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Your current read: first line
"What do you expect when you're going to meet a ghost?" - The Whistleblowers by Mandy WienerI don't know. After my hair has settled again, and my breathing has returned to normal, most probably revelations about the future.
"Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, the sense of its shortcomings, both in style and contents, weighs very heavily upon me." - King Solomon's MinesThis book has been around for a long time, and I have always managed to avoid reading it. I must admit though that through the first part of my reading years, this was more by chance than through design. From about 12 years onward I avoided it because of my growing political awareness. Now I have done it, .et me see whether I have deprived myself unnecessarily of some reading pleasure.
"The truth is, if old Major Dowd hadn't dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would never have come to Thurgood's at all." Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, SpyI wonder whether the Major's horse was leading or chasing the pack at the time?
"Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own."And on this hot note, Dan Brown starts Angels and Demons
"It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed." - Dandelion WineA new author for me, also have Fahrenheit 451 on this year's reading list.
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City of Silver: A Mystery which introduces me to Potosi in Bolivia. It was the main source of Spanish silver from South America and it still mined today. Also the highest city above sea level. The things you learn while reading...
Carolien wrote: ""Santiago Yana approached the mine by night".City of Silver: A Mystery which introduces me to Potosi in Bolivia. It was the main source of Spanish silver from South America and it ..."
Yep, one of my stock responses to the question "Why do you read?" - "To learn, of course."
"This is a biography of a man, who if one went by the official record alone, never was." - The Seed Is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985This remains one of the best social histories I have read, and now, nearly three decades later, I am looking forward to rereading it.
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The Three Taps: A Detective Story Without a Moral which I am finding quite modern given that is was published nearly a century ago.
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I really enjoy this series set in Botswana by the duo of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. You can find them at https://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/ with a number of other talented mystery writers.
A Carrion Death is on my TBR list, but will most probably finish the adventures of Mma Ramotswe first."No one noticed what was happening." - The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
"My suffering left me sad and gloomy." Life of Pi by Yann MartelFirst time I am reading this author. Interesting opening line, because that is what one expects from suffering, unless masochism is one's thing.
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First time I am reading this author. Interesting opening line, because that is what one expects from suffe..."
I read this a long time ago and remember not loving it, but it was interesting.
Let's hope for the best Carolien. It certainly is interesting with lots of scientific titbits thrown in
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I can live with interesting most days.
"In 1815, M. Charles François-Bienvenu Myriel was bishop of D—." - Les Misérables: Volume One by Victor HugoAnother first time author for me, and after a few short chapters I am happy and can already conclude that this guy was a great storyteller. Hopefully the stories are good too.
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Another first time author for me, and after a few short ..."
Enjoy, it's a tome, so it had better be good.
Volume 1 has 475 pages, but the print is quite small, so not excessively large compared to other books, but the reading is a bit slower. Yesterday I read Book 1 (of 8) of Part 1 (of 5), so I think the layout is to provide smaller digestible portions to the reader (the proverbial eating of an elephant). Quite good though.
Imagine, then, a flat landscape, dark for the moment, but even so conveying to a girl running in the still deeper shadow cast by the wall of the Bibhigar Gardens an idea of immensity, of distance, such as years before Miss Crane had been conscious of standing where a lane ended and cultivation began: a different landscape but also in the alluvial plain between the mountains of the north and the plateau of the south.With that wordy first line to The Jewel in the Crown.
"He walks down the street." - The Bone People 26 years later, time to refresh my memories of this book. Cannot remember much.
"This is the story of a twelve-hundred mile journey down the Ganges from the place where it enters the Plains of India to the Sandheads, forty miles offshore in the Bay of Bengal, made by two Europeans in the winter of 1963-4." - Slowly Down the Ganges
"In a forest glade: Private Percy woke up to birdsong." - The Long Earth I think this is my first reading of a collaboration of Terry Pratchett, but definitely my first read of co-creator, Stephen Baxter.
"About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the country of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comfort s and consequences of an handsome house and a large income." - Mansfield Park by Jane AustenIn other words, Miss Maria Ward hit the jackpot.
"I see her sometimes, ususally when I least expect it: a reminder of her." - Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna
"One day in May 1948, a 30-year old man, well groomed and well dressed in the fashion of the time, had an experience that marked him for life." - External Mission: The ANC in Exile - Stephen Ellis
Your name: Koyaga! What an interesting opening line. This exclamation opens Ahmadou Kourouma's Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote
"The song goes like this:Maestro: Aaale, toma suguewa,
All: Alewa!" - By Night the Mountain Burns - Juan Tomàs Àvila Laurel
Aha, nothing like a song to bring different voices (capacities) into unity
"The small jet bomber dives from around five thousand feet, its engine drilling like a monstrous fly." - No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, 1963-74 - Basil Davidson
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The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
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The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
Carolien wrote: ""When the girl came rushing up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes". And so we are introduced to Roman private investigator, Marcus Didius Falco one of my all time favourite d..."I hope to get to meet him sooner rather than later.
"The body floated face down in the murky water of the canal." - Death In A Strange Country:Aha, a good start. We have a body, and might I venture to say, that I suspect foul play.
"In the slit between between my bedroom curtains, I see a long triangle more blue than grey." - Reading The CeilingThis opening line, together with the blurb raised the question;" Hello, what have we here?"
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An auspicious day on which to start this novel."
I really liked this. Hope you enjoy.
"The first thing I have to confess is that I am a Muslim woman" - Confessions of a GamblerThe copy I am reading was borrowed from a friend in 2003/4 (I think), never finished it, and so after three provinces, and two countries, I am at it again. I have read a number of Rayda Jacobs' other works, and liked it. Even the bits I remember from this book when I started it, was not bad, but somehow I just never finished it. So this morning, realising that I might have to read The Covenant for our word of the month in the 12 days left of May, looking for an alternative, my eyes fell on Rayda's Confessions. So Slamse Motjie, I am all ears vi djou biesageite.
"I come from a country which was created at midnight." -I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the TalibanIn South Africa we sing: "wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo" (when you strike the women, you strike a rock).
'Patches of mist will clear rapidly, and the day will be fine throughout the region. - Death of an Old GirlNothing like a bit of mist to set the scene for a murder mystery.
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The copy I am reading was borrowed from a friend in 2003/4 (I think), never finished it, an..."
Necessity is the mother of invention....I need to make a plan with the letter N.
"The snows had come at the night's deepest, ghosting the black branches." - PendragonThis was one of our November/December reads, but I could not find a copy. Great was my surprise when I saw last week that the e-book section of the provincial library now has a copy, and I already missed my first holding period. Well, rather late than never.
"SIR WALTER ELLIOT, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man, who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage;" - PersuasionNot much of a reader then.
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Not much of a reader then."
I need to reread this one, it's been years and I loved it. My favourite of the Austen's.
In Pride and Prejudice there is Mrs Bennet; in Mansfield Park we have Mrs Norris; I think this time round Jane Austin switched the gender of the irksome character that plays such a prominent role in her books. I might be wrong, but I think Sir Walter might be the "villain" in this one.
"Billy Weaver had travelled down from London on the slow afternoon train, with a change at Swindon on the way, and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine o'clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance." - The Landlady by Roald DahlQuite a lengthy sentence to start of this short story.
"In Botswana, home to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency for the problems of ladies, and others, it is customary - one might say very customary - to enquire of the people whom you meet whether they have slept well." - The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall SmithAnd off we go to Botswana again
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Three-Body Problem (other topics)Lords and Ladies (other topics)
Wyrd Sisters (other topics)
Wyrd Sisters (other topics)
Finders Keepers (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Liu Cixin (other topics)Terry Pratchett (other topics)
Terry Pratchett (other topics)
Stephen King (other topics)
Agatha Christie (other topics)
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Khaled is a very good storyteller, but I know there will be lots of sadness in this one too. Bastard is such a hurtful word, and like most others in that category very easy on the tongue.