# Guess the book from the opening lines....again! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493 "2003-12-22T19:16:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/61 "2003-12-25T15:18:40Z")
A translation > [@](#): > > Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/62 "2003-12-25T16:31:14Z")
> [@](#): > > The small boys came to the hanging. It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots. A thin layer of fresh snow covered the little town like a new coat of paint, and theirs were the first footprints to blemish its perfect surface _Pillars of the Earth_, Ken Follett ---
**Author:** ![gleeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f14d63/32.png) [@gleeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gleeb)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/63 "2003-12-25T18:40:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_. Here’s another easy one: > [@](#): > > In the latter days of July in the year 185-, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways- Who was to be the new Bishop? ---
**Author:** ![Glassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Glassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glassy)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/64 "2003-12-25T19:03:22Z")
> [@](#): > > In the latter days of July in the year 185-, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways- Who was to be the new Bishop? Barchester Towers by Trollope. Here’s mine: > [@](#): > > Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. First, picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight … A single-file army of ants bitinga mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. The forest eats itself and lives forever. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/65 "2003-12-25T22:17:16Z")
_The Poisonwood Bible_ by Barbara Kingsolver > [@](#): > > Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Babbington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mr.Babbington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Babbington)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/66 "2003-12-25T22:22:06Z")
> [@](#): > > He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful. Underworld, by Don DeLillo. > [@](#): > > Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. -And- > [@](#): > > It was a pleasure to burn. ---
**Author:** ![Jabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Jabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jabba)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/67 "2003-12-25T22:26:50Z")
**Mr.B** : I’ve never read it, but for your second one I shall take a wild stab at _Fahrenheit 451_. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2003, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/68 "2003-12-26T01:43:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Because I was the darkest of the children , it was always understood that I would receive the most education and would rise highest in the state. ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2003, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/69 "2003-12-26T03:25:14Z")
**Number Six** said: > [@](#): > > Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. That’s from _The Watchmen_. And I knew that one instantly, too. Sad, isn’t it? The opening lines I know by heart are all total gimmes, so I’ll let them go for now. If I think of a non-obvious one, I’ll post it later. ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/70 "2003-12-31T04:33:59Z")
> [@](#): > > 3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35 P.M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. ---
**Author:** ![RobuSensei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/919ad9/32.png) [@RobuSensei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobuSensei)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/71 "2003-12-31T12:10:19Z")
An obscure book, but one which I highly recommend: > [@](#): > > _I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world._ > My surname is Lu and my personal name is Yu, but I am not to be confused with the eminent author of _The Classic of Tea._ ---
**Author:** ![Jenny\_Haniver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Jenny\_Haniver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenny_Haniver)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/72 "2003-12-31T16:59:17Z")
**RobuSensei** , that’s _Bridge of Birds_, by Barry Hughart - I had to read that in college, I’d know it anywhere. > [@](#): > > On Friday, August third, 1923, the morning after President Harding’s death, reporters followed the widow, the Vice President, and Charles Carter, the magician. ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/73 "2003-12-31T17:04:09Z")
AWWWWW! JENNY! If Robu’s post had been delivered to my email I’d have got that one… A third reccommend for that wonderful book! ---
**Author:** ![Realhoops](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8dc957/32.png) [@Realhoops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Realhoops)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/74 "2003-12-31T18:15:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jenny Haniver \* > On Friday, August third, 1923, the morning after President Harding’s death, reporters followed the widow, the Vice President, and Charles Carter, the magician. Carter Beats the Devil. I can’t recall the author, however. Here’s mine: > [@](#): > > In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ---
**Author:** ![cromulent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@cromulent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cromulent)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/75 "2003-12-31T19:05:22Z")
> [@](#): > > ## \*Originally posted by Realhoops \* \*\* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. > > \*\* _The Great Gatsby_ Here’s one : > [@](#): > > Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. At 0627 hours on January 1, 1975, Alfred Archibald Jones was dressed in corduroy and sat in a fume-filled Cavalier Muskateer Estate facedown on the steering wheel, hoping the judgment would not be too heavy upon him. ---
**Author:** ![wonder9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c57346/32.png) [@wonder9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonder9)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/76 "2003-12-31T20:03:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*It was a nice day. > All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn’t been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one. \*\* _Good Omens_? Neil Gaiman? If not, it could be. What a GREAT book. Okay, how about this one? > [@](#): > > Doro’s widow in the southern California city of Forsyth had become a prostitute. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493/77 "2003-12-31T21:17:28Z")
> [@](#): > > 3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35 P.M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. _Dracula_, by Bram Stoker. > [@](#): > > It was not long after dawn when the captain of HM frigate _Lydia_ came up on deck. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-the-book-from-the-opening-lines-again/220493.md?page=3)