Name that Book!

/ Tracy Abell

I got this from

[info]newport2newport

.  The following first lines are from books on my nightstand and in the bookcase next to my desk in the office.  Here’s hoping you do better guessing the sources than I did with Melodye’s list.  (Sigh).

 1)  In the fall of 1995, after resigning from my last academic post, I decided to indulge myself and fulfill a dream.

 2)  When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind:  Paul Newman and a ride home.

 3)  You grow up with a kid but you never really notice him.

 4)  First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.

 5)  To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

 6)  “I thought you said you read The Book,” said Sam.

 7)  Mum says, “Don’t come creeping into our room at night.”

 8)  A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.

 9)  All you fish, listen up.

10)  Popularity is a drug.

 11) Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file.

 12) I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.

13) In one of my earliest memories, my mother and I are on the front porch of our rented Carter Avenue house watching two delivery men carry our brand-new television set up the steps.

Find the answers here:

 1)  READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi
 2)  THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton
 3)  LOSER by Jerry Spinelli
 4)  THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien
 5)  THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
 6)  THE NOT-SO-JOLLY ROGER by John Scieszka
 7)  DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT by Alexandra Fuller
 8)  A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole
 9)  HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher
10) SO NOT THE DRAMA by Paula Chase 
11) AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
12) GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson
13) SHE’S COME UNDONE by Wally Lamb

   

28 thoughts on “Name that Book!”

  7. Those were great first lines. . .
    Now I see that I REALLY need to read more books I couldn’t even guess at them. –
    so I got -0-
    I’m putting all of those on my list!

    Like

    • Re: Those were great first lines. . .
      It’s a difficult exercise, I think. Those nagging “I know this, I know I know this…” feelings as you scramble to identify.
      Really, you’re putting them on your list? If you’re like me, your list is already GIGANTIC. 🙂
      Happy reading and thanks for playing.

      Like

  8. Those were great first lines. . .
    Now I see that I REALLY need to read more books I couldn’t even guess at them. –
    so I got -0-
    I’m putting all of those on my list!

    Like

  9. Those were great first lines. . .

    Now I see that I REALLY need to read more books I couldn’t even guess at them. –
    so I got -0-

    I’m putting all of those on my list!

    Like

  12. Re: Those were great first lines. . .
    It’s a difficult exercise, I think. Those nagging “I know this, I know I know this…” feelings as you scramble to identify.
    Really, you’re putting them on your list? If you’re like me, your list is already GIGANTIC. 🙂
    Happy reading and thanks for playing.

    Like

  13. Re: Those were great first lines. . .

    It’s a difficult exercise, I think. Those nagging “I know this, I know I know this…” feelings as you scramble to identify.

    Really, you’re putting them on your list? If you’re like me, your list is already GIGANTIC. 🙂

    Happy reading and thanks for playing.

    Like

  14. Hangs head in shame. I got ONE, number 4, The Things They Carried, even though I’ve read four others.
    It’s a fun game, though. And I really want to read Gilead. Housekeeping was amazing. (Movie was good, too.)

    Like

    • Aw, don’t hang head in shame. You read SO much. It’s hard plucking one book from your vast memory, I think.
      THE THINGS THEY CARRIED is amazing. I finally made myself reading GOING AFTER CACCIATO this winter – that was rough but worth it. Have you read that?
      I love both GILEAD and HOUSEKEEPING. I had the great good fortune to study with Marilynne Robinson for a summer session in Iowa. Many of us ended up wishing she’d adopt us. She’s extraordinary. Re: the movie, I haven’t seen it but she told us she actually thought of it in movie terms (at times) as she wrote HOUSEKEEPING even though, as she pointed out, much of the story takes place in the dark. 🙂

      Like

      • I did read Going after C. Loved that, too.
        I’m SO jealous, though. I would love to hear MR, let alone study with her! She grew up in N. Idaho. “Fingerbone” (great name!) was based on Sandpoint, ID. You’d never know it visiting Sandpoint today, though; it’s kind of a ski resort town and home to Coldwater Creek (the catalog co.).

        Like

        • Now I’m jealous – you’re familiar with her stomping grounds.
          That woman is the only person I know who speaks in complete sentences. Always. Complex sentences. Sometimes it was rough taking notes because the thoughts went on and on (yet were always coherent) yet I sometimes couldn’t keep up.

          Like

  15. Hangs head in shame. I got ONE, number 4, The Things They Carried, even though I’ve read four others.
    It’s a fun game, though. And I really want to read Gilead. Housekeeping was amazing. (Movie was good, too.)

    Like

  16. Hangs head in shame. I got ONE, number 4, The Things They Carried, even though I’ve read four others.

    It’s a fun game, though. And I really want to read Gilead. Housekeeping was amazing. (Movie was good, too.)

    Like

  17. Aw, don’t hang head in shame. You read SO much. It’s hard plucking one book from your vast memory, I think.
    THE THINGS THEY CARRIED is amazing. I finally made myself reading GOING AFTER CACCIATO this winter – that was rough but worth it. Have you read that?
    I love both GILEAD and HOUSEKEEPING. I had the great good fortune to study with Marilynne Robinson for a summer session in Iowa. Many of us ended up wishing she’d adopt us. She’s extraordinary. Re: the movie, I haven’t seen it but she told us she actually thought of it in movie terms (at times) as she wrote HOUSEKEEPING even though, as she pointed out, much of the story takes place in the dark. 🙂

    Like

  18. Aw, don’t hang head in shame. You read SO much. It’s hard plucking one book from your vast memory, I think.

    THE THINGS THEY CARRIED is amazing. I finally made myself reading GOING AFTER CACCIATO this winter – that was rough but worth it. Have you read that?

    I love both GILEAD and HOUSEKEEPING. I had the great good fortune to study with Marilynne Robinson for a summer session in Iowa. Many of us ended up wishing she’d adopt us. She’s extraordinary. Re: the movie, I haven’t seen it but she told us she actually thought of it in movie terms (at times) as she wrote HOUSEKEEPING even though, as she pointed out, much of the story takes place in the dark. 🙂

    Like

  19. I did read Going after C. Loved that, too.
    I’m SO jealous, though. I would love to hear MR, let alone study with her! She grew up in N. Idaho. “Fingerbone” (great name!) was based on Sandpoint, ID. You’d never know it visiting Sandpoint today, though; it’s kind of a ski resort town and home to Coldwater Creek (the catalog co.).

    Like

  20. I did read Going after C. Loved that, too.

    I’m SO jealous, though. I would love to hear MR, let alone study with her! She grew up in N. Idaho. “Fingerbone” (great name!) was based on Sandpoint, ID. You’d never know it visiting Sandpoint today, though; it’s kind of a ski resort town and home to Coldwater Creek (the catalog co.).

    Like

  21. Now I’m jealous – you’re familiar with her stomping grounds.
    That woman is the only person I know who speaks in complete sentences. Always. Complex sentences. Sometimes it was rough taking notes because the thoughts went on and on (yet were always coherent) yet I sometimes couldn’t keep up.

    Like

  22. Now I’m jealous – you’re familiar with her stomping grounds.

    That woman is the only person I know who speaks in complete sentences. Always. Complex sentences. Sometimes it was rough taking notes because the thoughts went on and on (yet were always coherent) yet I sometimes couldn’t keep up.

    Like

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