The Next Best Book Club discussion

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

"In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justin Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran in interested eye through the political news in the Times."

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

"Most motorcars are conglomerations (this is a long word for bundles) of steel and wire and rubber and plastic, and electricity and oil and gas and water, and the toffee papers you pushed down the crack in the back seat last Sunday."

"Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her."

The Godfather by Mario Puzo
"Everyone thought she had made it up, and she had tolerated more taunting and teasing from other children, more lectures and punishments from grown-ups, than any eleven-year-old should have to bear."

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

"The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

coming up with the next one in a sec...

"Dear Cousin Tassie,

Thank you for the lovely postcards."

(Hint: lots of letters in this book)

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

"Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain: Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain."

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

"There was no reason why I shouldn't have been sent for the beer that day, for the last ends of the Fairmont National Bank case had been gathered in the week before and there was nothing for me to do but errands, and Wolfe never hesitated about running me down to Murray Street for a can of shoe-polish if he happened to need one."

Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout

Tad - I changed my clue after posting the first line of Anna Karenina but you must have posted while I was editting - my fault! The one that's there now is Call of the Wild.

Next line:

"At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar."

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (I think?)

"You see, Pooh," I said, "a lot of people don't seem to know what Taoism is..."

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen."

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"So you're all set for money, then?" the boy named Crow asks in his typical sluggish voice.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

"They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back."

I'll give the answer: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott.

Next first line:

"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens (just yesterday we were watching movie-musical on Tv :)


Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life...

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill.

"The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversation in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures of conversation?'

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

"Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest."

Ooh ooh!!!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

"Yes -- Kilgore Trout is back again."

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

"On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York."

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

"Captain First Rank Marko Ramius of the Soviet Navy was dressed for the Arctic conditions normal to the Northern Fleet submarine base at Polyarnyy."

The Hunt for Red October byTom Clancy


When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prims warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did

The Hunger Games

"I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your own great and frequent urgency, you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university, to put them in order and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did by my advice, in his book "A Voyage Round the World".

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" -
I like this book so much!!!!

"The boy's name was Santiago. Dusk was falling as the boy arrived with his herd at an
abandoned church. The roof had fallen in long ago, and an enormous sycamore had
grown on the spot where the sacristy had once stood."

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho :)

She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream.

Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer

"You know before you know, of course."

Yuliya wrote: ""The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" -
I like this book so much!!!!"

It was Gulliver's Travels.

Lorraine wrote: "Yuliya wrote: ""The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" -
I like this book so much!!!!"

It was Gulliver's Travels."
sorry, I again was on wrong page (I answered to different post). But what the most interesting - I also was going to post first line from Gulliver's Travels and only last second switched to Alchemist!!!!!

Terri wrote: "Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer

"You know before you know, of course.""

Since no one guessed I will give you another one. That line was from "Open House" by Elizabeth Berg.


"There was a strong smell of smoke and new fear fueled me."

Terri wrote: "Terri wrote: "Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer

"You know before you know, of course.""

Since no one guessed I will give you another one. That line was from "Open House" by Elizabeth Berg.

usually it take up to week for someone to answer, so don't hurry up to give you answer on you lines!


"There ..."

by Terri
"There was a strong smell of smoke and new fear fueled me."

Oooops! Got it!

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

"These days, ghosts turn up in the damndest places."

Ghost Of A Chance - Simon R. Green

Call me Ishmael.

Moby-Dick - Herman Melville

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis


"There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire."

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

"It sounded like a good idea at the time, which is probably going to be on my tombstone - along with a catty footnote about poor impulse control."

Never read it, but I love the opening line.

"A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story."

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing

Don Quixote.

On a grey morning in March 1850, a colored slave named Liz Spocott dreamed of the future. And it was not pleasant.

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.

I'll give a few hints. Written by a woman before 1920.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink".

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

"Blasted heck, I'm supposed to be writing my Catorcena speech, where I am supposed to be celebrating the fabulousness of my House, the glory of my family, the fantasticness of my future."

Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce

"Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John."

MY FAVORITE!!!! Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

"The Navy lieutenant poked his close-cropped head into the aircraft carrier's wardroom."

(think sci-fi)

Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer

"The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended."

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."

This is a quote from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. But all the editions I've seen start with "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question."