History Bookends / Literature

** ''Galaxias'' by Creator/StephenBaxter opens with a section describing Galaxias's slow and deliberate reaction to human space travel, ending with "And a hard rain fell upon the face of Tasha Brand", which leads into the story proper, showing the Sun disappearing, and the resultant weather effects, from Tasha's perspective. It ends with [[spoiler: decendents of Earth creatures (not humans) millennia in the future, learning why humans decided to spend a thousand years moving the entire solar system out of the galaxy, and deciding on their own reaction to this. The last sentence of the book is "And a hard rain fell upon the face of Galaxias".]]

* ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': The first and [[EndingFuneralScene last]] chapters of book 1 are both titled "The Funeral," as both of them cover a funeral ||of a Norn.||

* Creator/JoseMariaEguren: ''Simbólicas'' features four {{poe|try}}ms titled "Lied" interspersed irregularly throughout the book. The opening poem is "Lied I", and is about a dawn riddled with pain and death, while the last entry is "Lied IV", about a dead person's body being found at night.

* Creator/JoseMariaEguren: ''Simbólicas'' features four poems titled "Lied" interspersed irregularly throughout the book. The opening poem is "Lied I", and is about a dawn riddled with pain and death, while the last entry is "Lied IV", about a dead person's body being found at night.

* The second volume of ''Literature/AccelWorld'' begins with Yuniko "Scarlet Rain" Kozuki tricking Haruyuki "Silver Crow" Arita's mother into thinking that she's his relative in order to get into his home and recruit him to help her save a friend. At the end of the volume, Yuniko pulls the same trick on Mrs. Arita, this time convincing her that she's a coworker's child, to let him know how things turned out with her friend.

* The third book of Traci Harding's ''Literature/TheAncientFutureTrilogy'', ends with Noah/[[spoiler:Selwyn]] reading out the first line of the first book.
* The first and last chapters of Book 1 of ''Literature/AnOutcastInAnotherWorld'' end with Rob's shirt having been destroyed. In a less humorous example, the last chapter of Book 1 and first chapter of Book 2 [[spoiler:exhibit funerals for those lost, complete with personalized eulogies.]]

* ''Literature/TheBible'' begins and ends with the Tree of Life.

* ''Literature/BlackVeinProphecy'' begins with the AmnesiacHero, Maior, waking up in a mausoleum, unaware of his surroundings and where he is; his subsequent QuestForIdentity have him learning his true heritage as the son of the evil warlock Benzieval, and how he was cursed to forget his true identity by his father before he was entombed alive two centuries ago; and when he confronts the spirit of Benzieval once more, Maior wakes up in the bedroom of his former home, once more unaware of his surroundings and where he is.

* ''Literature/BrothersOfTheSnake''

* The British publication of ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' begins and ends with almost exactly the same passages, only with different names for the people in his gang. Several chapters, including the first and last, also start with the phrase, "So, what's it going to be then, eh?"

he sang his didn’t he danced his did.\\
\\

they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same\\

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'': At chapter I of the first part, Don Quixote spends [[SeriousBusiness four days thinking how to MeaningfulRename his horse, and another eight days how to rename himself]], showing us that he is a MadDreamer. At the penultimate chapter of the second part, Don Quixote immediately thinks of the names he and his partners will adopt as shepherds, and Sanson Carrasco even say some names in a carelessly manner. ''Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name'', showing us that he now is BoredWithInsanity.

* ''Literature/TheExpanse'': The short story "The Churn" begins and ends with a description of a man named Amos Burton. The opening description is of the original Amos Burton, an Earther gang leader and boss of a young man named Timmy (a.k.a. the future Amos from the novels proper.) The closing description is of Timmy-as-Amos Burton, thanks to Timmy killing the original Amos and Erich giving Timmy Amos's "escape plan" to get off of Earth.
* At the start of ''Literature/TheFaerieQueene'''s second book, Guyon and the Palmer are too late to save a knight named Mordant (and his wife) from Acrasia's curse. At the end, they arrive on time to rescue her new victim, a knight named Verdant.

* The Lion of Farside, first book in ''Literature/TheFarsideTrilogy'' starts and ends in the first person, as if the narrator is writing a journal or memoir. The trilogy as a whole starts and ends with Curtis and Varia being together.

%%** Samuel Delany does the same thing in ''Literature/{{Dhalgren}}''.

* A more subtle example: Each book in the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' Mage Wars trilogy by Creator/MercedesLackey and Larry Dixon begins and ends with the same word: "silence" in the first book, "light" in the second, and "freedom" in the third. These might be considered, roughly, ArcWords for each book, at least for the first and last--the first is the story of the "Mage of Silence" who created [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent gryphons]], and the third is about the children of two famous characters trying to break free from their parents' expectations and reputations.
* The Literature/HisDarkMaterials cycle begins and ends with the name of the protagonist: ''Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall. [...] "The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.''

* In ''Literature/HollowPlaces,'' both the opening and closing paragraphs state the normality is hard to define. Both the beginning of ending chapters feature Austin leaving his foster home on the way to a new city.

* "Und Jimmy ging zum Regenbogen" (minor spoiler: averts ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish), a bestselling novel of Austrian author Johannes Mario Simmel, has a very ironic and bloody one. The opening scene is the unknowing and innocent protagonist Manuel Aranda being in the crosshair of an assassin due to major spy business kerfuffle. Ka-blam! No, that was an assassin assassinating the assassin (due to more kerfuffle). This is just the [[IncrediblyLamePun start shot]] to Manuel diving headlong into the mysterious murdering of his father and major assorted-intelligence-services-of-the-world asshattery related to bioweapons. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, at the end HeKnowsTooMuch and the assassin of his assassin assassinates him.]]

* The prologue of [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Prince Harry]]'s ''Spare'' starts out after his grandfather's funeral. Then the first chapter starts on August 31, 1997, the day his mother died. The epilogue not only finds us back after his grandfather's funeral, there's a TimeSkip that finds him bringing his wife Meghan to his mother's grave and his ''grandmother'' dying within a few days of that.

We can't exactly call them book-ends if they don't appear in books, now can we?\\
''Note that some BookEnds can be a spoiler, so beware.''

* Robert Harris is fond of BookEnds:

[[BookEnds What, you didn't know a book had covers?]]

* ''Literature/TheBarsoomProject'' opens with a battle scene from the first Fimbulwinter Game, in which a club-wielding Adventurer is killed out by the Terichik. At the end of the book, the second Fimbulwinter Game kicks off its own climactic battle with an identical scene using the same lines of narration, except that this time [[spoiler:it's Max who dies]].

* The third book of Traci Harding's trilogy ''Literature/TheAncientFuture", ends with Noah/[[spoiler:Selwyn]] reading out the first line of the first book.

* The second volume of ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'' begins with Yuniko "Scarlet Rain" Kozuki tricking Haruyuki "Silver Crow" Arita's mother into thinking that she's his relative in order to get into his home and recruit him to help her save a friend. At the end of the volume, Yuniko pulls the same trick on Mrs. Arita, this time convincing her that she's a coworker's child, to let him know how things turned out with her friend.