Feeling queasy?

Feeling queasy?
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“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.”

This is the perfect scene-setter, from the novel that launched one of the most beloved spies ever: James Bond, who first shows up in the second paragraph of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale.

Can you guess the movies that made these quotes famous?.

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What’s that about?

What’s that about?
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“Where’s Papa going with that ax?”

A surprising first note for a children’s story – and not a promising way to start – though in Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White doesn’t shy away from the sadness that comes with befriending a pet whose life is sure to be short.

Dark and stormy

Dark and stormy
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“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

You’ve certainly heard this line before – at least the first part of it – even if you’ve never read Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.

 

 

13 o’clock

13 o’clock
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“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

This line launches you into 1984 by George Orwell, the book that introduced the world to the concept of Big Brother.

Did you know 1984 is one of many classic books that were once banned?

Bit by bit

Bit by bit
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“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”

This timeless truism kicks off the classic novel Ethan Frome, published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton.

Enjoy these powerful books that predicted the future.

Once upon a midnight dreary

Once upon a midnight dreary
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“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country.”

Nobody sets a spooky scene better than Edgar Allan Poe. He opens The Fall of the House of Usher with a mood he also memorably sets in the opening line of his epic poem The Raven: “Once upon a midnight dreary…”).

Next, here are four rules of reading, according to Bill Gates.

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Source: RD.com

 

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