Summarise a Novel in 25 Words

"I Capture The Castle" - Dodie Smith

My artistic family's living in ruins. Enter American brothers, heirs.
My selfish sister dazzles both while I scribble deep thoughts and pine in my tower.

Any Harlan Coben mystery (with the possible exception of the Myron Bolitar ones): Five different stories are started. Someone disappears. A significant other of the disapearee solves finds them, tying up all loose ends in all five stories.

"Cry, the Beloved Country"

Murderer's father befriends victim's father and feels like shit for 320 pages.

Stephen King - The Shining:

Don't let a borderline alcoholic psycho run a hotel built on an Indian graveyard. It's just asking for trouble.

The Bible:

THE CHALLENGING TRUTH ABOUT THE PROPHESIED MESSIAH (JESUS, GOD'S OWN SON), WHO CAME, DIED FOR YOUR SIN, ROSE, WANTS TO TRANSFORM YOU INTO HIS IMAGE.

Thomas Mann - Der Zeuberberg (The Magic Mountain)

guy goes for a visit into the mountains, feels a little sick, stays for years.

James Joyce - Ulysses

walking around - nothing much to do - boring other people - why not leave out punctuation at the end, just for fun? It´s art, is it?

Terminator

Booom, bang, completely distruction wwhoaaar!!!

Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
Claire meets husband in Scotland after worldwar, magicly back in time 400 years, meets rebel, great love, witnesses scottish history unfold, helps applying 20century knowledge.

Austin Powers 1

Groovie man shags groovie ladys. Save the world by shaggin all over.
Behave!

Christoph Ransmayer "Die letzte Welt"

A freaky Austrian describes a stone on 3o pages, the next 100 pages are about the mountain in the back of the little village tomi. a copy of the metamorphosis of Ovid...

Enduring Love, Ian McEwan

First man pursued by crazy second man is understandably annoyed when wife fails to believes him. A hostage situation later the first man realises that even when he's right, he's wrong.

I know it's a play, but I couldn't resist: Angels in America.

America sucks. So do Mormons.

The Old Man and The Sea:

There is an old man. Old man talks to himself. Catches fish. Talks to fish. Loses fish. Carries mast on his back. Falls asleep (or dies, whichever).

Ernest Hemingway: Did I mention the mast resembles a CROSS?!

Thomas Pynchon "V."
Everybody is there: Bodine, Profane & Stencil... V. is also there...but who or what is V.? And what is happening around us? Just a problem of teeth?...(Was Kilroy there?)and remember Wittgenstein!

Lolita - V. Nabokov

La desidero, la cerco, la trovo, la uso.
Mi getta.
Uccido, e scrivo.

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Ship sinks. On the lifeboat kid is stuck with tigar, hyena, zebra and orangutan. Lands in Mexico. At the end the animals where actually humans.

The Physicists by Friedrich Durrenmatt
there is brilliant physist hiding in an insane asylum, hes there to keep his work safe from the world. everyone who was sane in the beginning is crazy, and vice versa!

A monkey books a hotel room. Then he has a few things to do. When he gets there he is an old men.

Macbeth

Man is fooled by witches. He believes it and kills everybody to become king. People get angry and one very angry man kills him.

Macbeth

Three´witches tell a man, that he will be king of scotland, so he kills the king to be king and gets killed.

Star Trek: Nemesis

Good baldy beats cloned baldy. The android dies.

Jacopo Ortis-Ugo Fosco

A depressed and poor man takes political refuge in countryside. he fall in love. the girl have to marry a rich man. he kills himself.

THE TWO TOWERS - J.R.R. Tolkien
'Cunning' king hides in fort with entire civilian population while his kingdom is overrun -defends fort with 300 old men & children. When an ally kingdom is attacked he gathers up in haste a great army and goes to the rescue - of the OTHER KINGDOM... ???

THE BIBLE
God kills a bunch of people, even newborns. Then repents and sends his inoccent son to the slaughter. Make love not war. 2000 years later Mel Gibson makes a kind of video-clip movie about it. THE END

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY - OSCAR WILD
'Brad Pitt' hides a picture in his house. When he looks at it he dies. Much before this 'Jennifer Aniston' dies in a depressing theather-house.
In the middle we see how O.W. is witty & clever & gay...

chinese students, who are sent for reeducation, educate a farmer chick. she then recognizes that she can have whoever she wants. life is shit!

Agatha Christie-Murder at the Orient Express.

Man gets murdered on a train. A Belgian solves the crime. Everybody has done it.

The Time Machine - H. G. Wells

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Catcher in the rye:

He doesn't like anything, only his little sister.

The Fellowship of the Ring (1st instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) - J R R tolkien

The beginning of a War long awaited. An astounding, awe-inspiring tale of wizards, elves, halflings, fighting for the freedom of a realistic, beautiful, extraordinary world.

--- Paddy, June 19th, 2004

Haruki Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Man's wife disappears, so he decides to follow every lead - even leads into other "dimensions." He learns vague things about the world, little about his wife.

Schiller - Das Lied von der Glocke

Hole in the ground, put some silver in !
Bell is finished, ring, ring, ring !

I was here.
Where were you?
Be back soon.
-Godot-

ok, so it's not a novel, but I couldn't resist.

Neil Gaiman -The Sandman (vols. 1 to 11):

Dream: "I'm the bee's knees."
Others: "No you're not."
"Damn -guess I'll just have to kill myself then."

(I know, technically they're graphic novels and not novels but, come on, let's not allow ourselves to be, um, stifled by restrictive and arbitrary labels!...)

Lord of the Rings

Wagner meets Warhammer?

The Tailor of Panama (John Le Carre)

Dodgy spy bullies tailor, gets told rubbish, shags tailors wife, starts war, nicks all the cash, runs away. Little people don't matter in espionage game.

E (Matt Beaumont)
Advertising staff spend all time drinking, inhaling, shagging. When company goes tits-up, older responsible staff get sacked. How very post modern?

The Outsider- Albert Camus

Don't fear the reaper.

Any book by Dan Brown
Heroine's fatherfigure is murdered/murder suspect/murderer. Mayhem ensues. Erudite hero comes to her rescue collecting/solving HanselandGretelish clues on the way. God is real...or is He?

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Many people on boat. Having alighted, chaos and debauchery ensues. Many people meet again under doubtful circumstances. War begins. Youth are irrevocably changed. Fini.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

Man wanders round a city. Everyone is confused.

Billy pilgrim has come unstuck in time. War is bad. So it goes.

Also, there are some aliens.

Denial - Keith Ablow

Psychiatrist has a lot of sex, takes a lot of cocaine and realizes his girlfriend is really evil. He's sad.

Projection - Keith Ablow

Psychiatrist has a lot of sex, takes some cocaine and realizes Trevor Lucas is sick. He's exhausted.

The Wave - Morton Rhue

Megalomanic teacher introduces national socialism to school, gets dicator and loses control.

The man fights the wolf. The wolf fights the man. They discover that there are many more to fight against.

The Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse

The man fights the wolf. The wolf fights the man. They discover that there are many more to fight against.

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Young man discovers that goose-stepping morons like him ought to be reading books instead of burning them.