Book Beginning: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

 

 

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

 

As always, Martha Storm was primed for action. Chin jutted, teeth gritted, and a firm grip on the handle of her trusty shopping trolley.

 I saw this book recommended somewhere as a nice, sweet story and that sounded about where my head is these days. My concentration has gotten better but I don't think I can read a Dickens' novel or anything Classic and heavy duty. Still, I able to pay attention to audiobooks while I knit my charity hats, so that's an improvement in my Pandemic State of Mind. I look forward to finding out about the always-ready-for-action Martha!

 

Book Beginning: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

 

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.  We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

 

A comedy that seems to be very popular with the Classics Club set, and who doesn't need a good laugh about now? The subtitle reads: "(to say nothing of the dog)". Which might explain the opening phrase "There were four of us". We shall see!

Classics Club Spin #24

It's Classics Club Spin time again! Each Clubber has a personal list of 50-100 classic books that we have chosen to be our challenge list. For the Spin we pick 20 of those titles and put them into a numbered list. On August 9th the Club moderators will draw a number from 1 to 20 and we have to read that book on our list by the end of September and report back to the Club.

I failed completely for Spin #23 - I just could not read anything in April and May. But I'm hoping to be in a reading mood now, so here's a list of books that I think I have on my shelves or can get for my Kindle. First publication date is in parentheses.

1. At Swim-two-birds, Flann O'Brien (1939)
2. Billy Budd and other Tales, Herman Melville (~1891)
3. Candide, Voltaire (1759)
4. The Dubliners, James Joyce (1914)
5. Emma, Jane Austen (1815)
6. Enemies, A Love Story, Isaac Bashevis Singer (1966)
7. Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac (1833)
8. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884)
9. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)
10. The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie (1924)
11. Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works, Aphra Behn (<1689)
12. The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein (1933)
13. The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence (1915)
14. The Reef, Edith Wharton (1912)
15. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859)
16. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)
17. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
18. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (1889)
19. The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870)
20. Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1864)

I'm looking forward to reading them all eventually, but I think I'd like to tackle Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas". Go #12!

UPDATE: The spin is #18, so I have a date with "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. Everyone tells me it's great fun, so I'm happy. Cheerful books are easier for me to concentrate on during these trying days.