179. ENDER'S GAME

Orson Scott Card 1985

In this intense and captivating science/fantasy fiction, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggins is only six years old when he is chosen by the futuristic government to defeat the aliens who have previously attacked earth twice. He is forced to leave his parents, brother Peter (whom he hates) and sister Valentine (whom he loves), to train with all the other new recruits called 'launchies' in the space station known as the Battle Room. Ender immediately feels and endures the escalating isolation and hardship the training entails. Does he have what it takes to become commander and finally defeat the 'buggers'?

"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."(opening lines)

'I'm sorry if you're lonely and afraid. But the buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know. With as many ships, for all we know. With weapons we can't understand. And a willingness to use those weapons to wipe us out. It isn't the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire.'(35)

'Dap came to the door that night and moved quietly among the beds, touching a hand there, a forehead there. Where he went there was more crying, not less. The touch of kindness in this frightening place was enough to push some over the edge into tears. Not Ender, though. When Dap came, his crying was over, and his face was dry. It was the lying face he presented to Mother and Father, when Peter had been cruel to him and dared not to let it show. Thank you for this, Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever. I need that now.'(45)

'And instead of pushing his face into one of the liquids, he kicked one over, then the other, and dodged the Giant's huge hands as the Giant shouted, "Cheater, cheater!" He jumped at the Giant's face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant's eye. The stuff came away like cottage cheese, and as the Giant screamed, Ender's figure burrowed into the eye, climbed right in, burrowed in and in.'(64-65)

"Colonel Graff, the games have always been run fairly before. Either random distribution of stars, or symmetrical."
"Fairness is a wonderful attribute, Major Anderson. It has nothing to do with war."(97)

"It doesn't mean he's crazy, Dink."
"I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. We're not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't commanders, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get crazy.'(108)

'You've been isolating the boy. Maybe he's writing for the end of this world, the Battle School. Or maybe it's about the end of the world he grew up with us a little boy, his home, coming here. Or maybe it's his way of coping with having broken up so many other kids here. Ender's sensitive kid, you know, and he's done some pretty bad things to people's bodies, he might be wishing for the end of that world."
"Or none of the above."
"The mind game is a relationship between the child and the computer. Together they create stories. The stories are true, in the sense that they reflect the reality of the child's life. That's all I know.'(121)

'Writing was something Val did better than Peter. They both knew it. Peter had even named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselves, and bully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best about themselves, and flatter them. It was a cynical way of putting it, but it was true. Valentine could persuade other people to her point of view -- she could convince them that they wanted what she wanted them to want, Peter, on the other hand, could only make them fear what he wanted them to fear.'(127)

'Isolation -- is the optimum environment for creativity.'(149)

'And the despair filled him again. Now he knew why. Now he knew what he hated so much. He had no control over his own life. They ran everything. They made all the choices. Only the game was left to him, that was all, everything else was them and their rules and their plans and lessons and programs, and all he could do was go this way or that way in battle. The one real thing, the one precious real thing was his memory of Valentine, the person who loved him before he ever played a game, who loved him whether there was a bugger was or not...'(151)

'Well, what I've done to you this day, Bean, I've done. But I'll be watching you, more compassionately than you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the soldier you want to be.'(168)

"Two faces of the same coin. And I am the metal in between." Even as she said it, she wondered if it was true. She had shared so much with Peter these last few years that even when she thought she despised him, she understood him. While Ender had been only a memory till now. A very small, fragile boy who needed her protection. Not this cold-eyed, dark-skinned manling who killed wasps with his fingers. Maybe he and Peter and I are all the same, and have been all along. Maybe we only thought we were different from each other out of jealousy.'(236)

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in the very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in the very moment when I love them --"(238)

'Billions of those connections between human beings. That's what you're fighting to keep alive.'(244)

'He had long since learned that when something unusual was going on, something that was part of someone else's plan and not his own, he would find out more information by waiting than by asking. Adults almost always lost their patience before Ender did.'(260)

'Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is to choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.'(313)

a Tor Book edition
324 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100 + Reading Challenge
Book idea from Jillian @ Random Ramblings (thanks!). Her review is HERE.

172. TUCK EVERLASTING

Natalie Babbitt 1975

This is definitely a charming older children's fantasy book!! Winnie Foster's family owns the Treegap Wood, and is unaware that there-in lies a spring whose water when consumed imparts everlasting life. The Tucks (Angus, Mae, Miles and Jesse) know this secret and would like to keep the knowledge (for good reasons) away from others... except maybe Winnie.  Will Winnie take advantage of this amazing chance? Would you?

'The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.'(opening lines)

'But things come together in strange ways. The wood was a the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A Ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.'(4)

'Nothing ever seems interesting when it belongs to you -- only when it doesn't.'(7)

'In the end, however, it was the cows who were responsible for the wood's isolation, and the cows, through some wisdom they were not wise enough to know that they possessed, were very wise indeed. If they had made their road through the wood instead of around it, then the people would have followed the road. The people would have noticed the giant ash trees at the center of the wood, and then, in time, they'd noticed the little spring bubbling up among its roots in spite of the pebbles piled there to conceal it. And that would have been a disaster so immense that this weary old earth, owned or not to its fiery cone, would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin.'(8)

'Mae Tuck didn't need a mirror, though she had one propped up on the washstand. She knew very well what she would see in it; her reflection had long since ceased to interest her. For Mae Tuck, and her husband, and Miles and Jesse, too, had all looked exactly the same for eighty-seven years.'(12)

'For the wood was full of light, entirely different from the light she was used to. It was green and amber and alive, quivering in splotches on the padded ground, fanning into sturdy stripes between the tree trunks. There were little flowers she did not recognize, white and palest blue; and endless, tangled vines; and here and there a fallen log, half rotted but soft with patches of sweet green-velvet moss.
And there were creatures everywhere. The air fairly hummed with their daybreak activity: beetles and birds and squirrels and ants, and countless other things unseen, all gentle and self-absorbed and not in the least alarming. There was even, she saw with satisfaction, the toad.'(24)

"We don't know how it works, or even why," said Miles.
"Pa thinks it's something left over from -- well, from some other plan for the way the world should be," said Jesse. "Some plan that didn't work out too good. And so everything was changed. Except that the spring was passed over, somehow or other."(41)

"Life's got to be lived, no matter how long or short," she said calmly. "You got to take what comes. We just go along, like everybody else, one day at a time."(54)

"Know what happens then?" said Tuck. "To the water? The sun sucks some of it up right out of the ocean and carries it back in clouds, and then it rains, and the rain falls into the stream, and the stream keeps moving on, taking it all back again. It's a wheel, Winnie. Everything's a wheel, turning it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is."(62)

"The way I see it," Miles went on, "it's no good hiding yourself away, like Pa and lots of other people. And it's no good just thinking of your own pleasure, either. People got to do something useful if they're going to take up space in the world."(86-87)

First Square Fish Edition 2007
139 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
Book idea from Melissa@ The Avid Reader's Musings (thanks!!)
______________________________________________

Literary Giveaway Blog Hop Winner:

After assigning numbers 1-187 to the valid entries (comments with an e-mail address) in the order that they were posted (minus any duplications), the winning number picked through Random.org is:

#115 - stacybuckeye

Congratulations!! Thanks to all who participated.

152. the PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH

Norton Juster 1961
Illustrations by Jules Feiffer

A really smart children's book guaranteed to take you to Wordplay heaven as it gently satirizes the art of Rhetoric! After the always bored Milo receives a mysterious tollbooth, he drives through to the road of Expectation.  He soon meets Humbug and dog Tock who become his companions to the Land of Wisdom. This land has had two conflicting cities, Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, in chaos after the loss of the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason. They are off to their rescue and the adventure of visiting such charming places as: the Islands of Conclusions, the Valley of Sound, Mountains of Ignorance and the Sea of Knowledge; meeting fantastic characters such as: the not-so-wicked Which, Chroma, Dr. Kakofonous A. Dischord, the awful Dyne, the Soundkeeper, the Dodecahedron, the Half Boy, the Whether Man, Alec Bings, the Gorgons of Hate and Malice, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher; and encountering the demons: the demon of  Insincerity, the Overbearing Know-it-all, the Gross Exaggeration, the Threadbare Excuse, the Terrible Trivium, the Gelatinous Giant and the Ugly Dilemma.  See what I mean?

'There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself -- not just sometimes but always.'(opening line)

"ONE GENUINE TURNPIKE TOLLBOOTH," it stated -- and then it went on:
EASILY ASSEMBLED AT HOME, AND FOR USE BY THOSE WHO NEVER TRAVELED IN LANDS BEYOND."(12)

'It shall be unlawful, illegal, and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate, or speculate while in the Doldrums.'(24)

"Well," continued the watchdog impatiently, "since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."(31)

'"I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.
"Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock.'(44)

"Of course not," replied Alec, sitting himself down on nothing. "It's only mine, and you certainly can't always look at things from someone else's Point of View. For instance, from here that looks like a bucket of water," he said pointing to a bucket of water; " but from an ant's point of view, it's a vast ocean, from an elephant's just a cool drink, and to a fish, of course, it's home. So, you see, the way you see things depends on a great deal on where you look at them from."(107-108)

"I know one thing for certain: it's much harder to tell whether you are lost than whether you were lost, for, on many occasions, where you're going is exactly where you are. On the other hand, you often find that where you've been is not at all where you should have gone, and, since it's much more difficult to find your way back from someplace you've never left, I suggest you go there immediately and then decide.'(114)

"Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?" she inquired. "Or the quiet and calm just as the storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully.'(151-152)

"But I wouldn't worry too much about it, for you can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.'(169-170)

"If you had high hopes, how would you know how high they were? And did you know that narrow escapes come in all different widths? Would you travel the whole wide world without ever knowing how wide it was? And how could you do anything at long last," he concluded, waving his arms over his head, "without knowing how long the last was? Why, numbers are the most beautiful and valuable things in the world."(177)

"I'm the demon of insincerity," he sobbed. "I don't mean what I say, I don't mean what I do, and I don't mean what I am. Most people who believe what I tell them go the wrong way, and stay there..."(217)

"I warned you; I warned you I was the Senses Taker," sneered the Senses Taker. "I help people find what they're not looking for, hear what they're not listening for, run after what they're not chasing, and smell what isn't even there. And, furthermore," he cackled, hopping around gleefully on his stubby legs, "I'll steal your sense of purpose, take your sense of duty, destroy your sense of proportion -- and, but for one thing, you'd be helpless yet."(230)

"You must never feel badly about making mistakes." explained Reason quietly, "as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."(233)

'... so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.'(247)

a Dell Yearling Book
255 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

147. MARY POPPINS

P.L. Travers 1934
illustrated by Mary Sheppard

Although I must admit, I read this children's book with the Disney version's music humming in my head, this book is so different, in a good way, from the movie. Mary Poppins is the stern and slightly self-centered magical nanny who brings adventures to Jane and Michael Bank's life as they meet a cast of many adorable characters, each imparting their own subtle messages: the Match-Man who brings his paintings to life, Andrew the pedigree dog who wishes to be common, Mr Wigg who couldn't stop laughing, the Red cow who couldn't stop dancing, the Bird Woman who couldn't stop singing, the wise King Hamadryad and the pleiadian Maia. 

'If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads. He will push his helmet slightly to one side, scratch his head thoughtfully, and then he will point his huge white-gloved finger and say: "First to your right, second to your left, sharp right again, and you're there. Good morning."(opening lines)

'With her large bag in her hands she slid gracefully up the banisters, and arrived at the landing at the same time as Mrs. Banks. Such a thing, Jane and Michael knew, had never been done before. Down, of course, for they had often done it themselves. But up -- never! They gazed curiously at the strange new visitor.'(8-9)

'But Mary Poppins's eyes were fixed upon him, and Michael suddenly discovered that you could not look at Mary Poppins and disobey her. There was something strange and extraordinary about her -- something that was frightening and at the same time most exciting.'(11-12)

"Mary," he said, "I got an idea! A real idea. Why don't we go there -- right now -- this very day? Both together, into the picture. Eh, Mary? And still holding her hands he drew her right out of the street, away from the iron railings and the lamp-posts, into the very middle of the picture. Pff! There they were, right inside it!'(21)

'Mr Wigg went on calmly. "You see, it's this way. I'm a cheerful sort of man and very disposed to laughter. You wouldn't believe, either of you, the number of things that strike me as being funny. I can laugh at pretty nearly everything. I can."(32-33)

'The Red Cow, drawing in her breath, gave one huge tremendous jump and the earth fell away beneath her... She herself shot upwards through the sky, with the stars spinning around her like great golden plates, and presently, in blinding light, she felt the cold rays of the moon upon her. She shut her eyes as she went over it, and as the dazzling gleam passed behind her and she bent her head towards the earth again, she felt the star slip down her horn. With a great rush it fell off and went rolling down the sky. And it seemed to her that as it disappeared into the darkness great chords of music came from it and echoed though the air.'(77)

"Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag! Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag! Feed the Birds, Tuppence a bag, Tuppence a Bag!" Over the over again, the same thing, in a high chanting voice that made the words seem like a song.'(106)

"You'll forget because you can't help it.. There never was a human being that remembered after the age of one -- at the very latest -- except of course, Her." And he jerked his head over his shoulder at Mary Poppins.'(140)

"And after all," he went on, flicking his terrible little forked tongue in and out as he spoke, "it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us -- the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star -- we are all one, all moving to the same end."(172-173)

"... the whole point of Christmas is that things should be given away, isn't it?"(188)

Scholastic Book Services edition
206 pages
Book owned
Post book cover picture from Goodreads
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

144. CHARLIE and the CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Roald Dahl 1964
Illustrated by Quentin Blake

A marvelous and endearing story that is a must read for all!! When good little Charlie and four other children: greedy Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde and television addict Mike Teavee win the golden tickets to tour the mysterious chocolate factory, we share in the absolute delight and suspense of discovering the wonderful and delicious, mouth-watering world of Mr. Wonka and his music-loving Oompa-Loompas. 

'These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine.(opening lines)

'Every one of these old people was over ninety. They were as shriveled as prunes, and bony as skeletons, and throughout the day, until Charlie made his appearance, they lay huddled in their one bed, two at either end, with nightcaps on to keep their heads warm, dozing the time away with nothing to do...  For they loved this little boy. He was the only bright thing in their lives, and his evening visits were something that they looked forward to all day long. Often, Charlie's mother and father would come in as well, and stand by the door, listening to the stories that the old people told; and thus, for perhaps half an hour every night, this room would become a happy place, and the whole family would forget that it was hungry and poor.'(8)

"Mr. Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing gum that never loses its taste, and candy balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And by a most secret method, he can make lovely birds' eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.'(11-12)

'To tell you the honest truth, I simply wouldn't feel comfortable if I didn't have a little wedge of gum to chew on every moment of the day, I really wouldn't. My mother says it's not ladylike and it looks ugly to see a girl's jaws going up and down like mine do all the time, but I don't agree. And who's she to criticize, anyway, because if you ask me, I'd say that her jaws are going up and down almost as much as mine are just from yelling at me every minute of the day."(31)

'There is something about very cold weather that gives one an enormous appetite. Most of us find ourselves beginning to crave rich steaming stews and hot apple pies and all kinds of delicious warming dishes; and because we are all a great deal luckier than we realize, we usually get what we want -- or near enough.'(37)

'He threw up his arms and yelled "Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" And at the same time, his long bony body rose up out of the bed and his bowl of soup went flying into the face of Grandma Josephine, and in one fantastic leap, this old fellow of ninety-six and a half, who hadn't been out of bed these last twenty years, jumped on to the floor and started doing a dance of victory in his pajamas.'(48-49)

'There!" cried Mr. Wonka, dancing up and down and pointing his gold-topped cane at the great brown river. "It's all chocolate! Every drop of that river is hot melted chocolate of the finest quality. The very finest quality. There's enough chocolate in there to fill every bathtub in the entire country! And all the swimming pools as well! Isn't it terrific? And look at my pipes! They suck up the chocolate and carry it away to all the other rooms in the factory where it is needed. Thousands of gallons an hour, my dear children! Thousands and thousands of gallons!"'(64)

'A steamy mist was rising up now from the great warm chocolate river, and out of the mist there appeared suddenly a most fantastic pink boat. It was a large open rowboat with a tall front and a tall back (like a Viking boat of old), and it was of such a shining sparkling glistening pink color that the whole thing looked as though it were made of bright, pink glass. There were many oars on either side of it, and as the boat came closer, the watchers on the riverbank could see that the oars were being pulled by masses of Oompa-Loompas -- at least ten of them to each oar.'(81)

"They're completely new! I am inventing them for children who are given very little pocket money. You can put an Everlasting Gobstopper in your mouth and you can suck it and suck it and suck it and suck it and it will never get any smaller!"(89-90)

'For though she's spoiled, and dreadfully so,

A girl can't spoil herself, you know.

Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed?

Who pandered to her every need?

Who turned her into such a brat? 

Who are the culprits? Who did that?'(117-118)

'So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place you can install

a lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Then fill the shelves with lots of books,

Ignoring all the dirty looks,

The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,

And children hitting you with sticks --

Fear not, because we promise you

That, in about a week or two

Of having nothing else to do,

They'll now begin to feel the need

Of having something good to read.'(141)

a Puffin Book

155 pages

Book owned

Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
___________________________

138. JONATHAN STRANGE & Mr NORRELL

Susanna Clarke 2004

This magnificent history of English magic (oh how I wished there really was one) is truly magical, albeit long, the book by itself as it was written,  and also because of the very detailed footnotes that the author included (they are fascinating though, and worth the read). Set in 19th century England,  the book is as much the story of the ultimate magician John Uskglass, the King Raven, as it is the story of the rivaling practical magicians Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange. The magic is dark and grandiose, but in a quiet sort of way, the telling very imaginative, beautifully descriptive and mesmerizing. 

'Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every  month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.'(opening lines)

'Mr. Segundus wished to know, he said, why modern magicians were unable to work the magic they wrote about. In short, he wished to know why there was no more magic done in England.'(4)

'Mr. Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. "You must get me a house, Childermass," he said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession -- no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."'(40)

"But really a magician has need of so few tools. I will tell you a little trick, my lord, the more apparatus a magician carries about with him -- coloured powders, stuffed cats, magical hats and so forth -- the greater the fraud you will eventually discover him to be!"(108)

"Two magicians shall appear in England..."
A sort of exclamation broke from Mr. Norrell, an exclamation that began as a cry and ended as a soft, unhappy sigh.
"The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy's hand..."(123)

'Curiously, no one noticed that the strange malady that afflicts her ladyship was to a precision the same as that which afflicted Stephen Black. He too complained of feeling tired and cold, and on the rare occasions that either of them said anything, they both spoke in a low, exhausted manner.'(169)

"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."(304)

'Fairies do not make a strong distinction between the animate and the inanimate. They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary sympathy for madness which fairies exhibit.'(365)

'English magic, said Mr Strange, had grown up upon English soil and had in a sense been nurtured by English rain. Mr Strange said that in meddling with English weather, we meddled with England, and in meddling with England, we risked destroying the very foundation of English magic.'(384)

'In the end is it not futile to try and follow the course of a quarrel between husband and wife? Such a conversation is sure to meander more than any other. It draws in tributary arguments and grievances from years before -- all quite incomprehensible to any but the two people they concern most nearly. Neither party is ever proved right or wrong in such a case, or it they are, what does it signify?'(398)

"Without the blessing of health and reason, riches and beauty are worthless indeed!"(427)

'Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.'(452-453)

'It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his son is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him.'(469)

'It is the contention of Mr. Norrell of Hanover-square that everything belonging to John Uskglass must be shaken out of modern magic, as one would shake moths and dust out of an old coat. What does he imagine he will have left. If you get rid of John Uskglass you will be left holding the empty air.'(493)

'In his weakened state Childermass had been thinking aloud. He had meant to say that if what he had seen was true, then everything that Strange and Norrell had ever done was child's play and magic was a much stanger and more terrifying thing than any of them had thought of. Strange and Norrell had been merely throwing paper darts about a parlour, while real magic soared and swooped and twisted on great wings in a limitless sky far, far above them.'(512)

"Such nonsense! declared Dr. Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful?"
"Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflections upon one's imperfections."(587)

"Now I know very little of English magicians. They have always seemed to me parcel of dull, dusty old men -- except for John Uskglass. He is quite another matter! The magician who tamed the otherlanders! The only magician to defeat Death! The magicians whom Lucifer himself was forced to treat as an equal!"(639-640)

'Chauntlucet: a mysterious and ancient spell which encourages the moon to sing. The song the moon knows is apparently very beautiful and can cure leprosy or madness in any who hear it.'(footnote 4, page 695)

"This house is built upon the King's land, with stones from the King's abbey. a river runs by it -- not more than two hundred yards from this room; that river has often borne the King in his royal barge upon its waters. In my kitchen-garden are a pear-tree and an apple-tree -- the direct descendants of some pips spat out by the King when he sat one summer's evening in the Abbot's garden. Let the old abbey stones be our envoy; let the river be our path; let next year's apples and pears from these trees be our handsel. Then we may name him simply 'The King'. These stones, this river, those trees know none other!"(745)

'...and everything changed. The sun came out from behind a cloud; it shone through the winter trees; hundreds of small, bright patches of sunlight appeared. The world became a kind of puzzle or labyrinth. It was like the superstition which says one must not walk upon lines between flag stones -- or the strange magic called the Doncaster Squares which is performed upon a board like a chessboard. Suddenly everything had meaning.'(763)

Bloomsbury Publishing First US Edition 2004
782 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

PERSONAL NOTE: Sorry for the mishap on my inadvertently posting the wrong one. If you are here for my one year anniversary post, it was a premature Ooooops.  But a year already indeed... in a month this blog is one year old. 

136. the LITTLE PRINCE

Antoine de Saint-Exupery 1943
with illustrations by the author
translated from French by Richard Howard

There will always be room on my list for a simple book such as this, a gentle reminder to all of us about what truly is important. When a pilot is forced to land his plane on a desert, he meets an extraordinary Little Prince who teaches him the secret to cherishing life.  The same message keeps getting told in so many ways, I know, but are we actually getting the message? 

'Once when I was six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast.'(opening lines)

'Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.'(2)

'Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does her voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?" They ask: "How old is he? "How many brothers does he have?"..."How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him.'(10)

'Authority is based first of all upon reason.'(31)

'This is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it's because you are truly a wise man.'(32)

'Trying to be witty leads to lying, more or less.'(48)

'But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she's boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.'(63)

'One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.'(63)

'What moves me so deeply about this sleeping little  prince is his loyalty to a flower -- the image of a rose shining within like the flame within a lamp, even when he's asleep...'(69)

'... if you should travel to Africa someday, in the desert. And if you happen to pass by here, I beg you not to hurry past. Wait a little, just under the star!'(85)

A Harvest Book edition
85 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge


Thanks to Suko @ Suko's Notebook for her sidebar picture of the book, the reminder that I finally had to read it. 

133. CHARLOTTE'S WEB

E. B. White 1952
with illustrations by Garth Williams

If you've ever felt nostalgic for a really good, wholesome and hugely entertaining book, this is the book for you.  How can we forget the story of Fern's pet pig Wilbur, who found the most unlikely best friend in a delightful and skillful spider named Charlotte?  It's a  story of friendship and loyalty, set in a place where the children are truly innocent and carefree, where the changing seasons of country life are heralded by creatures such as crickets in the fall, birds in the summer and frogs in the spring, and where even the rat Templeton becomes a helpful and adorable hero.  I love this book now more than I ever did. It is so far my top favorite children's book. 

'"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
"Out to the hoghouse," replied Mrs. Arable. "Some pigs were born last night.'(opening lines)

'The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell -- as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world.'(13)

"What do you mean less than nothing?" replied Wilbur. "I don't think there is any thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something -- even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is."(28)

'The early summer days on a farm are the happiest and fairest days of the year. Lilacs bloom and make the air sweet, and then fade. Apple blossoms come with the lilacs, and the bees visit around among the apple trees. The days grow warm and soft.'(42)

"What do people catch in the Queesborough Bridge --- bugs?" asked Wilbur.
"No," said Charlotte. "They don't catch anything. They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side. If they'd hang head-down at the top of the thing and wait quietly, maybe something good would come along. But no --- with men, it's rush, rush, rush, every minute. I'm glad I'm a sedentary spider."(60)

'Templeton, of course, was miserable over the loss of his beloved egg. But he couldn't resist boasting. "It pays to save things," he said in a surly voice. "A rat never knows when something is going to come in handy. I never throw anything away."(74)

'On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty. This morning each thin strand was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water. The web glistened in the light and made a pattern of loveliness and mystery, like a delicate veil. Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. He noted how clearly it showed up and he noted how big and carefully built it was. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said:

SOME PIG!'(77)

'Wilbur blushed. "But I'm not terrific, Charlotte. I'm just an average for a pig."

"You're terrific as far as I'm concerned," replied Charlotte, sweetly, "and that's what counts. You're my best friend, and I think you're sensational. Now stop arguing and go get some sleep."'(91)

"But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.'(109)

'It is not easy to look radiant, but Wilbur threw himself into it with a will. He would turn his head slightly and blink his long eye-lashes. Then he would breathe deeply. And when his audience grew bored, he would spring into the air and do a back flip with a half twist. At this the crowd would yell and cheer.'(114)

a Harper Trophy Edition

184 pages

Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

129. CORALINE

Neil Gaiman 2002
with illustration by Dave McKean

An enjoyable and imaginative but spooky fairy tale with some eerie illustrations  perfect for older children. Soon after Coraline and her family moves into a new house, she discovers a secret door which leads to her other house, a better, livelier, and altogether more enjoyable replica of her current house, complete with her other neighbors and other parents all distinguishable as others because of their button eyes. She meets a wise black cat who helps her realize that the place isn't really what it seems to be and she soon discovers many appalling things including the fact that her parents have also disappeared. How does she plan her escape and be with her real parents again?

'Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.'(opening line)

'..."The  mice have a message for you... The message is this. Don't go through the door." He paused. "Does that mean anything to you?"(16)

'Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense. She sometimes wondered who they thought they were talking to.'(20)

'She also wondered whether cats could all talk where she come from and just chose not to, or whether they could only talk when they were here---wherever here was.'(38)

'You ask your mother to make you a big old mug of hot chocolate and then give you a great big old hug. There's nothing like hot chocolate and a hug for making the nightmares go away.'(55)

'The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. "Calling cats," it confided, "tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.'(65)

'She put the stone into the pocket of her jeans, and it was as if her head had cleared a little. As if she had come out of some sort of a fog.'(69)

'I'm an explorer, thought Coraline to herself. And I need all the ways out of here that I can get. So I shall keep walking.
The world she was walking through was a pale nothingness, like a blank sheet of paper or an enormous, empty white room. It had no temperature, no smell, no texture, and no taste. '(73)

'The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one---after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?"'(76)

'The other mother smiled. "Mirrors," she said, " are never to be trusted. Now, what game shall we play?"(77)

'Coraline sighed. "You really don't understand, do you?" she said. "I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. what kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn't mean anything, What then?"'(120)

First Harper Trophy edition, 2003
162 pages
Book owned

107. GRACELING

Kristin Cashore 2008

In this refreshing young adult fantasy set in the land of seven kingdoms, where people are born with exceptional abilities called Grace, marked by two different colored eyes, there lives Katsa, an orphan girl with the Grace of Killing. She lives with her uncle Randa, who uses her as a Savage killer against the enemies of his Kingdom Middluns. There also lives Prince Po from the Kingdom of Lienid, known to have a Grace for Fighting, and the only boy who matches Katsa's prowess in combat. They join forces to foil the evil ruler Leck in the Kingdom of Monsea. It was during this quest that Katsa and Po discovers each other's strengths, real Grace and deep love for each other. Although romance is a part of the plot, this one is boldly different and falls secondary to the effective portrayal of a young female blessed with startling beauty, infinite strength, a good heart and an independent streak and survival instinct uniquely her own .

'In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind. One that had so far proven correct, as Oll's maps tended to do.' (opening lines)

'They would assume she was a boy, because in her plain trousers and hood she looked like one, and because when people were attacked it never occurred to anyone that it might have been a girl.'(6)

"I've heard you have one eye green as the Middluns grasses, and the other eye blue as the sky.'(21)

'His eyes. Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven, and strange. She was surprised that they hadn't shone in the darkness of their first meeting. They didn't seem human. She couldn't stop looking at them.'(56)

'Dear Helda. She saw what Katsa was and what she did, and Helda didn't deny that Katsa was that person. But she couldn't fathom a lady who didn't want to be beautiful, who didn't want a legion of admirers. And so she believed Katsa was both people, though Katsa couldn't imagine how she reconciled them in her mind.'(64)

'To Randa she was a savage dog he'd broken and trained. He set her on his enemies and allowed her out of her cage to be groomed and kept pretty, to sit among his friends and make them nervous.'(72)

'She was tired of fighting nine or ten men at once, fully armored men, none of them able to touch her, and she always tempering her blows. It would be thrill, a pure thrill to fight again. To fight him regularly, a dream.'(93)

'Katsa picked up her knife and fork, cut into her mutton, and thought about that. She knew her nature. She would recognize it if she came face-to-face with it. It would be a blue-eyed, green-eyed monster, wolflike and snarling. A vicious beast that struck out at friends in uncontrollable anger, a killer that offered itself as the vessel of the king's fury.'(137)

"I can't know your feelings," he said, "if you don't know them yourself."(162)

'Tears came to her eyes. Mercy was more frightening than murder, because it was harder, and Randa didn't deserve it. And even though she wanted what the voice wanted, she didn't think she had the courage for it.

Po thinks you have the courage, the voice said fiercely. Pretend that you believe he's right. Believe him, for just a moment.'(170)

"... how will I protect myself from him?"

He considered her seriously. "Well. And that's easy." he said. "my Grace will protect me from him. And I'll protect you. You'll be safe with me, Katsa."(222)

'She wasn't angry that there was a person who could provide her with help and protection. That would be arrogance, and she saw that arrogance was foolishness; she should strive for humility-- and there was another way he'd helped her. He'd gotten her thinking about humility. But it wasn't that. It was that she hadn't asked for a person whom she trusted, whom she would do so much for, whom she would give herself over to. She hadn't asked for a person whose absence, if she woke in the middle of the night, would distress her-- not because of protection he would then fail to give, but simply because she wished his company. She hadn't asked for a person whose company she wished.'(227)

'Could she be his lover and still belong to herself?'(234)

'The physical needs that limited other people did not limit her. The things from which other people suffered did not touch her. She knew instinctively how to live and thrive in the wilderness.'(252)

'The very fact of his unhappiness made him unhappy.

"I've no right to feel sorry for myself," he said to her one day, when they'd gone out into a quiet snowfall to fetch water. "I see everything. I see things I shouldn't see. I'm wallowing in self-pity, when I've lost nothing."(450)

"How exactly, when I'm aware of everything above, below, before, behind, and beyond me, am I supposed to keep my mind on the ground beneath my feet?"(453)

a Graphia edition

471 pages

Book owned

95. MOCKINGJAY

Suzanne Collins 2010

In this suspenseful, action-packed third and final book of the Hunger Game Series, Katniss Everdeen becomes the rebels' Mockingjay, the symbol of their all out war against the Capitol and President Snow. Even as this last battle nearly breaks Katniss, she becomes the instrument of change for the city of Panem and the end of the horrible hunger games.

'I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister, Prim, stood.'(opening line)

'In my head I hear President Snow's words, spoken the morning I was to begin the Victory tour. "Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroy Panem.'(6)

'What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn't enough, what I've done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution.'(10)

'Positioned on my dresser, that white-as-snow rose is a personal message to me. It speaks of unfinished business. It whispers. I can find you. I can reach you. perhaps I am watching you now.'(15)

"Once you're in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant," he continues. "All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The pink sky and the monsters in the jungle and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. and it's very costly.'(23)

'I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My on-going struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.'(90)

"President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him... Fire is catching!.. And if we burn, you burn with us!"(99)

"Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't... find out."(113)

'Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.'(124)

'I'm not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks.'(154)

'That I knew that I have misjudged you. That you do love him. I'm not saying in what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him."(156)

'Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survuve without.'(329)

'... collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.'(379)

'What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.'(388)

'Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.'(390)
_______________________________________

First Edition, September 2010
390 pages
Book owned

94. JAMES and the GIANT PEACH

Roald Dahl 1961

In this delightful children's book, James Henry Trotter is an orphan neglected and abused by his cruel Aunts Sponge and Spiker. When a stranger gives him a thousand little green things that were supposed to change his life, he accidentally spills them in the garden and a giant peach soon emerges. Inside this giant peach are the wonderful characters he meets: a Centipede,a grasshopper, a spider, a ladybug, a silkworm and an earthworm. And together, they roll off the hill to sail and fly away into the most fabulous adventure of their life.

'Then one day, James's mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you,and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo.'(1)

'"One thousand long slimy crocodile tongues boiled up in the skull of a dead witch for twenty days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard! Add the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a green parrot, the juice of a porcupine, and three spoonfuls of sugar. Stew for another week, and then let the moon do the rest!"(9)

"Whoever they meet first, be it bug, insect, animal, or tree, that will be the one who gets the full power of their magic! So hold the bag tight! Don't tear the paper! Off you go! Hurry up! Don't wait! Now's the time! Hurry!"(11)

'The two women and the small boy stood absolutely still on the grass underneath the tree, gazing up at this extraordinary fruit. James's little face was glowing with excitement, his eyes were as big and bright as two stars. He could see the peach swelling larger and larger as clearly as if it were a balloon being blown up.'(16)

'Something else, he told himself, something stranger than ever this time, is about to happen to me again soon. He was sure of it. He could feel it coming.'(23)

'So what would you call it if you saw a grasshopper as large as a dog? As large as a large dog? You could hardly call that an insect, could you?'(26)

'A few minutes later, Miss Spider had made the first bed. It was hanging from the ceiling, suspended by a rope of threads at either end so that actually it looked more like a hammock than a bed. But it was a magnificent affair, and the stuff that it was made of shimmered like silk in the pale light.'(31)

'Poor earthworm," the Ladybug said, whispering in James's ear. "He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy. Now isn't that odd? But then, I suppose just being an Earthworm is enough to make a person pretty gloomy, don't you agree?"(49)

"For dinner on my birthday shall I tell you what I chose:
Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose--
And a rather smelly jelly
Made of armadillo's toes.
(The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose.)"(53)

'And now came the big moment. Quickly, the five hundred and second seagull was caught and harnessed to the peach stem...
And then suddenly...
But slowly...
Majestically...
Like some fabulous golden balloon...
With all the seagulls straining at the strings above...'(66)

"If you want to know, I happen to be a 'short-horned' grasshopper. I have two short feelers coming out of my head. Can you see them? There they are. They are quite short, arent' they? That's why they call me a 'short-horn'. And we 'short-horns' are the only ones who play our music in the violin style, using a bow. My 'long-horned' relatives, the ones who have long feelers coming out of their heads, make their music simply by rubbing the edges of their two top wings together. They are not violinists, they are wing-rubbers."(72)

a Puffin Book
119 pages
Book owned

84. The Chronicles of Narnia Series - Book 3: the HORSE and HIS BOY

C.S. Lewis 1954

This is the third book of seven of the chronologically renumbered Narnian series and is set during the time of King Peter's reign in Narnia. While Queen Susan was trying to escape an arranged marriage to Tisroc's son Rashmedah, an orphan boy named Shasta flees his callous adoptive father with the help of a great war Narnian horse named Bree. They meet Aravis, a brave young girl with her Narnian horse Hwin. She is also trying to escape marriage to Tisroc's vizier so they decide to go back to Narnia together. During the journey, Shasta gets mistaken for Corin, a prince from Archenland and they accidentally discover a plot to invade Archenland and Narnia. The book ends well, of course with the help of Aslan, and the happy discovery of Shasta's real identity.

'This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were Kings and Queens under him.'(opening line)

'For one of the poets has said, 'Application to business is the root of prosperity, but those who ask questions that do not concern them are steering the ship of folly toward the rock of indigence.'(3)

"You yourself have wisely said," answered Arsheesh, "that the boy's labor has been to me of inestimable value. This must be taken into account in fixing his price. For if I sell the boy I must undoubtedly either buy or hire another to do his work."(7)

"Narnia," answered the Horse. "The happy land of Narnia-- Narnia of the heathery mountains and the thymy downs, Narnia of the many rivers, the plashing glens, the mossy caverns and the deep forests ringing with the hammers of the Dwarfs. Oh the sweet air of Narnia! An hour's life there is better that a thousand years in Calormen,"(10)

'But in spite of his rude words Bree was a patient teacher. No one can teach riding as well as a horse. Shasta learned to trot, to canter, to jump, and to keep his seat even when Bree pulled up suddenly or swung unexpectedly to the left or the right-- which, as Bree told him, was a thing you might have to do at any moment in a battle.'(24)

'Apparently," thought Shasta to himself, "I'm being mistaken for a prince of Archenland, wherever that is. And these must be Narnians. I wonder where the real Corin is?"(64)

'Shasta lay down beside it with his back against the cat and his face towards the Tombs, because if one is nervous there's nothing like having your face toward the danger and having something warm and solid at your back.'(92)

"My son, by all means desist from kicking the venerable and enlightened Vizier: for as a costly jewel retains its value even if hidden in a dung-hill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects."(119)

'One of the drawbacks about adventures is that when you come to the most beautiful places you are often too anxious and hurried to appreciate them; so that Aravis (though she remembered them years later) had only a vague impression of gray lawns, quietly bubbling fountains, and the long black shadows of cypress trees.'(132)

"Now,' said Bree. "All that about galloping for a day and a night, like in stories, can't really be done. it must be walk and trot: but brisk trots and short walks. And whenever we walk you two humans can slip off and walk too. Now. Are you ready, Hwin? Off we go. Narnia and the North!"(136)

'But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.'(146)

'He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.'(155)

"But that's just the point," groaned Bree. "Do Talking Horses roll? Supposing they don't? I can't bear to give it up. What do you think, Hwin?"(225)

HarperCollins first renumbered Edition
241 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD

80. The Chronicles of Narnia Series-Book 2: the LION, the WITCH and the WARDROBE

C.S. Lewis 1950

My favorite book in this fantasy series, Book 2 opens with the discovery of the Wardrobe built from the magical apple tree planted by Digory Kirke in Book 1. Professor Digory hosts siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensies in his house and they magically disappear to Narnia via the Wardrobe. Fanciful adventures once again ensue when they find that the Witch Jadis has transformed Narnia into an ever white wintry place and they meet Mr. Tumnus, Father Christmas and Giant Rumblebuffin. After a great sacrifice from Aslan changes the course of events, the siblings become the next Kings and Queens of Narnia.

'Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of anti-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country...'(opening lines)

"Meanwhile," said Mr. Tumnus, "it is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long, and we shall both catch cold if we stand here talking in the snow. Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?"(13)

'At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.'(39)

'All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting, in the dark. Peter held the door closed but did not shut it; for, of course, he remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.'(57)

"We're following a guide we know nothing about. How do we know which side that bird is on? Why shouldn't it be leading us into a trap?"
"That's a nasty idea. Still-- a robin, you know. They're good birds in all the stories I've read. I'm sure a robin wouldn't be on the wrong side."(67)

'At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.'(74)

'Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.'(85)

"... and it's on that she bases her claim to be Queen. But she's no Daughter of Eve. She comes of your father Adam's" (here Mr Beaver bowed) "your father Adam's first wife, her they called Lilith. And she was one of the Jinn. That's what she comes from on one side. And on the other she comes of the giants. No, no, there isn't a drop of real human blood in the Witch."(87)

"But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.'(88)

'... but if you have been-- if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you-- you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.'(173)

'Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black or gray or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in the wind. And them imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn't need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of all.(180)

'Giants of any sort are now so rare in England and so few giants are good-tempered that ten to one you have never seen a giant when his face is beaming. It's a sight well worth looking at.'(187)

"Of course," said Aslan. "And now! Those who can't keep up-- that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals-- must ride on the backs of those who can-- that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in the front with us lions to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves."(191)

'But amid all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr. Beaver had warned them, "He'll be coming and going," he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down-- and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild you know. Not like a tame lion."(200)

'Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia.'(206)

HarperCollins first renumbered Edition
206 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD

78. The Chronicles of Narnia Series - Book 1: the MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW

C.S. Lewis 1955

Book 1 of 7 of the chronologically renumbered Chronicles of Narnia Series is where we witness Aslan, the great Lion through his mesmerizing songs create Narnia. The chronicles start in London in the 1900s and we meet Digory Kirke and Polly Plumber exploring a house and then tricked by Digory's Uncle Andrew's magical rings. They found themselves in an In-between place of pools of water that took them to different places: to Charn where they meet evil witch Jadis who is wishing to take over Narnia, back to Earth and then finally to Narnia. So many fantastic adventures happen along the way including the creation of the magical apple tree and the crowning of cab driver Frank and wife Helen as the first King and Queen of Narnia.

'This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.' (opening line)

'But what she noticed first was a bright red wooden tray with a number of rings on it. They were in pairs-- a yellow one and a green one together, then a little space, and then another yellow one and another green one. They were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them because they were so bright.'(12)

'Not just yet,' said Uncle Andrew. 'This is too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted two children. You see, I'm in the middle of a great experiment. I've tried it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can't tell you anything. And you can't explain to it how to come back.'(14)

"And I suppose you've sent Polly into it then," said Digory. His cheeks were flaming with anger now. "And all I can say," he added, "even if you are my Uncle-- is that you've behaved like a coward, sending a girl to a place you're afraid to go to yourself."(25)

'Now the truth was that Uncle Andrew, who knew nothing about the Wood between the Worlds, had quite a wrong idea about the rings. The yellow ones weren't "outward" rings; and the green ones weren't "homeward" rings; at least, not in the way he thought ... Uncle Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most magicians are.'(43)

'Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.'(56)

'It is silent now. But I have stood here when the whole air was full of the noises of Charn; the trampling of feet, the creaking of wheels, the cracking of the whips and the groaning of the slaves, the thunder of chariots, and the sacrificial drums beating in the temples. I have stood here (but that was near the end) when the roar of battle went up from every street and the river of Charn ran red.' She paused and added, 'All in one moment one woman blotted it out forever.'(69)

'I expect most witches are like that. They are not interested in things or people unless they can use them; they are terribly practical.'(86)

'Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn't come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out-- single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.'(117)

'The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lifting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool.'(123)

'When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them.'(126)

'Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children's bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."(137)

'For what you see and hear depends on a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.'(148)

'Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.'(150)

'And you Narnians, let it be your first care to guard this Tree, for it is your Shield. The Witch of whom I told you has fled away into the North of the world... But while that Tree flourishes she will never come down into Narnia. She dare not come within a hundred miles of the Tree, for its smell, which is joy and life and health to you, is death and horror and despair to her.'(206)

'But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.'(208)

HarperCollins first renumbered edition
221 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD

71. The PRINCESS BRIDE

William Goldman 1973

A book within a book, about the author's life as he abridges his favorite book The Princess Bride written 'originally' by S. Mortgenstern. His father used to read it to him every night, and he wishes his son Jason would love it too. It is a great satire of a fairy tale full of romance and true love between Buttercup and Westley and adventures of every kind complete with a Death Zoo. It is such a great book that it fools the reader (or was it just me?) into believing that there truly is an S. Mortgenstern, and make them enchanted with countries Florin and Guilder and unlikely heroes Fezzik and Inigo.

'This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.'(opening line)

"Has it got any sports in it?"
"Fencing. Fighting. Torture, Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."(8)

'Who can know when this world is going to change? Who can tell before it happens, that every prior experience, all the years, were a preparation for ... nothing. Picture this now: an all-illiterate old man struggling with an enemy tongue, an all-but-exhausted young boy fighting against sleep. And nothing between them but the words of another alien, painfully translated from native sounds to foreign. Who could suspect that in the morning a different child would wake?'(8)

'What happened was just this: I got hooked on the story. For the first time in my life, I became actively interested in a book. Me the sports fanatic, me the game freak, me the only ten-year old in Illinois with a hate on for the alphabet wanted to know what happened next.(9)

'I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids... Is any of this getting through to you, Buttercup, or do you want me to go one for a while?'(54)

'But-- in the farthest corner of the great square-- in the highest building in the land-- deep in the deepest shadow-- the man in black stood waiting. His boots were black and leather. His pants were black and his shirt. His mask was black, blacker than raven. But blackest of all were his flashing eyes. Flashing cruel and deadly...'(87)

'And I just don't like Humperdinck, she thought. It's not that I hate him or anything. I just never see him,; he's always off someplace or playing in the Zoo of Death. To Buttercup's way of thinking, there were two main problems: (1) was it wrong to marry without like, and (2) if it was, was it too late to do anything about it.'(88)

'But his real might lay in his arms. There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Fezzik's (For that was his name.) The arms were not only Gargantuan and totally obedient and surprisingly quick, but they were also, and this is why he never worried, tireless.'(98)

'The death moment was at hand now. Again and again Inigo thrust forward, and again and again the man in black managed to ward off the attacks, but each time it was harder, and the strength in Inigo's wrists was endless and he only thrust the more fiercely and soon the man in black grew weak. "You cannot tell it," he said then, "because I wear a cape and mask. But I am smiling now."(131)

'There are no words to contain all my wisdom. I am so cunning, crafty and clever, so filled with deceit, guile and chicanery, such a knave, so shrewd, cagey as well as calculating, as diabolical as I am vulpine, as tricky as I am untrustworthy... well, I told you there were not words invented yet to explain how great my brain is, but let me put it this way: the world is several million years old and several billion people have at one time or another trod upon it, but I Vizzini the Sicilian, am speaking with pure candor and modesty, the slickest, sleekest, sliest and wiliest fellow who has yet to come down the pike.'(152)

"Enough about beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind Westley. Talk about that."(171)

'I say you are a coward and you are; I think you hunt only to reassure yourself that you are not what you are: the weakest thing to ever walk the Earth. He will come for me and then we will be gone, and you will be helpless for all your hunting, because Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot tract that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.'(245)

"You see," Max explained as he pumped, there's different kinds of dead: there's sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. This fella, he's only sort of dead, which means there's still a memory inside, there's still bits of brain. You apply a little pressure here, a little more there, sometimes you get results."(274)

"Don't you tell me," Max exploded right back, "and don't you mock my methods--tickling can be terrific in the proper instances. I had a corpse once, worse than this fella, mostly dead as he was, and I tickled him and tickled him; I tickled his toes and I tickled his armpits and his ribs and I got a peacock feather and went after his belly button;..."(275)

'If you think of ending your pain, you will kill the six-fingered man. But if you only think of revenge, he will kill you, because he has already taken the thing on earth you treasured most, and he will know that, and when you battle he will say things, he will taunt you, he will talk about your pathetic father and he will laugh at your love for a failure like Domingo, and you will scream in rage and your revenge will take control and you will attack blindly-- and then he will cut you to pieces."(356)

First Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition: November 2000
398 pages
Book owned

41. HARRY POTTER and the DEATHLY HALLOWS

J.K. Rowling 2007

This is the seventh book of the great Harry Potter series, one that explained everything. The last book that made me sad to think there was no more.

"Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at her, but returned the pressure, not taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parent's grave."

"We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."

"For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. That’s a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing that’s glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it’s safe to look into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that’s still likely to be the last thing you ever do."

"I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!"

"This isn't your average book, it's pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I'd had this last year I'd have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I would've known how to get going with... Well Fred and George gave me a copy, and I've learned a lot. You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either."

"Snape's patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from when they were children."

"Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive, and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes."

"Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here."

"But they were not living, thought Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them."

"Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same; Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends...friends...friends...friends..."

"Would you like me to do it now?" asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"

"Albus Severus...you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

"They’re evacuating the younger kids and everyone’s meeting in the Great Hall to get organized... We’re fighting."

""After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."

"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. "rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds--"

"Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. "After all this time?" "Always," said Snape."

"Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second."

"He must have known I'd want to leave you. No, he must have known you would always want to come back."