Datasets:
title stringlengths 1 220 | author stringlengths 4 59 ⌀ | pub_year int64 398 2.01k ⌀ | summary stringlengths 11 58k |
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Animal Farm | George Orwell | 1,945 | 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... |
A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | 1,962 | 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 ... |
The Plague | Albert Camus | 1,947 | 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... |
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | David Hume | 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... |
A Fire Upon the Deep | Vernor Vinge | null | 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 ... |
All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria Remarque | 1,929 | 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... |
A Wizard of Earthsea | Ursula K. Le Guin | 1,968 | 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 ... |
Anyone Can Whistle | Arthur Laurents | 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... |
Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night | K. W. Jeter | 1,996 | 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. |
Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human | K. W. Jeter | 1,995 | 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,... |
Book of Joshua | 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... |
Book of Ezra | 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... |
Book of Numbers | 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... |
Book of Ruth | 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 ... |
Book of Esther | 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... |
Book of Job | null | null | 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... |
Book of Hosea | 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... |
Book of Jonah | 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... |
Book of Micah | 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... |
Book of Haggai | 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... |
Crash | J. G. Ballard | 1,973 | 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... |
Children of Dune | Frank Herbert | 1,976 | 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 ... |
Candide, ou l'Optimisme | Voltaire | 1,759 | 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... |
Chapterhouse Dune | Frank Herbert | 1,985 | 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... |
Carmilla | Sheridan Le Fanu | 1,872 | 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... |
The Cider House Rules | John Irving | 1,985 | 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... |
Dracula | Bram Stoker | 1,897 | 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... |
Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes | 1,605 | 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... |
Deuteronomy | 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... |
Dune Messiah | Frank Herbert | 1,969 | 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... |
Darwin's Dangerous Idea | Daniel Dennett | 1,995 | "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 ... |
Death of a Hero | Richard Aldington | null | 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 ... |
Exodus | null | null | 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... |
The Trial | Franz Kafka | 1,925 | 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... |
The Metamorphosis | null | 1,915 | 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 ... |
Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | 1,953 | 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... |
Farmer Giles of Ham | J. R. R. Tolkien | null | 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... |
Gaudy Night | Dorothy L. Sayers | 1,935 | 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... |
Gylfaginning | Snorri Sturluson | 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... |
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