Time for a memorable book openings thread

[cemaphonic]

Anybody know these? No googling.

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

Anyone else got any?

[darkstar]

1. I have to say, I'm stumped

But here's another--

"A screaming comes across the sky."

[cemaphonic]

2. Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Both of mine are a good deal less famous than that one.

[darkstar]

3. Well good to know....

hmm...

Any hints?

[cemaphonic]

4. teeny, tiny hints...

Author of #1 is Scottish, and is actually pretty popular in the UK.

The second author's other novel is more famous, and has had at least 2 major movie adaptations, one fairly recent and one in the 1960s.

[Kutjara]

5. First one's Iain Banks' "Crow Road."

Don't know the second.

[RetroLounge]

6. 2nd one is Shirley Jackson

"We have always lived in the castle"

:hi:

RL

[grannylib]

7. Dang, you just beat me to it! I loved that story. eom

[triguy46]

35. I just read it 2 weeks ago. Very good writing...

esp. the sentence "On Tuesdays and Fridays I went into the village, and on Thursday, which was my most powerful day, I went into the big attic and dressed in their clothes."

When I read that, I realized that once again, a gifted writer had led me down a path of which I was completely unprepared.

[cemaphonic]

44. Yeah, Merikat is a really well-written character

I love how blurry the line between her elaborate fantasy life and system of sympathetic magic, and the mundane world is.

[Richardo]

8. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Brilliant.

[Kutjara]

11. "1984" by George Orwell. n/t

[grannylib]

9. Here's one from one of my favorite authors; I've read this at least 10 times

"The motto was 'Pax': peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. 'It is my peace I give unto you.' Not, notice, the world's peace."

[lost-in-nj]

10. just re-started this book

Warmth. Wind. Dancing blue waters. and the sounds of waves. I see, hear feel them all still. I even taste the salt against my lips .where the fine misty spray coat them. And even closer than that, the lulling, drowsy smell of my mothers skin by my nose, where she holds me against her bosom,her hand making a sunshade across my forehead to shield my eyes. The boat is rocking gently, and my mother is rocking me as well, so I sway to a double rhythm.



lost

[Sugar Smack]

12. I can't guess, but here are some:

"I'm like, I don't believe this shit."

"Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure."

"At the end of a little Swedish town lay an old, overgrown orchard. In the orchard was a cottage, and in this cottage lived P---- L-----------. She was nine years old, and she lived all alone."

:) GREAT idea, btw.

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Pippi Longstocking is the last one!

I LOVED Pippi books as a kid.

I've been meaning the last few years to actually buy a set. I borrowed all those books from the library over and over and over.

I gained a lot of my personality from Pippi, I think.

[Sugar Smack]

26. My God, I just remembered that about you.

YES. Pippi. She was my freaking hero & I wore out the original book with so much reading. I wanted to be Pippi.

Damn, I knew there was a reason I loved ya!

[Richardo]

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

had long since ended."

[Sugar Smack]

18. "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs

began to take hold." :rofl:

[Richardo]

21. I *love* you!!

:loveya: That's one of my top five favorite opening lines ever...

HST's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" :patriot:

[Sugar Smack]

25. AH-

The feeling's mutual! And of course you're right about the book. You win a mescaline milkshake with a little umbrella :loveya:

I wish I could figure out yours, though. It sounds SO familiar.

[Richardo]

28. The 'arthur' died last week at 90

:)

[cemaphonic]

43. Yeah, that one has got to be in the opening sentance hall of fame

I was just thinking that Hunter would have been totally fascinated by this primary season.

[cemaphonic]

19. Oh that is a good one

Don't know the book though.

[Richardo]

27. "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Read that book in one Sunday afternoon in 1968. :)

[Richardo]

14. "It was love at first sight."

My favorite novel.

[XemaSab]

15. I know the second one!

:bounce:

[RetroLounge]

16. Here's one

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

:hi:

RL

[XemaSab]

24. I know THAT one!

:D

[YankeyMCC]

17. "Rage- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son

Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaean's countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end."

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. Joyce's Ulysses?

[Sugar Smack]

20. "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."

[Richardo]

30. Sounds like Holden Caufield and all...

:D

[Sugar Smack]

37. Yeah, "Ackley kid, hey"

:rofl: :applause: Spot on, baybee.

[XemaSab]

29. Behavioral science,

the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth.

[triguy46]

32. Silence of the Lambs?

[XemaSab]

34. That was fast

:D

[triguy46]

31. "Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing,...

not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego."

[Lyric]

36. Call of the Wild? n/t

[triguy46]

38. Yup. Kudos, you.

[JTG of the PRB]

33. "'It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?!'"

"You stupid monkey!!"

I like the Simpsons... :evilgrin:

[Richardo]

39. "This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men...

...on a planet which was dying fast."

I'm reading this right now. :)

[YDogg]

40. AAA Body Shop 555-1212

[Sugar Smack]

41. "My mother, Jasmine, woke up this morning to find the word D-I-V-O-R-C-E

written in mirror writing on her forehead with a big black felt pen".

[Xipe Totec]

42. It was inevitable:

the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.

[Forkboy]

45. "All this happened, more or less."

[Richardo]

46. Slaughterhouse Five

:)

[Forkboy]

Bingo!

That was quick! :)

[sammythecat]

47. Here's one most should know,

"Call me Ishmael."

[Forkboy]

48. Moby the Dick.

Wait, that was the porn version.... :P

[Elidor]

49. Scott used to say that the worst part of an expedition was over when the preparation was finished

So no doubt it was with a sigh of relief that he saw the Terra Nova out from Cardiff into the Atlantic on 15 June 1910. Cardiff had given the expedition a most generous and enthusiastic send-off, and Scott announced that it should be his first port on returning to England. Just three years more and the Terra Nova, worked back from New Zealand by Pennell, reached Cardiff again on 14 June 1913, and paid off there.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

50. Last night I dreamed of Manderlay.

;)

[Richardo]

51. Rebecca

:)

I got about 1/3rd of the way through that one time. I really must get back to it one day.