /m/07m5q | Tunnel in the Sky | Robert A. Heinlein | 1955 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A Malthusian catastrophe on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the "Ramsbotham jump", which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can justify two-way travel.... |
31283 | /m/07pn6 | The Mismeasure of Man | Stephen Jay Gould | 1981 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction", "/m/06mq7": "Science"} | The Mismeasure of Man is a critical analysis of the early works of scientific racism about the supposed, biologically inherited (genetic) basis for human intelligence, such as craniometry, the measurement of skull volume and its relation to intellectual faculties. Gould proposed that much of the research was based mor... |
31342 | /m/07pzw | The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | 1890 | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel begins on a beautiful summer day with Lord Henry Wotton, a strongly-opinionated man, observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray, who is Basil's ultimate muse. After hearing Lord Henry's world view, Dorian begins to think beauty is the only wo... |
31431 | /m/07qs_ | The Book of the City of Ladies | null | null | null | Part I opens with Christine reading from Matheolus’s Lamentations, a work from the thirteenth century that addresses marriage wherein the author writes that women make men’s lives miserable. Upon reading these words, Christine becomes upset and feels ashamed to be a woman: “This thought inspired such a great sense of ... |
31434 | /m/07qv5 | The Sentinel | Arthur C. Clarke | 1951 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon m... |
31435 | /m/07qvl | The Fountains of Paradise | Arthur C. Clarke | 1979 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | In the 22nd century, Dr Vannevar Morgan is a famous structural engineer who hopes to develop the 'space elevator' from a theoretical concept to reality and enlists the resources of his employers to carry out experiments. But the only suitable starting point (Earth station) for the elevator lies at the summit of a moun... |
31584 | /m/07s0_ | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | 1954 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes onto an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are male children below the age of thirteen. Two boys, the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy reluctantly nicknamed "Piggy" find a conch, which Ralph uses... |
31623 | /m/07s8w | Through the Looking-Glass | Lewis Carroll | 1871 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty")—the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the ... |
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