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Vahakn, Irene, Alex, Chris, Andrew
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Currently Listening to (Audio CD)
A Passage to India (1924) is a novel written by E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
India

Currently Reading (Book)
Swan's Way... (1913-1927 ) Fiction or Non_fiction By Marcel Proust (1881-1972)
France
Among all the methods by which love is brought into being, among all the agents which disseminate that blessed bans, there are few so efficacious as this gust of feverish agiations that sweeps over us from time to time. For then the die is cast, the person whose company we enjoy at that moment is the person we shall henceforward love. It is not even necessary for that person to have attracted us, up till then, more than or even as much as others. All that was needed was that our predilection shoudl become exclusive. And that condition is fulfilled when - in this moment of deprivation - the quest for the pleasures we enjoyed in his or her company is suddenly replaced by an anxiuos, torturing need which the laws of this world make it impossible to satisfy and difficult to assuage - the insensate, agonising need to possess exclusively.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1852) is a novel written by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928).
2010 Setting: 18th century -  England
Audio Book "By experience," says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then? Tess Durbeyfield's experience was of this incapacitating kind. At last she had learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing?

Around the world in 80 days  (1873) is a novel by Jules Verne (1828-1905).
2009 Setting: 18th century -  England/Around the world
Audio Book Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around the world in eighty days. To do this he had employed every means of conveyance--steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading-vessels, sledges, elephants. The eccentric gentleman had throughout displayed all his marvellous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?
Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!
Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?

Uncle Tom's Cabin: Life among the Lowly (1852) is a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
2009 Setting:
Audio Book If Europe ever becomes a grand council of free nations, as I trust in God it will, if, there, serfdom, and all unjust and oppressive social inequalities, are done away; and if they, as France and England have done, acknowledge our position, then, in the great congress of nations, we swill make our appeal, and present the cause of our enslaved and suffering race; and it cannot be that free, enlightened America will not them desire to wipe from her escutcheon that bar sinister which disgraces her among nations, and is as truly a curse to her as to the enslaved.

The Drunkard's Walk: How randomness Rules Our Lives (2009) Non_fiction By Leonard Mlodinow
2009 Setting: How randomness, chance and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives.
Book What I've learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since change does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. For even a coin weighed toward failure will sometimes land on success. Or as the IBM pioneer Thomas Watson said, "If you want to success, double your failure rate."

Frankenstein (1818) is a novel written by Mary Shelley
2009 Setting: 17th century Geneva, Switzerland. Germany, England, Scotland...
Audio Book It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when,by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! --- Great God!

The  Sun also Rises (1926) is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway
2009 Setting: 1925 Paris, France and Pamplona, Spain
Audio Book Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill .The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on.
I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays.

The Scarlet Letter (1850) is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne
2009 Setting: 17th century in Boston, Massachusetts
Audio Book It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development , supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover , or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophy considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happened to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.

The Three Musketeers (1844) (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870).
2009 Setting: 16th century in Paris, France
Audio Book “And now you are assembled, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “permit me to offer you my apologies.
At this word apologies, a cloud passed over the brow of Athos, a haughty smile curled the lip of Porthos, and a negative sign was the reply of Aramis.
“You do not understand me, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, throwing up his head, the sharp and bold lines of which were at the moment gilded by a bright ray of the sun. “I asked to be excused in case I should not be able to discharge my debt to all three; for Monsieur Athos has the right to kill me first, which I must abate your valor in your own estimation, Monsieur Porthos, and render yours almost null, Monsieur Aramis. And now, gentlemen, I repeat, excuse me, but on that account only, and--on guard!”

The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn (1885) is a novel by Mark Twain (1835-1910).
2008 Setting: 19th Century U.S.A.
Audio Book and so there ain't nothing moreto write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I
wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.


Moll Flanders (1772) is a novel by Daniel Defoe.
2008 Setting: 16th England
Audio Book

A Tale of Two Cities  (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
2008 Setting: 17th century -  England/France
Audio Book "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

A Christmas Carol  (1843) is a novel by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
2008 Setting: 17th century -  England/France
Audio Book He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Great Expeectations (1860) is a novel by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
2008 Setting: 17th century -  England/France
Audio Book "We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench.
"And will continue friends apart," said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

Robinson Cruisoe  (1719) is a novel by Daniel Defoe.
2008 Setting: 16th century -  a remote tropical island near Venezuela
Audio Book

Animal Farm (1945) is a novel by George Orwell (1903-1950).
2008 Setting: In a farm, England
Audio Book "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

The Art of War  (????) is a novel by Sun Tzu (500BC).
2008 Setting: Asia
Audio Book The oldest military treatize in the world.

Dracula  (1897) is a novel by Bram Stocker (1847-1912).
2007 Setting: 18th century -  England/Eastern Europe
Audio Book We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee.
"We want no proofs. We ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care. Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.
JONATHAN HARKER

Wuthering Heights  (1847) is a novel by Emily Bronte (1818-1848).
2007 Setting: 17th century -  England
Audio Book

The Canterbury Tales  (13~~is a novel by Geoffrey Chauser (1340-14~~).
2007 Setting: 12 century -  England
Audio Book

Pride and Prejudice  (1897) is a novel by Jane Austin (1775-1817).
2007 Setting: 16th century -  England
Audio Book It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.


The Picture of Doiran Grey  (1890) is a novel by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).
2001 Setting: 18th century -  England
Book When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.


The Davinci Code  (2003) is a novel by Dan Brown (1964-...).
2003 Setting: 20th century -  England/USA/France
Audio

Don Quixote  (1605`1615) is a novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616).
1999 Setting: 15th century -  Spain
Book A doughty gentleman lies here;
A stranger all his life to fear;
Nor in his death could Death prevail,
In that last hour, to make him quail.
He for the world but little cared;
And at his feats the world was scared;
A crazy man his life he passed,
But in his senses died at last.

Anna Karenina (1890) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).
1999 Setting: Late 19th Century Russia
Book Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

War and Peace  (1890) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).
1999 Setting: 19th Century Russia
Book

The Brothers Karamazov  (1879) is a novel by Theodore Dostoevsky (1821-1881).
1999 Setting: 19th Century Russia
Book

Crime and Punishment  (1866) is a novel by Theodore Dostoevsky (1821-1881).
1999 Setting: 19th Century Russia
Book

Candide  (1759) is a political satire  by Voltaire(1694-1778).
1999 Setting: France
Book "There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts."
"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden."


     The Biggest Secret (1999) is a novel by David Icke (1952-....).
1999 Setting: 20th England, USA...
Book

     The Stanic Verses (1988) is a novel by Salman Rushdie, Ahmed (1847-....).
1995 Setting: 20th England, India 
Book

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