Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

We all find those lines in our books that truly speak to us and inspire. But what about the random lines that build to the stories we love but seem unsuspecting until you tie them to an idea? For today's game, look at the prompts below and then spend a few minutes looking through your current book to find the line that would be the perfect pair.

Pick as many or as few from the list:

1. What's a line from your diary?
2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
4. A political slogan.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
1. What's a line from your diary?
"Becoming one with the bed didn't help."

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"His teeth were white, slightly crooked in an adorable way, and normal."

4. A political slogan.
"Dance or Die."

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. → "... the someone was a half-washed, eccentric-looking librarian."

A political slogan. → "Brook no trespasses."

From Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

1. What's a line from your diary?
"Memories of the night before are regenerating."

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"...a man wearing a geisha mask."

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"I watch as the droplets streak across the grass and blur the world beyond into an impressionistic cityscape of gray, punctuated by the glow of distant taillights, distant headlights."

4. A political slogan.
I'm not crazy.

From The Last Unicorn

1. What's a line from your diary? "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long"

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. "...was naked and the skin was the color of snow by moonlight "

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"I will love you as long as I can,
However long that may be ..."

4. A political slogan.
"You'll get to like it!"

1. What's a line from your diary?
“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel.”

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"...has eyes of a faded china blue"

4. A political slogan.
"I have my own agenda"

Doctor Who: Inferno (This should be interesting!)

1. What's a line from your diary? "Don't you see I can't? I literally can't. There would be a cosmic disaster"

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. "He had torn off his gloves, and the claw-like hands were covered with coarse black hair"

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby. "I can stand a great deal of this childishness"

4. A political slogan. "I don't need anyone's advice" (Wait, that was already used in the last election, wasn't it? lol)

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

1. What's a line from your diary?
We are together again. And for that brief instant in time, that is all that matters.

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
-the jutting Roman nose that made his profile so distinctive; the broad, expressive mouth; the sweep of his long hair, low brows and the way they winged upwards slightly at the edges, giving him the look of someone always just about to frown.

4. A political slogan.
Welcome to the Lying Game!

I'm currently reading The Outsiders

1. What's a line from your diary?
"Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset"

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
Lucky for me, this book goes a little over-the-top sometimes with describing the characters.

He "is six-feet-two, and broad-shouldered and muscular. He has dark-brown hair that kicks out in front and a slight cowlick int eh back"

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"Stay gold"

4. A political slogan.
"Things are rough all over" or "It's okay. We aren't in the same class. Just don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too." I slightly prefer the first one, just because the second is so wordy, but it also seems like an important point.

currently reading The Thing Around Your Neck
1. What's a line from your diary? "How can you love somebody and yet want to manage the amount of happiness that person is allowed"
2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. "a pudgy, dark-skinned man who looked vaguely familiar."
3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby. "I have been talking to you and you just look at me like a moo-ooo!"
4. A political slogan. "Nigeria will be well because of you"

News of the World

1. What's a line from your diary?
Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
...clean-shaven face with runic angles, his hair was perfectly white, and he was still six feet tall.

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
She walks along the river in the quiet summer night...

4. A political slogan.
"Silence!"

Winter
1. What's a line from your diary?These people put their trust in her. How could she abandon them?
2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. devastating beautiful, with tan skin and roguish wavy hair,
3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.The parakeets sing ta-weet-a weet-a-weet, and the stars twinkle all the night...
4. A political slogan. Civilization inside a perfect capsule

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

1. What's a line from your diary? "If you can't get rid of the bad, you have to top it up with more goody stuff."
2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. "He looks like he could run fifty miles in his bare feet...his hair is so thick and tangled that you could lose your keys in it, and there's something in his eyes as if he'd just found a secret stash of fireworks and ice cream."
3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby. "Land-of-Almost-Awake"
4. A political slogan. "Protect the castle...Protect your family. Protect your friends."

Mel wrote: "Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
1. What's a line from your diary?
"Becoming one with the bed didn't help."

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"..."

However, becoming one with the bed never hurts :)

Silvia wrote: "From The Last Unicorn

1. What's a line from your diary? "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long"

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation. "....."

I love this lullaby! And that political slogan sounds spot on nowadays :)

From: The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College
A book for work.

1. What's a line from your diary?
"It feels good to get poked". pg. 52

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"Nudity is like the cafeteria food in the residence halls; everyone reacts differently. Some get completely disgusted, others delight in the experience". pg. 83

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"Frats can offer you much more than beer". pg. 156

4. A political slogan.
"Reputations are like really bad gas - they can stick to you and follow you for a very long time". pg. 274

From: The Hound of the Baskervilles

1. What's a line from your diary?
"My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco."

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"...a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favorite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff."

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound"

4. A political slogan.
"The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood"

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

1. What's a line from your diary?
"And then one day, I was walking home from the gas station across the street, where I had gone to buy cigarettes."

2. Describe the man who sat next to you on public transportation.
"It is the unstoppable march of an infectious disease across humanity."

3. A song you'd sing to a crying baby.
"My true loves were and still are books and writing stories and daydreaming."

4. A political slogan.
"Looks matter, and we can say, 'But but but ..' But no. Looks matter. Bodies matter."