Ten books. First paragraph of chapter one. Guess the books. No cheating.
...I'm mad because half of the books I'm using give it away pretty blatantly within the first few words :-P Also, I'm not using introductions or prefaces for any of these...although I really feel I should for eight.
1.
The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke's notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the pewter. The Duke's notice did not escape the notice of the Duchess either, who was not very beautiful and not very rich, but plenty smart. The Duchess set about studying Annette and shortly found her adversary's tragic flaw. --Princess Bride,
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wheezinggirl,
alleykitten, and
shadow_dream2.
Howard Roark laughed. --The Fountainhead,
lagrimasxplatas and
shadow_dream3.
(I'm using the last paragraph of chapter one for this one, because I don't want to give it away in the very first word) Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. --Lolita,
kewlness124.
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. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawingroom. --Vanity Fair,
alleykitten5.
It was a breech birth; and so, right up to the very last moment of innocent ignorance, I remained aware of the midwife's boisterous, bawdy encouragement. --Phantom,
alleykitten6. "I expect you'll be all right." Tall Mr. Sackerton, the administrative official in charge of that district, fingered the thin mustache that marked him a confirmed optimist. Nevertheless, he seemed dubious as he gazed at the three-ton truck loaded with wiiden boxes packed as half-hundred weight headloads, canvas parcels of bed, bath and tent, my three new servants whom I'd already learned to call "boys," three kerosene tins destined to become a stove, and the fifteen carriers who were to take me from the road to the resthouse near Chief Kako's homestead. (A+++++++++ to anybody who manages this one...and who can elaborate on the background of it lol)
7.
Letter I. To Mrs. Saville, England. St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday; and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. --Frankenstein,
alleykitten,
shadow_dream8. While enthusiasts and detractors will continue to empty entire dictionaries attempting to describe or deride it, "authenticity" still remains the word most likely to stir a debate. In fact, this leading obsession--to validate or invalidate the reels and tapes--invariably brings up a collateral and more general concern: whether or not, with the advent of digital technology, images has forsaken its once unimpeachable hold on the truth.
9.
The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon. --White Oleander,
amneria,
shadow_dream10.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?" --Alice in Wonderland,
wheezinggirl,
gerbilsage,
alleykitten,
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