Friday Memes

Book Beginnings on Friday is a bookish meme now sponsored by Rose City Reader (who originally inspired the meme). Here's what you do: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section. Include the title and author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you are so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line and if you did or did not like that sentence. Link up each week at Gilion's place.

Here's mine from The Case of the Blind Barber by John Dickson Carr:

When the liner Queen Victoria left New York bound for Southampton and Cherbourg, it was said that two fairly well-known people were aboard, and it was whispered that a highly notorious third person was aboard also.  Moreover, there was a fourth--but inconspicuous--person who will take rather a large part in this rowdy and topsy-turvy chronicle.

The Friday 56 is a bookish meme sponsored by Freda's Voice. It is really easy to participate. Just grab a book, any book, and turn to page 56. Find a sentence that grabs you and post it.

Here's mine from The Case of the Blind Barber by John Dickson Carr:

To say that Warren hit the man would be a powerful understatement. Morgan afterwards wondered why the crack did not jar the other's head loose from his spine. Warren landed on his quarry's jaw, with the weight of his own thirteen stone and the catapult-start of the Atlantic Ocean behind. It was the most terrific, reverberating smack since Mr. William Henry Harrison Dempsey pasted Mr. Luis Angel Firpo clean over the ropes into the newspapermen's laps; and it is to be recorded that, when the other hit the glass enclosure, he bounced. [I couldn't stop with just one sentence....]