Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Post the first line of the book you are currently reading!

“A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.” - God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

"Sometimes we act, go in and out, do this and that, and everything is easy, casual and unforced; seemingly it could all be done differently."

Klingsor's Last Summer by Hermann Hesse

" A housefly had been circling for the last few minutes in the bus, though the windows were closed."

- Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus

"At dawn in an outlying district of Warsaw, sunlight swarmed around the trunks of blooming linden trees and crept up the white walls of a 1930's stucco and glass villa where the zoo director and his wife slept in a bed crafted from white birch, a pale wood used in canoes, tongue depressors, and Windsor chairs."

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

"I met Pablo Picasso in May 1943, during the German Occupation of France."

Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot

I read this memoir so many years ago.....just got totally involved in it.

When they opened the door to his cell, the street noise that the stone walls had muffled came in along with the stream of light and a blast of wind, and Roger woke in alarm.

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa

@ Anne : Yes, I also find it very interesting.

"When the Lord, also known as god, realized that adam and eve, although perfect in every outward aspect, could not utter a word or make even the most primitive of sounds, he must have felt annoyed with himself, for there was no one else in the garden of eden whom he could blame for this grave oversight; after all, the other animals, who were, like the two humans, the product of his divine command, already had a voice of their own, be it a bellow, a roar, a croak, a chirp, a whistle or a cackle."

Cain by José Saramago

-The novel opens with "On the morning after the Feds burned down her house and took her father, Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones."

"The approach to the most sacred monastery in the Kingdom of Bhutan is steep and winding and, especially as you near the top, treacherous."

"Father taught us how not to love".

Blindsight by Maurice Gee set in New Zealand.

Albert Frederik Arthur George, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and the last Emperor of India, woke up with start.

The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

Mrs Palfrey first came to the Claremont Hotel on a Sunday afternoon in January.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez)

"After all she was not so sure what had happened, or when it had started. (Women and Men by Joseph McElroy)

"While I was still in Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years." (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt)

Aubrey wrote: ""Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." ([book:One Hundred Years of Solitude|320..."

Aaaah - I remember this one. Beautifully written book.

"I believe in ghosts." -

"There was a time in Africa the people could fly." -

"I have to try to write a few words to keep some sense in my head and not let my mind break down." -

Hi there...
If you want an honest review, you can send me your books.

Cheers.

"An extraordinarily strange thing happened in St. Petersburg on 25 March." The Nose

Tried to look "The Nose" for a kindle....only HC?

"After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother's womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954."

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

"I had a bad fright that morning"

Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth

"All the world began with a yes."

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

"The air smelled of gunpowder when Daniel emerged from the Angel tube stop and headed for Islington Police Station"

The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne



It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Aubrey wrote: ""All the world began with a yes."

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector"

I love that book.

"Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their home-stead yesterday morning."

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

"Dangerous ideas come to life and spread like sparks on dry twigs."

River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke.

Since my book is in Danish, I've translated it and it may not be a 100% correct!

"Ever since I was born in a village in the jungle, my life has been predetermined,"

New Delhi-Borås: Den osannolika berättelsen om indiern som cyklade till Sverige för kärlekens skull - Per J Andersson
(The book title translates to something along these lines: New Delhi-Borås: The amazing story about the Indian who cycled to Sweden for love)

The first time our house was robbed, it was our neighbour Osita who climbed in through the dining room window and stole our TV, our VCR, and the Purple Rain and Thriller videotapes my father had brought back from America.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Urania. Her parents had done her no favour; her name suggested a planet, a mineral, anything but the slender, fine-featured woman with burnished skin and large, dark, rather sad eyes who looked back at her from the mirror.

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

It's a sticky summer day when we first bounce over the mountain in a ratty jeep driven by an old man with brown leather skin.

The Coconut Latitudes, by Rita M. Gardner

"Call me Ishmael."

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville.

I can't believe I am finally reading this.

The Whistle Stop Cafe opened up last week, right next door to me at the post office., and owners Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has been good ever since.
-

"U Po Kyin, Subdivisional Magistrate of Kyauktada, in Upper Burma, was sitting in his veranda. It was only half-past eight, but the month was April, and there was a closeness in the air, a threat of the long, stifling midday hours."

Burmese Days by George Orwell.

Jasper Jones has come to my window

Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city-which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was.
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.The Chrysalids

Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

In the morning, the old general spent a considerable time in the wine cellars with his winegrower inspecting two casks of wine that had begun to ferment.

Embers by Sándor Márai

Major Picquart to see the Minister of War...

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

This desert land is exceptionally dear to me.

The Ankhs: Red Marks The Child by Amira Awaad

'We live in a strange and wonderful universe' - A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Afterwards, in the dusty little corners where London's secret servants drink together, there was an argument about where the Dolphin case history should really begin.

"When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton." from "The Fellowship of the Ring" by JRR Tolkien

I suppose it is some strange new custom complained Miss Alfreda Thorney. Inviting guests and then not being there to greet them. I never.
Louisa and the Missing Heiress by Anna Maclean

In early times, say the Icelandic chronicles, men from the Western Islands came to live in this country, and when they departed, left behind them crosses, bells, and other objects used in the practice of sorcery.

Independent People by Halldór Laxness

Well, I've read about a dozen books since the one above. My current read The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed begins:

Five a.m. Too early to eat. There is hardly any light, perhaps just enough to distinguish a dark thread from a white, but Kawsar washes her face in the basin inside her bathroom, runs a caday over her teeth and slips into the day's costume without wasting any paraffin.

OK, so I've cheated. It's three sentences. ;)

"The world is a strange and wonderful place, no doubt about it, but it is sometimes easy to forget just how strange and wonderful it is until you have children to remind you."

It's Raining Frogs and Fishes: Four Seasons of Natural Phenomena and Oddities of the Sky by Jerry Dennis