10 First Lines Book Meme

November 4, 2009

It’s a quiet evening and I’m feeling whole and maybe a little blissful.  What better time for a book meme:

  • Pick 10 of your favorite books or series.  [I made two lists.  10 fiction and 5 non-fiction.]
  • Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
  • Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books.

Fiction

1.  She could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it.

2.  When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

3.  The big kitchen of the Murry’s house was bright and warm, curtains drawn against the dark outside, against the rain driving past the house from the northeast.

4.  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

5.  The last mortal kingdom before the unmeasured sweep of Faerieland begins has at best held an uneasy truce with its unpredictable neighbor.

6.  The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.

7.  The child looked up at the adult eagerly, wonderingly in that way that children had.

8.  She scowled at her glass of orange juice.

9.  The city was silently bloating in the hot sun, rotting like the thousands of bodies that lay where they had falled in street battles.

10.  Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

To be honest, I’m not sure I could identify the books by these lines, and these are my favorite books; each of which I’ve read several times.  I might do a little better on my non-fiction list, but they’re more likely to have clues for me that would help.

Non-fiction

1.  On January 31, 1872, Henry Ward Beecher traveled to Yale to deliver the first of the Beecher Lectures on preaching, which had been established in memory of his father.

2.  The apple trees in the orchard at Crosswicks are growing old.

3.  I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure.

4.  There are few things more crucial to us than our own lives.

5.  O My beloved, abide under the shelter of the lattice for I have betrothed you to Myself, and and though you are sometimes indifferent toward Me, My love for you is at all times as a flame of fire.

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