To tone your thighs fast - three words ladies - squats and walking lunges. I took a fitness bootcamp for women last fall. We met three times a week and these two exercises were at the core of each meeting. My husband noticed a difference after week one.
Don Quijote de la Manca by the Spanish author Cervantes has such a role in the Western literary tradition, that it's hard to mention anything posterior to it as the first fiction novel. Jerry mentioned Moll Flanders. That's a nice pick: the very novel that combined literature of roguery and picaresque novel.
The City of Ember (2003) by Jeanne DuPrau is the first science fiction novel in a series for young adult readers called The Book of Ember. The story begins in the mid twenty-first century following a devastating apocalyptic war. The setting is Ember, the sole human settlement that exists in nearly total darkness.