Guess the Novel By Its First Line: A Game

The Game Room
41

[QUOTE=Gadarene]

  1. Friday, in the evening, the landlady shouted up the stairs: “Oh God, oh Jesus, Oh Sacred Heart.”
    [/QUOTE]

Ulysses, by James Joyce.

42

[QUOTE=Weaver of Nightmares]
38. Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.
[/QUOTE]

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein.

43

[QUOTE=Weaver of Nightmares]
Ulysses, by James Joyce.
[/QUOTE]

Right country, wrong author.

  1. is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
44

[QUOTE=pasunejen]
The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
[/QUOTE]
Yup.
[QUOTE=pprgrl]
I’m pretty sure this is The Color Purple but I can’t check because for some inexplicable reason it is not sitting on my shelf of favorite books.
[/quote]
You got it. Next line: “It’d kill your mammy.”

You want a hint? Author:Amy Tan.

45

35 is Something Wicked This Way Comes (I think). I also believe 39 is ‘Meathouse Man’.

  1. “His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a g-d”
46

[QUOTE=Švejk]

  1. “So they killed our Ferdinand!”
    [/QUOTE]
    From your namesake: The Good Soldier Švejk, by Jaroslav Hašek. :slight_smile:

Here’s mine:
Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

47

[QUOTE=Gadarene]
5. The snow in the mountain was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
[/QUOTE]
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt.

48

[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine]
5 – The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
[/QUOTE]
Darn it!

49

[QUOTE=Enginerd]
22. I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.
[/QUOTE]

“Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace

50

[QUOTE=pravnik]
Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.
[/QUOTE]

The Godfather?

51

[QUOTE=Finagle]
The Godfather?
[/QUOTE]
Very good. One of my favorite first lines. :slight_smile:

An easy one:
Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.

52

[QUOTE=pravnik]
Very good. One of my favorite first lines. :slight_smile:

An easy one:
Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.
[/QUOTE]

Fight Club

53

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
44. “His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a g-d”
[/QUOTE]

  1. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
54

Trust you, Scarlett, to get that one. :stuck_out_tongue:

Okay, from three of my favorite authors:

  1. The panic-stricken girl was galloping full speed back towards the coast, half a mile ahead, along footpaths that led precariously through the rice swamps and paddy fields.

  2. It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

  3. Having no personal commitment to either of the new consuls, Gaius Julius Caesar and his sons simply tacked themselves onto the procession which started nearest to their own house, the procession of the senior consul, Marcus Minucius Rufus.

55

[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer]
Yup.You got it. Next line: "It’d kill your mammy."You want a hint? Author:Amy Tan.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, okay, then that’s from

The Joy Luck Club

(spoilered in case someone else can get it without the hint).

I thought as much, but I can’t double-check any of these because about 95% of my books are in storage right now.

  1. Some hours before dawn Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, wakes to find himself already in motion, pushing back the covers from a sitting position, and then rising to his feet.

And two of my earlier ones that have not been guessed yet:

  1. It was a nice day.

  2. Friday, in the evening, the landlady shouted up the stairs: "Oh God, oh Jesus, Oh Sacred Heart.

56

[QUOTE=pprgrl]
Ah, okay, then that’s from

The Joy Luck Club

(spoilered in case someone else can get it without the hint.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, not that one. Answer: The Kitchen God’s Wife

57

^ :smack:

58

[QUOTE=ivylass]
46. It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.
[/QUOTE]
That’s from Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. She’s one of my favorites, too.

59

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
35 is Something Wicked This Way Comes (I think). I also believe 39 is ‘Meathouse Man’.
[/QUOTE]

You’re right about the Bradbury, but the other one’s wrong.

60

I’ve never heard of half the authors or books in this thread. The only one I have known so far was Salem’s Lot, which Ivylass got. I’ll go ahead and add one anyway, from one of my favorite books:

  1. For a long time the horizon had been a monotonous flat blue line separating the Pacific Ocean from the sky.