Answers Revealed

Thank you to Ms Mac, Kate and Keris for playing my first lines game.. in case you were wondering, here are the answers. I can't say that I'd have been able to guess them all, but certainly a few of the first sentences make me want to read those that I haven't as yet (Anna Karenina and Nineteen Eighty-Four)

1. I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. The Wasp Factory, Ian Banks

2. Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

3. Amergo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had co cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

4. It was 7 minutes after midnight. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

5. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

6. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

7. At the beginning of July, during a spell of exceptionally hot weather, towards evening, a certain young man came down on to the street from the little room he rented from some tenants in S--- Lane and slowly, almost hesitantly, set off towards K---n Bridge. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

8. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,.... A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

9. The primroses were over. Watership Down, Richard Adams

10. Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

11. It was a pleasure to burn. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

12. I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

13. In a village of La Mancha the name of which have no desire to recall, there lived not so long ago one of those gentlemen who always have a lance in the rack, an ancient buckler, a skinny nag, and a greyhound for the chase. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes


14. 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, F Scott Fitzgerald

15. Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis

16. On they went, singing 'Eternal Memory', and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak

17. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

18. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle called True Stories. The Little Price, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

19. 'Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents', grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. Little Women, Louise May Alcott

20. All children, except one, grow up. Peter Pan, JM Barrie

21. When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

22. 'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but... The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

23. Call me Ishmael. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

24. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

25. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

26. 124 was spiteful. Beloved, Toni Morrison

27. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

28. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

29. They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

30. Last ngiht I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier