* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your blog along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
* Tag five other people to do the same
The two closest books at the moment are Where to Take Tea by Susan Cohen, and The White Robin, a novel by Miss Read (England's equivalent of Jan Karon).
"It's waiting for you to come,' said Mr. Willet gloomily, surveying the dark corner by the vicar's wall. Here, in the cold shade, slivers of snow lay under the bushes, undisturbed by the children. In this weather they rushed to nearby lavatories, and back again, at record speed, thankful to regain the shelter of the schoolroom and the comfort of the ancient tortoise stoves.
from The White Robin by Miss Read
Check out Bonnie, Susan, San, Byron, and Janet for more responses. Susan, this was fun! I think we should do this again sometime! I'm tagging Jan, Kerri, Alice, and YOU if you happen to see this post.
Well, I'll post mine here for all to see:
ReplyDelete"Gradually deliquesces on exposure to air. Freely soluble in water or alcohol. Combines slowly with H2O to form H3AsO4. Keep well closed."
Merck Index, 5th edition, 1940.
(Referring of course to Arsenic Pentoxide...)
Hahahaha! Sounds like thrilling reading! Susan's meme entry was about some grammar point, namely, that "cannot" is correct, whereas "can not" is poor grammar. Now if we take all three excerpts together, we have a suicidal robin contemplating a fatal dose of arsenic pentoxide, while trying to talk himself out of it, saying "I can not do this...oh dear, should it be 'I cannot do this'?" He becomes obsessed with resolving the grammatical connundrum, chooses life, and later becomes a famous grammarian at Cambridge University.
ReplyDeleteAh, I missed her original post, as it was no longer on her front page when I looked.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure he wouldn't go to Oxford? :)
Well, you see, the White Robin applied to Oxford and was rejected, which was the start of the whole descent into despair. ;-)
ReplyDelete