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  • Charlie Ravioli

    What's your favorite scene or chapter in a book?

    It's a tie for me:

    Chapter 35 in The Stand (Complete and Uncut Edition) by Stephen King - Larry and Rita walking thru the Lincoln Tunnel.

    Chapter 2 (Saddlebags) in A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe - Charlie Croker meets with the bankers to restructure his debt.

    Charlie Ravioli started this discussion 5 months ago. ( reply )

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  • James

    James 

    Not sure about chapter, but the paragraph/scene I always remember fondly is in Heart of Darkness:

    "Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — 'The horror! The horror!'"

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Janice Loves  B♥♥ks!

    Janice Loves B♥♥ks! (edited)

    Chapter where Daisy goes for their meeting at Gatsby's.
    Chapter where Rhett carries Scarlet up the stairs in Gone with the Wind.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    show 1 reply
    • Vonnie

      Vonnie 

      i enjoy that chapter too from Gone with the Wind

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Julie L

    Julie L (edited)

    My favorite scene is at the end of "The Time Traveler's Wife" when Henry steps out of the closet and Claire is in her room waiting for him. It makes me want to cry every time I think of that ending.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    show 4 replies
    • Vonnie

      Vonnie 

      me too! i had tears in my eyes.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Beng G

      Beng G 

      ditto!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • BenLarken

      BenLarken (edited)

      Do I have to turn in my man card if I totally agree with you? In fact, the whole last 50 pages of that book were emotionally draining. What a great book.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Sleekfeline

      Sleekfeline 

      I agree!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Marie T

    Marie T 

    My favorite (this week!) is from Years by Lavyrle Spencer. Linnea Brandonberg, a young teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, takes her class out for playtime on a lovely spring day (19th century) and suddenly a terrible snowstorm comes up, making it nearly impossible for the class to reach the school. Her love, Lars, and his brother John (mentally challenged) lose their way trying to find the schoolhouse and have to use the overturned wagon and then the horse to keep from freezing to death. Terrifying, based on a storm that actually blew in sometime in the late 1800s, and no matter how many times I read this book I am glued to the story.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Marguerite M

    Marguerite M 

    My favorite scene is from Tale of Two Cities. They are all in France. The young noble has been imprisoned by the mobs and the young wife is going daily to look at the window where she thinks he might be. The hero is with her and is watching one morning and it occurs to him that if given a choice she would "gladly lay her head on the block with his and die with her love." It is at that moment he makes the decision to try to save the young noble. It was just one of those scenes that sets the rest of the book. It was just so powerful to me. Even more powerful than the very famous ending when he quotes " it a far better thing that I do than I have ever done" etc.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Vonnie

    Vonnie 

    Chapter in Phantom of the Opera where Eric dresses as the Red Death and "crashes" the masquerade ball.
    Chapter in Outlander when Jamie and Claire first make love.
    Chapter in Les Miserables where Jean Valjean leaves a coin in Cosette's shoe for Christmas (this scene made me cry)

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Shawna B

    Shawna B 

    Favorite of all time would be when Darcy proposess to Elizabeth in the rain and how strong she is! I love when he tells her that she is not really good enough for him but he loves her anyways and she calls him on it.
    I also love the ending of Persuassion when Ann starts to run all over town to catch up with Wentworth after he leaves her a note telling her he still loves her.
    and finally there are many scenes in Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, but especially when Daniel gets up and looks out his window at night and sees the smoking man, and when he first gets a look in the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, I love this book, it is the only book that has given me chills when I talk about it, even now!

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
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    • Shawna B

      Shawna B 

      I have to add one more, and it is not really a scene so much as a feeling in a book, I am half way through a teen book called Life as We Knew It, it is a story about what would happen if the moon got off balanced- in this story an astroid hits the moon and pushes it closer to earth, it is all the things that we dont really think about that the moon has control over, weather, earthquakes, typhoons, ect. and one girls story of the end of days, I have gotten so wrapped up in it that when I come inside I am amazed that I have electricity! I turn on a light switch and think oh good! makes me really appriciate the little things.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Marie T

      Marie T 

      That's so cool, Shawna B....when a story can grab you like that, it's special. That happened to us (my husband, myself and another couple) a bunch of years ago when we saw a movie, Soylent Green about a future with a "ruined" world, no trees, bubbles to live in, etc. We came out and it was raining and we felt so wonderful feeling that rain! Lately here, though, I'd be glad to see no rain for a short while!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Kiki68

      Kiki68 

      I just read that book, too, Shawna, and the companion book, The Dead and the Gone. They were both very good.

      Eeewww--Soylent Green--disturbing movie, Marie, don't you think?

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Marie T

      Marie T 

      Yes, it was disturbing - but I've seen it three times (twice as reruns on TV) and each time feel so glad that our world has sunlight, rain, etc. - I didn't mind their idea of dying, but with limitations. I guess it's the "freedom" thing that gets me - and they didn't have that unless a person was rich or "in charge" or something.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • BenLarken

    BenLarken 

    I read everything, but I LOVE good horror. Dan Simmons has an incredible scene halfway through Summer of Night, which is about several kids in the 50s who band together to fight something evil (I know--sounds like IT, but I thought this one was better). It takes place in a cornfield as a monster/demon thing is chasing a young boy. A harvester is involved. Simmons does such a good job at ratcheting up the tension that by the time the scene is over you have to put the book down to catch your breath.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • i am awesome

    i am awesome 

    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix my fav chapter was Snape's worst memory.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Onnie

    Onnie 

    Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel - Tita's lover dies after they have made love. She eats the candles to fill herself with the fire she associates with her lover.

    One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Grandma (Ursula Iguaran) marks each of her 17 Aureliano grandsons with a mysterious indelible Ash Wednesday cross on their foreheads as baptism and acceptance to the family. Later, all the 17 Aurelianos were shot on the head through the cross.

    Night by Elie Weisel - prisoner Jews were forced to run in falling snow, transfering from one camp to the next. A father drops on the ground and a son looks back but runs onward lest the soldiers shoot him. Later, crumbs of bread were given out and another father and son scrambled over a piece and ate it immediately, not thinking of the other. The shame was overshadowed by pure hunger.

    The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Liesel survives an air raid only to find out she lost her foster parents and her beloved Rudy. She kisses the boy for the last time, memorizing his lemon-colored hair while Death carries each soul in the massacre.

    Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice - Mary finally tells Yeshua the secret of his birth. He later prays to God, asking why him? How could he live after King Herod killed all the newborn, when he feels he is no better than those who have died for him?

    hmmm... why is it that death seems to be a common thread in my unforgettables?

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
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    • Sleekfeline

      Sleekfeline 

      I loved Like Water For Chocolate! Some great allegories in that book!

      That was a heart wrenching scene in The Book Thief!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Kiki68

      Kiki68 

      I cry at the reunion scene at the end of The Book Thief--Liesel and Max--wonderful and emotional!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Melinda :)

      Melinda :) 

      I sob about that part in the Book Thief too. Actually, I cried throughout most of the book. =P In Night, I cried when it was Pieter's (I believe that's his name) violin is crushed. It just seems to symbolize crushed dreams, you know?

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • NICOLE N

    NICOLE N 

    I recently read Diana Gabaladon's Drums of Autumn. On page 197, there is dialogue between Jamie and Claire. And for anyone whose read this series, I believe you will understand the strentgh of the words from Claire below:
    "Whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die and there will I be buried. Be it Scottish hill or southern forest, you do what you have to, I'll be there.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
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    • Marie T

      Marie T 

      I think this is originally from Ruth in the Bible. A wonderful passage. Those books (The Outlander Series) were so great - and Claire and Jamie's love was remarkable. I had tears in my eyes, my heart in my mouth, groaned, laughed - such emotions those books brought out.!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • NICOLE N

    NICOLE N 

    In Diana Gabaladon's Drangonfly in Amber, Jamie says to Claire:
    "I will find you, I promise. If I must endure 200 years of purgatory, 200 years without you-then that is my punishment which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied and killed and stolen, betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall stand lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say to right against the rest, Lord ye gave me a rare woman and God! I loved her well".

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Bookie

    Bookie 

    Angela's Ashes-the whole section surrounding young Frank's first penance and first Holy Communion. Having grown up Irish Catholic, educated by nuns and priests, I got a good laugh out of this read.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
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    • Marie T

      Marie T 

      I'll bet I did, too - but I can't recall it! That's what happens when you either read a lot or get old; put them both together and forget it! And I have. LOL. With the first penance, I sort of recall it - he has a way with words. Did you know that the title of "A Monk Swimming" is taken from the way we say "..... and blessed art thou amongst womien" ??? There are so many cute things kids say when they have to memorize things, and that's one that got famous.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • KimBear

      KimBear 

      I remember Sister Margaret Mary making me recite a prayer from the Mass in 4th grade and I said "for the good of the voltist Church" What I was supposed to say was "for the good of all his Church" and I still giggle a little bit every time I hear it at Mass...I really thought that is what everyone was saying!

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
    • Marie T

      Marie T 

      How cute. Bet there are others, too.

      posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • molly b

    molly b 

    the meadow scene from Twilight. It's so good and the movie did not do it justice.

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Laurie G

    Laurie G 

    GRIN...............my favorite in book and movie is Summer of '42 when Hermie goes in the drugstore to buy condoms. Very funny scene.And well done!

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Kaitlin S

    Kaitlin S 

    I was dying of laughter when reading the chapter in Paper Towns by John Green when Q and his friends are going on their spontaneous road trip to find Margo Roth Spiegelman. :D

    posted 5 months ago. ( reply )
  • Reem .

    Reem . 

    The last chapter from my sister's keeper, from Kate's POV, i've never wept as much..
    Also, in the Pillars of the Earth, When Tom builder died and jack saw his skull smashed. It was shocking,

    posted 4 months ago. ( reply )
  • Angel K

    Angel K 

    Markus Zusak is a writer that's managed to make me sob incoherently any number of times.

    In The Book Thief... well, I was already a wreck by the last half of that book, but I do know that Liesel and Max's reunion scene started it up again.

    In I am the Messenger, I choked up when Marv finally got to meet his daughter.


    But there was one scene in Here, There Be Dragons that delighted me to no end. The protagonists are in a place called the Keep of Time, where every door opens to a different period of time, and they end up being chased by this dinosaur/sea monster before locking it in 16th century Scotland. This line in particular is what got me:

    "A sea monster loose in Scotland. That's going to have some interesting repercussions." :D

    posted 3 months ago. ( reply )
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