The Next Best Book Club discussion
Fun and Games
>
Opening Lines
11/22/63 by Stephen King“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck"I'd been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar."
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris"The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose."
Matilda by Roald Dahl"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee"In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye though the political news in The Times."
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie"Part of the problem, Nita thought as she tore desperately down Rose Avenue, is that I can't keep my mouth shut."
"So You Want to be a Wizard," Diane Duane."Apart from the one in the church tower, there were five clocks in the village that kept reasonable time, and my father owned one of them."
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Julius Caesar by William ShakespeareI was sick-sick unot death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.
The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."
A Christmas Memory Book and CD by Truman Capote"Petra Wade was a ticker engineer—or, she wanted to be."
The Clockwork Giant by Brooke Johnson‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins1801 - I have just returned from a visit to my Landlord
The Round House by Louise Erdrich"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.”
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
"The past is a foreign country : they do things differently there."
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier"This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain."
The Green Mile by Stephen King"They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did."
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys"When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake - not a very big one."
Night Film by Marisha Pessl"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka"They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.
Not anymore, though."
The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth"The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor
of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted."
The Pickwick Papers - Charles DickensThe dsy was grey and bittter cold and the dogs would not take the scent.
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin"Shawn means self and Kleiner means centered!"
Blue Bells of Scotland by Laura Vosika"My mother did not tell me they were coming. Afterwards she said she did not want me to appear nervous. I was surprised, for I thought she knew me well. Strangers would think I was calm. I did not cry as a baby. Only my mother would note the tightness along my jaw, the widening of my already wide eyes."
The Next Best Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Between Shades of Gray (other topics)Eleanor & Park (other topics)
Drums of Autumn (other topics)
The Hunt for Red October (other topics)
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Rainbow Rowell (other topics)Diana Gabaldon (other topics)
Dr. Seuss (other topics)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (other topics)
Diana Wynne Jones (other topics)
More...
Like many events that define life's hinges, this occurred as I sat minding my own business.