First Line Trivia

By Kerry Schafer

My brain is a boring and empty place, compared to those of my fascinating sister whores. My trivia storage section is trivial. I could write about my childhood encounters with Bible Baseball, or my fascination with the show Hollywood Squares, but really I think we'd all rather not. Instead of regaling you with any little bits of flotsam and jetsam swept from the cobwebby corners of my neglected brain, I thought we'd play a little trivia game.

I'm going to give you nine first lines from novels gathered fairly randomly from the shelves of my library. It's an eclectic selection, but all are well known, at least in certain corners of the world. You get to guess what book the lines are from.

What does the winner get, you ask? Well, you would ask that question. And I answer you thusly: what you get is the knowledge of your own trivial excellence. Or excellence at trivia. Whichever your prefer.

Here we go:

1. "At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzz that hummed along my skin."

2. "Within the firm walls of flesh that held him prisoner the foal kicked out angrily."

3. "The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards."

4. "It was a dark and stormy night."

5. "To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth."

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

7. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."

8. "My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call."

9. "There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills."

And there you have it folks. Give us your answers, and we will applaud your knowledge.