Read-a-Thon Mini Challenge!

It's time for a Mini-Challenge!

I hope everyone's Read-a-Thon has been great so far - I'm sure everyone is reading LOTS of great books.

Speaking of great books, that's the theme of this mini-challenge. I've compiled a list of great first lines from great books over the years, and it's your job to tell me what books they are from! Sounds easy, right? The first 10 are from books that I would consider "classics" - books that have stood the test of time for years. The second 10 are contemporary favorites - books I've read and enjoyed that were published since I've been alive. =) I tried to pick titles that were fairly well-known, so even if you haven't read something, you have probably heard of it. Also, all these books can be found on my shelves - I just went through and picked out some favorites.

SO, the first person who guesses all the correct titles wins! Easy, huh? You can either leave your list in the comments, or post it on your blog, and leave a link to your post in the comments. If you don't get them all, comment anyway - if nobody guesses all correctly, then the person who gets the MOST right will be the winner. If there is a tie, I'll go with whomever commented first. AND, there will also be a second place winner, AND I will pick one RANDOM winner from all commenters. So even if you don't know all the answers, give it a shot - you might be a winner anyway! (And please, no cheaters who look at comments first and then submit your answers - you are all on the honor system!) The challenge will run until 4:00 pm CST, and then I will pick the winners! This is open to Readers AND Cheerleaders, so we can all have fun together!

In addition to prizes, I will be making a donation for each person who participates to Reach Out and Read.

Prizes will be your choice of book from a list I will post when I announce the winners - if there's not a book you like, I'll arrange for a gift certificate from Amazon or Powell's. Also, a cute little beaded bookmark. =)

So, here it is - your list of great first lines. Good luck, and happy reading!

1 - 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.

2 - The Opera Ghost really existed.

3 - It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

4 - "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

5 - All children, except one, grow up.

6 - 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.

7 - This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

8 - When Mary Lennox was sent to Misslethwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

9 - He - for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it - was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.

10 - Who is John Gault?



11 - A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind's forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.

12 - Sunday, 1 January. 129 lbs (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year's Day), cigarettes 22, calories 5424.

13 - Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number 4, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

14 - Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, lady of Duke Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the headland.

15 - What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died?

16 - When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

17 - I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

18 - Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying the first step to eternal life is you have to die.

19 - There are some guys who enter a woman's life and screw it up forever.

20 - Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.