first-lines meme
Apr. 11th, 2005 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primroseburrowsGacked from everyone:
1. Choosefive ten of your all-time favorite books.
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess.
My own alterations: Sometimes these lines are from a prologue or introduction if I (completely arbitrarily) think it's related to the story(ies)). And yes, I have more than one sentence in some of them. Some first lines might be from novellas or short stories. Mneh. Have at it. I tried not to be too obvious (how many wouldn't guess the first line to Good Omens or The Gunslinger or The Two Towers?), and no one author is represented twice.
1. I am an old man now, but then I was already past my prime when Arthur was crowned king.
2. In shirt-sleeves, the way I generally worked, I sat sketching a bar of soap taped to an upper corner of my drawing board.
3. The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
4. Veldt to scrub to fields to farms to these first tumbling houses that rise from the earth. It has been night for a long time.
5. A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed.
6. Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat.
7. I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more.
8. They do it with mirrors. It's a cliche, of course, but it's also true.
9. Tall sails scraped the deep purple night as rockets burst, flared, and flourished red, white, and blue over the stoic Statue of Liberty.
10. It began one day in summer about thirty years ago, and it happened to four children.
1. Choose
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess.
My own alterations: Sometimes these lines are from a prologue or introduction if I (completely arbitrarily) think it's related to the story(ies)). And yes, I have more than one sentence in some of them. Some first lines might be from novellas or short stories. Mneh. Have at it. I tried not to be too obvious (how many wouldn't guess the first line to Good Omens or The Gunslinger or The Two Towers?), and no one author is represented twice.
1. I am an old man now, but then I was already past my prime when Arthur was crowned king.
2. In shirt-sleeves, the way I generally worked, I sat sketching a bar of soap taped to an upper corner of my drawing board.
3. The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
4. Veldt to scrub to fields to farms to these first tumbling houses that rise from the earth. It has been night for a long time.
5. A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed.
6. Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat.
7. I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more.
8. They do it with mirrors. It's a cliche, of course, but it's also true.
9. Tall sails scraped the deep purple night as rockets burst, flared, and flourished red, white, and blue over the stoic Statue of Liberty.
10. It began one day in summer about thirty years ago, and it happened to four children.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 04:58 pm (UTC)1.The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
10. Half Magic by Edward Eager
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 05:09 pm (UTC)Um. Is that from People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, by any chance? If not, it's a startlingly similar opening sentence.
1. I am an old man now, but then I was already past my prime when Arthur was crowned king.
I'm purely guessing now, but I'm thinking this might be the Once and Future King by T.H. White. Certainly, it's Merlin's POV.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 06:35 pm (UTC)Also, I really want to know what #5 is, because that sounds like a book I'd enjoy.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 01:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-11 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 01:31 am (UTC)You would LOVE Good Omens. I'm sure of it. It's one of those books you can't read in public because you'll embarrass yourself laughing.
It's Monty Python meets the Apocalypse. C'mon, you saw what the Pythons did with the Holy Grail. This is basically what Gaiman and Pratchett do with Armageddon.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 01:34 am (UTC)