Summarise a Novel in 25 Words

Even though he’s been boffing her, Mike Hammer finds it’s easy to gut-shoot the naked nymphomaniac psychoanalyst who murdered his best friend.

If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Italo Calvino

You are a reader who only ever gets to read the first chapter of ten books. It's infuriating but you do get laid.

Naked Lunch, william s. burroughs

lee shoots up bug powder, shoots wife, goes to tangier, gets hooked on opiates/black centipede meat,friends worry but love his book. GAY SEX!

War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

Martians kick our asses but then get a cold and die.

Longitude.

I won your stupid prize... No you didn't (50 years later) ok you did.

any of Michael Crichton's non-medical books:

Isn't cutting-edge technology wonderful?! Wait, that shouldn't be happening ... FUCK!

I'm sure glad I survived - If only we'd respected nature.

Some of you are mistaking 'capture the essence of the novel' with 'summarize the novel'.

err, nevermind. ;-P

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

I'm poor. Let's rob and kill a pawnbroker who sucks. Yay, for murder! Let's go insane and confess. Yay Siberia!

The DarkTower Series - Stephen King

Book 1 - The Gunslinger
Roland follows guy through desert. Massacres a town. Finds boy. Drops boy off bridge. Finally meets guy on beach

Book 2 - The Drawing of the Three
Crabs eat his fingers. Walks up the beach and finds "portal doors": out of which come an ex-junkie dude (after a gunfight), a black schizo chick in a wheelchair who wants to kill whitey. Schizo turns normal.

Book 3 - The Waste Lands
Cripple chick gets raped, boy that fell off the bridge hops out of a hole in the ground. They kill a robot bear. "Stairway to Heaven" will get you crucified in this town. Suicidal robot train wants to derail.

Book 4 - Wizard and Glass
Welcome to Kansas. Hi it's me RF. Flash back. Roland had sex once. He and some buds killed a bunch of thugs and a witch. Roland's chick dies. He goes home and kills his mom by accident.

Book 5 - Wolves of the Calla
Robots are stealing kid's IQs. Cripple chick is pregnant. You are told to go read Salem's Lot. They kill a bunch of robots and the cripple chick runs off to a cave with a portal door.

The Neon Bible - John Kennedy Toole
Kid in small town. Dad goes to war, dies. Mom goes nuts, dies, gets buried in back yard. Preacher comes by to take her to take her to mental ward, gets PWNED. Kid runs off.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Suave European pedophile tries to convince us he's human, while providing his very particular view of 50s America. Sharp wit, unreliable narrator, sick love story.

Oh, mysterious woman! You entice me, yet keep disappearing. Let's reflect on the history of 20th century Japan while I mope.

- almost every Haruki Murakami novel ever.

also:
>>Musical prodigy receives all sorts of erudite training growing up, becomes leader of civilized world, plays best game ever, retires, imagines other lives, and dies. <<

I give up! What is this one?

Twelve Caesars by Suetonius

Julius is a genius. Caesars 2 - 12 are mentally disturbed. According to the gossip round the forum, Tiberius was in to little children.

Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"

We've removed all cause for conflict. Let's murder and cheat on each other and blog it. This book's free if you like me in return.

(Read the book: http://craphound.com/down/
It's a fun novella, but it's also Doctorow's blatant internet-centered utopia.)

I expected a boat at mid-day to take me to the woman I left behind in New York. That ship never came. Beside me is a knife. My end.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

I have Tourette's. I want to be a detective. Ooh, now I am. Still have Tourette's though. My name is Prince and I am funky.

In Search of Lost Time

Wow, damn good cookie!

>>Hackworth renegs on deal; girl learns from nanobook; many >>technologies are explained; Judge Fang, Dr. X help orphan girls; >>and as war comes, book ends.
Diamond Age, kicks ass

>>any of Michael Crichton's non-medical books:
>>Isn't cutting-edge technology wonderful?! Wait, that shouldn't be happening ... FUCK!
>>I'm sure glad I survived - If only we'd respected nature.

So true, so very, very true

Brighton Rock:

Man is dead. Whodunnit? Him! Oh, damn. So, nice weather we've been having then? Horse races, razor blades, being poor sucks, oh look a cliff.

The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

American historian and French babe break secret codes, hustle through Europe, search for Holy Grail. Did you know that Jesus and Mary Magdalene got hitched?

I am a witty newspaper man asked to commit murder while investigating drugs on the beach. I get very rich. Much better than the movie.

Any given Robert Langdon novel by Dan Brown:

World reknowned smart guy is killed, hero called. Langdon wakes up, runs around with smart EuroBabe, visits tourist attractions, is betrayed, then resolves ancient conspiracy.

Girl is transported to a surreal world where she kills the first person she encounters then joins a group of strangers to kill again.

The Wizard of OZ

Death of a Salesman

Willy: My boys are great.
Biff: No pop, we are dime a dozen.
Willy kills himself.

The Man Who Fell to Earth -Walter Tevis

Alien comes to earth, becomes a drunk, gets blinded.

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:

We lost the Antichrist. He's a normal boy. Agents from Hell and Heaven are friends. Subtle message: society sucks.

1984- Orwell

There's an annoying government, but apart from that nothing important happens at all.

The Productive members of society get tired of supporting everyone and getting shit on for it. They split. The rest of America goes to shit.

The ghosts are real. Or they're not real. One kid goes nuts. Other kid dies. I love that governess.

Of Mice And Men

retarded guy named George and normal guy named Lenny make friends and get jobs, retarded guy kills someone normal guy kills retarded guy. good stuff.

His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman.

Girl and embodied soul flee "Lady Macbeth" Mum, meet parallel boy. Help ambitious Dad defeat God. Fall in love, much symbolism, split up, many tears.

"Round The Bend", by Nevil Shute

Brit meets weird foreign guy at airshow. Brit hires foreign guy to fix aeroplane engines. Turns out he's Jesus. Planes work great. Everybody dies celibate.

On the Road - Kerouac

In a car with a redneck with ADHD, smoke reefer, go to mexico, find sluts, go home.

Junky - William S. Borroughs

Herion is good, no wait, it's bad. Wait. It's good, or maybe it's a lifestyle choice. No wait, young boys are better.

Howards End

Boy, Victorian and Edwardian society is strict. A Cottage and cradle robbing are thrown into the mix, and rich mingle with the poor a little.

Exodus, Leon Uris

Holocaust, nurse, ship, Palestine, Jews, Arabs suck, British suck. Hero gets girl.

The Haj, Leon Uris

Arabs suck, Muslims suck, and suck and suck and suck. Hero goes nuts.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Gambling, sex, and Johnny Depp are cool. But drugs are better.

Revolutionary Road

"Honey, wouldn't life be easier if you were more intelligent, if I actually wanted kids, if we had a modicum of courage and if Ike wasn't ruling the country?"

The entire Tom Wolfe catalogue

"I am clearly smarter than you. Eat my dust."

B. Traven - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Three guys seek Mexican gold. Hardship, privation and bandits. There is much mutual suspicion. In the end greed brings about robbery and betrayal. Protagonist dies.

J. D. Salinger - Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

Seymour skips own wedding. Disgruntled family of bride wind up at best man's apartment. Lots of alcohol served. While they recover, Seymour and bride elope.

I'm the best liar ever. Frederick Barbarossa adopted me. My pals and I found mythological creatures and the Grail. Did you catch all my references?

Verbminx:
>>Musical prodigy receives all sorts of erudite training growing up, becomes leader of civilized world, plays best game ever, retires, imagines other lives, and dies. <<

Hesse, the glass bead game; sometimes also called Magister Ludi.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

Genius kid passes out on floor; inside joke. Family members (?) are weird. Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. Zzzz.

Timelike Infinity - Stephen Baxter

Humanity vs Entropy. Entropy wins, mostly.

The Brothers Karamazov-

Dirty old man is murdered; it's one of his three sons! Hoorah, Aloysha!

Sometimes a Great Notion-

While logging, a man’s younger, college-educated, pot-smoking half-brother sleeps with his wife. It sure rains a lot in Oregon.

The Godfather -

No, Dad, I don't want to join the family business.
Oh no, Dad's dead. Think I'll kill everyone who ever fucked with the family buisness.

Where's the ring? Hide it from Sauron. Wait a few years. OK, now take the ring to Sauron. You heard me. Take some friends too.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Hal, tennis prodigy, tries to speak; gibberish emerges. And but so what happened? No clue. Something to do with a lethally entertaining movie. And drugs.