Literary elevation

[altivo]

From soreth, this one makes more sense than the "take the nearest book, go to page whatever" memes.

1. Choose five to 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! Cross them off as they're guessed correctly.

It's difficult for me to choose a small group and call them favorite but here are some of the books I like best. Where the first sentence is really short, I'll give more than that as a clue. In no particular order, and chosen from the more accessible shelves:

1. There had been something loose about the station dock all morning, skulking in amongst the gantries and the lines and the canisters which were waiting to be moved, lurking wherever shadows fell among the rampway accesses of the many ships at dock at Meetpoint.


2. The Titanide galloped from the fog like a fugitive from a demented carousel. Wizard by John Varley, credit to ruwhei, half credit to calydor for getting author but not title.


3. I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, credit to ruwhei.


4. I know a place where there is no smog and no parking problem and no population explosion...no cold war and no h-bombs and no television commercials...no summit conferences, no foreign aid, no hidden taxes--no income tax. Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein, credit to ruwhei.


5. It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, credit to soreth.


6. There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, credit to calydor.


7. The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, credit to calydor.


8. He was not dead. That much, at least, he was certain of.


9. The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut-tree into the middle of the road. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, credit to bariki.


10. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Black Beauty by Anna Sewall, credit to calydor.


11. Kerris woke. He stretched. He was stiff and cold. The pallet under him was thin and prickly; he had slept far from the chimneys, in the place nearest the door.

Yes, I know, I already cheated. There are eleven in the list. I could hit twenty-five in another ten minutes, because I already had to choose to drop out several. Anyone want to take a guess?

Comments

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Oh, and wild-guessing 10 yields Black Beauty, strike that one too.