Here's the follow up from last week's list of first lines (my Saturday Oxfam haul). Some good guesses but nobody got number 5.
1 - 'So now get up.' Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard.
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
2 - Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup.
Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger
3 - There were years after it happened, after I'd returned from the town and come back here to the busy blank of the city, when some comment would be tossed off about the Second World War and how it had gone -- some idiot remark about clarity and purpose -- and I'd resist the urge to stub out my cigarette and bring the dinner party to a satisfying halt.
The Postmistress, Sarah Blake
4 - Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact.
The Ice Queen, Alice Hoffman
5 - The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
6 - Eilis Lacey, sitting at the window of the upstairs living room in the house on Friary Street, noticed her sister walking briskly from work.
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
7 - When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
8 - My mother began me one evening in 1968 on a table in the cafe of the town's only cinema.
The Accidental, Ali Smith
9 - When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along to an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
10 - Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.
Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake
That last is actually a library book and tops my stack for the upcoming 24-hour Read-a-Thon. Only a week and a day to go... Are you joining in the fun?
Oops, I didn't get many right! On the other hand, I only read a few of those. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - sounded very familiar but I couldn't place it. I read the book a few months ago.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the read-a-thon. I'm also doing it. I have some books planned, although I keep changing my mind all the time. :-)