Book Beginning and Friday 56 #4

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with: 

 

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

My book beginning this week is a book from 1994, Cat on a Blue Monday, by Carole Nelson Douglas:

"I like nothing better than playing the role of Sage in the Shade." 

And page 56, from the same book:

"Amid this gingham glory reclined a huge, snub-nosed, vanilla-haired cat with chocolate-brown fur frosting the tips of its muzzle, legs, and tail. "

This is book 3 of the Midnight Louie Mystery series. Midnight Louie is a big, black, cat who helps his human solve mysteries in Las Vegas. I wasn't overly impressed with the first book- it was okay but not stupendous- but the author seems to have improved a lot since that one.

So. Would you keep reading, given these samples? 

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 #3

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

My Book Beginning today is one our library just got, although it was written in 1998. It's "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire", a biography by Amanda Foreman
           
       "I know I was handsome...and have always been fashionable, but I do assure you", Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, wrote to her daughter at the end of her life, "our negligence and omissions have been forgiven and we have been loved, more from our being free from airs than from any other circumstance."

Page 56, of the same book:

           "He spent so many hours at Brook's that he was rarely out of his gambling clothes."



Georgiana sounds like someone I'd like to get to know. She's very self aware but not pompous. And who would have thought one would have special gambling clothes? Are they like a lucky hat or something? Georgiana Spencer lived in the 17th century, and was an ancestor to Princess Diana Spencer.

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 #2

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It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

My Book Beginning today is not a new book (other than new to me)- it was written in 1996. It's The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte and translated from Spanish into English by Sonia Soto.

          "The flash projected the outline of the hanged man onto the wall" 

Page 56, of the same book:

           "The book hunter turned more pages"

The opening line certainly grabs the attention of the reader; page 56 not so much. But the back cover makes it sound very promising; a book detective who hunts down rare books for collectors finds himself involved with devil worship, the occult, and high adventure. It is billed as an intellectual thriller. And it's got assorted diagrams and line drawings!

 

It's Friday, so it's time to post excerpts from my current read:

• The Friday 56, hosted by Freda's Voice. Grab a book (in my case, the book I'm currently reading), turn to page 56 (or if you're using an e-reader, to 56%), find an interesting sentence or two (no spoilers!) and post them. 
• Book Beginnings on Friday, hosted by Rose City Reader, where you share the first sentence or more of a current book you're reading, along with initial thoughts about the sentence and the book. 

Today's book is Rooms, by Lauren Oliver.

Beginning: "The fire begins in the basement.
Does it hurt?
Yes and no. This is, after all, what I wanted.

Page 56: "...and even called in literary experts and a Harvard professor, who judged from the language and imagery that the book might date from the mid-nineteenth century.
             This was endlessly amusing to me. I know for a fact that The Raven Heliotrope was completed between 1944 and 1947. I wrote it. "

What book are you reading now or are about to start?