Guess the opening lines...

[kinkytoes]

Hi all, hope it's ok to start this here.

Thought it might be fun and stretch the old grey matter a bit.

I'll attach a shot of some opening lines and whoever guesses correctly post their own?

We could all just post pics but then we might lose track. I don't mind.

Let me know what you think (of the idea, and the opening lines here - hopefully started off with an easyish one but let me know if any clues are needed!)

If it's being done elsewhere please someone direct me 😊

PS I'm not currently reading this but I have read it. Maybe that should be the rule, only post ones you've personally read.

That’s from Watership Down which is one of my favourite books.

Here’s a quote from another of my favourite novels.

”She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. She has sensed a shift in the weather. There is another gust of wind, a buckle of noise in the air, and the tall cypresses sway. She turns and moves uphill toward the house, climbing over a low wall, feeling the first drops of rain on her bare arms. She crosses the loggia and quickly enters the house.”

I love this game, unfortunately I don't recognise either of those, but I can contribute the opening line of the book I am currently reading:

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies , on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour.

AnotherEmilee

Is that Vanity Fair? I don't know the previous one.

Will come back with a contribution when I've thought of something that isn't too obvious.

The English Patient?

Correct 😀

I will also supply the first couple of lines of the book I read last. Quite different to Vanity Fair:

The transformation occurred at approximately 2.23AM Pacific Standard Time. As far as I could tell, anyone who was indoors when it happened died instantly.

I knew Vanity Fair and here's mine:

A fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the café. She had
come in from the rain and drops of water still trembled like delicate dew on the fur coats
of some of the women inside. A regiment of white-aproned waiters rushed around at
tempo, serving the needs of the Münchner at leisure – coffee, cake and gossip.

These are my New Year’s resolutions:

1. I will help the blind across the road.
2. I will hang my trousers up.
3. I will put the sleeves back on my records.
4. I will not start smoking.
5. I will stop squeezing my spots.
6. I will be kind to the dog.
7. I will help the poor and ignorant.
8. After hearing the disgusting noises from

downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.

Correct!

I borrowed this on Kindle Unlimited this morning after reading the sample! Looking forward to reading about Princess Donut more than anything.

Forgot to say - Dungeon Crawler Carl.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

Ohh I've answered one too now, get me 😄

And look at you all being digital and me photographing the actual book 🤣

I just know this will inspire me to read more books too. These openings are brilliant!

Here's two. Both are mentioned quite often on MN. Not easy to find a book where the character's name isn't mentioned in the first paragraph!

I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun.

@@@@@

James Macfadden died in March 1905 when he was forty-seven years old; he was riding in the Driffield Point to Point.

He left the bulk of his money to his son Douglas. The Macfaddens and the Dalhousies at that time lived in Perth, and Douglas was a school friend of Jock Dalhousie who was a young man then, and had gone to London to become junior partner in a firm of solicitors in Chancery Lane, Owen, Dalhousie, and Peters. I am now the senior partner, and Owen and Dalhousie and Peters have been dead for many years, but I never changed the name of the firm.

@HelenaWilson The first one is The 39 Steps - John Buchan. That's the hero, Richard Hannay.

Have got to go out so haven't time to do one, but it's a great game.

I'm pretty sure the first one is The Thirty Nine Steps.

This is a great idea.
I’m commenting so I post something soon,

@HelenaWilson I had to cut Watership Down off just before it mentioned rabbits! Thought that might have given it away slightly.

magimedi CrossPurposes.

Yes that is The Thirty Nine Steps.

I've another:

In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times.

Ooh, I should know that but can't think for the moment where it's from.

And Then There Were None.

Great game! I will try to think of some now.

Ooh! Brilliant idea for a thread, even though I don’t seem to know any of them!

mines attached but might need to wait for verification.

Not sure that worked unfortunately.

And Then There Were None.

I was thinking Agatha Christie, but it's a good while since I read that one.

Another go at attaching a picture