Loneraven’s second one sounds like The Aeneid; the translation I have starts “This is a tale of rms and of a man.”
For the one of mine which hasn’t been answered yet, I’ll give the next line as well:
See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt.
I thought that would be the hardest of my three, but I know there are people on the board who have read it as it often comes up in book threads.
Ranchoth’s is definitely Michael Chrichton, but I don’t have the books with me, so I couldn’t say which. I’d guess either Jurassic Park or his new one, Prey.
“The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut-tree into the middle of the road.”
“The visitor, making his wasy unobserved through the crowded main laboratory of The Hill, stepped up to within six feet of the back of a big Norwegian seated at an electono-optical bench.”
“I woke up in bed with a man and a cat.”
If it makes it any easier, I have yet to keep interest all the way through one of these.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Mine is:
“Maman died today.”
The Stranger by Albert Camus
OK Here’s mine…
“This is a book about what happens to people when they are overwhelmed by change.”
OOoooo or this one…
“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of Number Four, Privet Drive, where proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
(Guess what I’m re-reading in preperation for July?)
That’s Heinlein’s. To Sail Beyond A Sunset, IIRC.
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.
Here’s mine:
“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and made his way towards the lagoon.”
A couple of easier ones from the sci-fi bookshelf:
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
“Roscommon came and laid waste to the garden an hour after dawn, about the time I usually get out of bed and he usually passes out on the shoulder of some freeway.”
“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.”
And the literary wonks will probably snap this up in no time flat:
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.”
-Ben
Good call! It’s Jurassic Park.
Here’s a couple that should be a bit more…challenging.
“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.”
and…
“Gene Cernan was having the time of his life.”
Ender’s Game?
Don’t think I’m a literary wonk, but that’s The Grapes of Wrath.
How about this one?
“News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1968:”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Try this one:
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
That’s E. E. “Doc” Smith, First Lensman.
“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and made his way towards the lagoon.”
( posted by Diogenes the Cynic)
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
“Fear and loathing in Las Vegas”, by Hunter S. Thompson.
Now mine:
The sentence doesn’t stop there, but quoting it in full would surely spoil the whole thing.
Damn - someone else got both the ones I knew.
Tapioca Dextrin is correct about “The Dispossessed”.
How about:
Should be easy.
Regards,
Shodan
The Catcher in the Rye
“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.”
That was Blood Meridian??