Five Fifty-Six: A New(ish) Meme.

Blame Henry. He just twisted an old meme a little bit, and it's hard for me to resist doing the same. There's a meme that's been wandering around facebook for a while now - take the first book you see, open it to page fifty-six, transcribe the fifth sentence, and pass the meme along. Henry did that one better. He transcribed the fifth sentence on page fifty-six from ten books, and challenged his readers to guess the books.

I like that, so let's turn it into a full blown meme. Take ten books, and transcribe the fifth sentence from page fifty six.

In keeping with the 5, 56 thing, Make sure that at least five books are fiction, provide five hints, and pass the meme on to six other bloggers.

Let's kick things off.

The sentences:

1: But after about two seconds of that she realized that Westley was out in the world now, getting nearer and nearer to London, and what if a beautiful city girl caught his fancy while she was just back here moldering?

2: "No, bring all four of them, I wish to thank them at once.

3: "Right, fiend in human shape, " he growled, "what d'you think of this, then?"

4: Instantly he flipped around, his feet flying over his head, and landed flat on his back against the wall.

5: At Gurronsevas' sigal, Timmins moved closer to help him strip off the plastic cover.

6: The mistletoe is dependent on the apple and a few other trees, but can only in a far-fetched sense be said to struggle with these trees, for, if too many of these parasites grow on the same tree, it languishes and dies.

7: You don't have to spin a web.

8: Thus in at least three features - the dependence of rate on species density, the role of competition, and the differential elimination of rare species - the extinction process in these microorganisms paralleled that in the higher plants of the Dry Tortugas.

9: But when Charles Doolittle Walcott found the Burgess Shale in 1909, they seemed well-nigh intractable.

10: "But I thought you said there was nothing like a dead animal to bring them to their senses," I said querulously.

The hints:

1: Three of the quotes come from non-fiction books. Another is a fictionalized account, but isn't shelved as fiction.

2: At least three of the books have been made into movies; at least two of those three have been made into films more than once.

3: One of the books formed the basis for a television series.

4: One of the authors also features in Henry's list.

5: One of the quotes comes from a translation of a book originally written in another language.

Six Tags:

1: Bora

2: Bob O'Hara

3: Heather

4: Wilkins

5: The Tangled Up in Blue Guy

6: Catshark

Tags

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OK, a few more guesses - let me know if I am right (I am clueless completely on the others):

9 - Gould's Wonderful Life
7 - Charlotte's Web
4 - perhaps Ender's Game

I am not sure, but 3 may be some Prattchet but I have no idea which one of the many books.

9 is Gould's Wonderful Life.

The others are teasingly irritating!

*moans* I don't have the time for this!! (But you see I'm making it!)

4 sounds like something out of The Matrix. Interworld? Ender's Game?

1 is *definitely* the Princess Bride.

7 - I thought CW was only in the third person, but don't really know.

Is 3 from Dr. Rohn's book, then? ;-)

I'm surprised no one has yet ID'd #6 as Origin of Species (that's my guess, anyway).
#9: Agreed with the majority: Gould's WL.
#1: "Westley" would point to PB -- but I don't recall London being mentioned anywhere in the book. Is there a minor character called Westley somewhere in Dickens?

1. Definitely _The Princess Bride_. I read this again recently so I didn't even have to look up this bit where Buttercup is imagining Westley heading to London to start his voyage to America.

2. I strongly suspect this is _The Three Musketeers_, although my copy (from Project Gutenberg) has this similar looking text: "No, bring me all four together. I wish to thank them all at once."

3. I had to cheat and check a couple of my books before I found it, but Coturnix is correct, it's Pratchett's _Reaper Man_.

9. Gould's _Wonderful Life_. That sentence is in the correct position in my copy of the book as well.

I'm quite certain #10 is from one of James Herriot's veterinary masterpieces, but I'm not sure which one. I'll say "All Creatures Great and Small" as a guess. Herriot is speaking to Sigfried in the given quote.