# Identify the books from the opening lines **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695 "2005-01-20T08:17:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/61 "2005-01-21T03:43:04Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Com6: It was love at first sight. Joseph Heller’s _Catch-22._ (About Yossarian, malingering in the hospital, immediately falling in love with the Chaplain.) BG1: Whenever, most gracious ladies, I consider how compassionate you are by nature, I realize that in your judgment the present work will seem to have a a serious and painful beginning, for it recalls in its opening the unhappy memory of the deadly plague just passed, dreadful and pitiful to all those who saw or heard about it. BG2: The morning sunshine descended like an amber shower-bath on [Name] Castle, lighting up with a heartening glow its ivied walls, its rolling parks, its gardens, outhouses, and messuages, and such of its inhabitants as chanced at the moment to be taking the air. BG3: “Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.” The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/62 "2005-01-21T03:45:54Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > e2 - There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. _The Silmarillion_ by Tolkien. Easy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/63 "2005-01-21T03:52:37Z")
BG4: Enoch rounds the corner just as the executioner raises the noose above the woman’s head. BG5: It was the year the bears were so bad in Bosnia. Anyone who gets BG5 is a geek-god of truly awesome presence! ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/64 "2005-01-21T04:04:08Z")
FP4: 1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. _Wuthering Heights_ Com1: Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? _Postcards From the Edge_ ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/65 "2005-01-21T04:12:52Z")
> [@Martha](#): > > M3 “Mary-Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time”. > > Easy peasy! Easy peasy, indeed. Tales of the City, Armstead Maupin ---
**Author:** ![Telperien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/66 "2005-01-21T04:22:00Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Com5: [Character], who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. _The Hound of the Baskervilles?_ My copy is ninety miles away, alas. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/67 "2005-01-21T04:24:01Z")
FP5: The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. _The Best Christmas Pageant Ever_ ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/68 "2005-01-21T04:50:19Z")
> [@Harimad-sol](#): > > _The Hound of the Baskervilles?_ My copy is ninety miles away, alas. You got it. Two down, four to go. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/69 "2005-01-21T11:07:26Z")
> [@Tenar](#): > > Easy peasy, indeed. Tales of the City, Armstead Maupin Got it. Anyone care to have a bash at the other two? > [@](#): > > M1 “When I think of all the grey memorials erected in London to equestrian generals, the heroes of old colonial wars, and to frock-coated politicians who are even more deeply forgotten, I can find no reason to mock the modest stone that commemorates Jones on the far side of the international road that he failed to cross in a country far from home, though I am not to this day absolutely sure of where, geographically speaking, Jones’s home lay”. > > (I must remember to send this to the next editor who tells me my sentences are too long. Hemingway it isn’t.) > > M2 “You too will marry a boy I choose, said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter”. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/70 "2005-01-21T11:27:59Z")
PM1 - Day of the Triffids? BG4: Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/71 "2005-01-21T12:04:52Z")
Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/72 "2005-01-21T14:25:56Z")
> [@](#): > > BG1: Whenever, most gracious ladies, I consider how compassionate you are by nature, I realize that in your judgment the present work will seem to have a a serious and painful beginning, for it recalls in its opening the unhappy memory of the deadly plague just passed, dreadful and pitiful to all those who saw or heard about it. _The Decameron_? Congrats to CrazyCatLady for getting _Wuthering Heights_ and _The Best Christmas Pageant Ever_. ---
**Author:** ![Aholibah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Aholibah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aholibah)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/73 "2005-01-21T15:22:56Z")
> [@](#): > > FP6: The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_, Oscar Wilde > [@](#): > > BG2: The morning sunshine descended like an amber shower-bath on [Name] Castle, lighting up with a heartening glow its ivied walls, its rolling parks, its gardens, outhouses, and messuages, and such of its inhabitants as chanced at the moment to be taking the air. This I believe to be one of P.G. Wodehouse’s Blandings novels, but a quick dash through my partial collection of these marvellous works does not allow me to confirm that, or to pin down which one it is. And now, a few additions: Ah1: Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow loveable. Ah2: A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world. Ah3: I address these lines – written in India – to my relatives in England. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/74 "2005-01-21T15:47:25Z")
Some more for you… Z8: When the world was new, the seven Gods dwelt in harmony and the races of man were as one people. Z9: Jeff Winston was on the phone with his wife when he died. Z10: A small Lizard perched on a brown stone. Z11: The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack filled with slim cordless phones, and he was not looking directly at the hidden camera, but somewhere off to the left, perhaps at a customer, or perhaps at a counter where a group of kids hovered over the latest electronic games from Asia. Z12: This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. Z13: (warning - non fiction!) Maybe you never wondered about things like this. But _I_ did, which is how I got to be such a Darn Smart Guy. Zev Steinhradt ---
**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:** [January 21, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/75 "2005-01-21T15:56:11Z")
Off the top of my head (warning-translation) > [@](#): > > Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/76 "2005-01-21T15:58:40Z")
> [@Shade](#): > > BG4: Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson. Got it! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/77 "2005-01-21T16:00:01Z")
> [@Fretful Porpentine](#): > > _The Decameron_? You are so wise! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sgt.Pepper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Sgt.Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sgt.Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/78 "2005-01-21T16:00:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Sh2 - Originally Posted by whom? > Two tires fly. Two wail. > A bamboo grove, all chopped down > From it, warring songs. Sorry if I didn’t get this in on time, but that’s Neal Stephenson, **Crytonomicon**. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/79 "2005-01-21T16:01:17Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > Z12: This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. Stephen King’s _The Green Mile?_ ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/80 "2005-01-21T16:01:26Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > Com1: Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? > > _Postcards From the Edge_ Sorry, I hadn’t noticed eearlier that you got this one. Kee-rect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695.md?page=5)