THISDL Library

老实说，在我刚认识查理斯
·思特里克兰德时，我一点儿也没有看出他有什么与众不同的地方，可现在却很少有人否认他的伟大了。我说的伟大不是指那些幸运的政治家或是那些在战火中的士兵所成就的伟大；这些人的显赫一时…

从一大早就下起雨来。下雨，本来不是什么稀罕事儿，但这是春雨，俗话说：“春雨贵似油。”而且又在罕见的大旱之中，其珍贵就可想而知了。

“润物细无声”，春雨本来是声音极小极小的，小到了“无”的程度。但是，我现在…

有一晚，我做了一个梦。我和锺书一同散步，说说笑笑，走到了不知什么地方。太阳已经下山，黄昏薄暮，苍苍茫茫中，忽然锺书不见了。我四顾寻找，不见他的影踪。我喊他，没人应。只我一人，站在荒郊野地里，锺书不知到哪里去了…

请您寻出家传的霉绿斑斓的铜香炉，点上一炉沉香屑，听我说一支战前香港的故事，您这一炉沉香屑点完了，我的故事也该完了。

在故事的开端，葛薇龙，一个极普通的上海女孩子，站在半山里一座大住宅的走廊上，向花园里远远望过去…

六岁那年，我在书上看到一幅精美的图画，那是一本关于原始森林的书，书名叫《真实的故事》。图上画的是一条蟒蛇正在吞食一头猛兽。这是那幅画的摹本：书上这样写到：
‘蟒蛇会把猎物整个吞进去，根本不咀嚼。之后，它们就…

众所周知，地球上不同地区族群的历史发展轨迹大不相同。上个冰期结束以来的
1.3
万年以来，世界上的一些地区发展出了有文字、使用金属工具的工业社会，一些地区只形成了没有文字的农业社会，还有一些地区依旧是使用石器的狩猎…

哥伦布发现美洲后第一次归来，凯旋的队列穿过塞维利亚和巴塞罗那人群拥挤的街道时，展示了数不胜数的稀世奇珍：一种迄今不为人知的红种人，从未见过的珍禽异兽，色彩斑斓大声叫喊的鹦鹉，体态笨拙的貘；接着是不久便在欧洲安家落户的奇异植物和果实…

有不可避免，苦杏仁的气味总是让他想起爱情受阻后的命运。刚一走进还处在黄昏之间的房间，胡维纳尔
·乌尔比诺医生就察觉出这种味道。他来这里是为了处理一桩紧急事件，但从很多年前开始，这类事件在他看来就算不上紧急了…

我写下这篇文章与后面这些文字的时候，我是独自一人，在这个森林的小木屋中。木屋位于马萨诸塞州的康科德镇，在瓦尔登湖的湖岸上，距离我的任何一个邻居都有一英里之遥，此木屋是我亲手建造的。我凭借自己的双手养活自己…

一辆漂亮的装有弹簧座的轻便型四轮马车驶进某省城一家旅馆的大门。坐得起这种马车的人通常都是在社会上小有身份、称得上是
“老爷”的人，他们大都是单身汉，比如退伍的上校啦，上尉啦，以及拥有上百个农奴的领主啦，等等…

I begin in darkness, and my nose tells me everything I know. I have a brother. Sharp. Bigger than me, and all growl. I have sisters. Pounce, who loves to wrestle, and Wag, who talks with her tail. And best of all, my brother Warm, who likes to curl up under my chin, the only pup smaller than me. I nose each one of them and the damp dirt above and the dry grass below. I circle the den while the others drowse. I take test runs up the tunnel. They call me Swift because I was the first to…

My new tattoo is covered by a Band-Aid, but halfway through recess, the Band-Aid falls off. I’m hanging my winter coat on the hook in our fourth-grade classroom when my teacher, Ms. Davonte, walks by and gasps. “Della,” she says, “is that a tattoo?” I hold up my wrist to show it to her. “It’s an ampersand,” I say, careful to pronounce the word correctly. “I know that,” Ms. Davonte says. “Is it real?” It’s so real, it still hurts, and the skin around it is red and puffy. “Yes ma’am,” I say. She shakes her head and mutters. I…

I hate zombies. I know that sounds prejudiced. I’m sure some zombies are really nice to kittens and love their parents. But it’s been my experience that most are not the kind of people you want sending you friend requests. Consider my current situation. Instead of eating pizza with my teammates as they celebrate my surprise victory at the St. Andrew’s Prep fencing tournament, I’m trapped in a locker-room toilet stall. With a dead body. It’s not exactly the Saturday I had planned. I wasn’t even supposed to compete in the tournament. Since most of the girls on the team…

I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that’s me–Cammie the Chameleon. But I’m luckier than most because, at my school, that’s considered cool. I go to a school for spies. Of course, technically, the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for geniuses–not spies–and we’re free to pursue any career that befits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, and then teaches you things like advanced encryption and fourteen different languages, it’s kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke; so all of us Gallagher…

There was a time when I could see the future, not that it did me much good. My visions came when they wanted, never giving me more than a fleeting glimpse of what was to come. They never offered enough detail or advance warning for me to win great fortunes or sidestep catastrophes. Take for example the very first one I ever had, back in fourth grade, when we lived in the yellow rent house on Seventeenth Street. That was the Tuesday night when my mom asked my father one too many questions about the Civil War and all our…

Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born. The wind knew. It was the first of June, but cold gusts bit at the hilltop citadelle as fiercely as deepest winter, shaking the windows with curses and winding through drafty halls with warning whispers. There was no escaping what was to come. For good or bad, the hours were closing in. I closed my eyes against the thought, knowing that soon the day would cleave in two, forever creating the before and after of my life, and it would happen in one swift…

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But…

First the colors. Then the humans. That’s how I usually see things. Or at least, how I try. HERE IS A SMALL FACT: You are going to die. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the A’s. Just don’t ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me. REACTION TO THE AFOREMENTIONED FACT: Does this worry you? I urge you…

In the world of Talhaven, magic is dying. The people of Talhaven had no warning this was going to happen, just as they’d had no warning of the Great Catastrophe. They believed magic was a safe, wondrous force that would always be there to light their homes, fly their skyships, and make their lives easier. They were wrong. The magic that remains in the world is unstable, dangerous–never more so than in the city of Regara, where the Great Catastrophe struck. Now the people of Talhaven fear magic. They have outlawed its use, and blame those who first brought it…

Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love. Her family traded in predictions. These predictions tended, however, to run toward the nonspecific. Things like: Something terrible will happen to you today. It might involve the number six. Or: Money is coming. Open your hand for it. Or: You have a big decision and it will not make itself. The people who came to the little, bright blue house at 300 Fox Way didn’t mind the imprecise nature of their fortunes. It became a game, a challenge, to realize the exact moment…