I saw you sleeping with your coat on a hill

[sovay]

From time_shark, a meme. I can't remember if I have done this one before.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

"They are a form of armadillo, enlarged wood-lice."
—Jane Gardam, Old Filth (2004)

Comments

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Old Filth? I'm curious about that title. And wood-lice now. And well, why not think about armadillos all day?

Oh, what one line can do. Unless the one line comes from my closest book which is The Chicago Manual of Style, with the line reading, "Although industry practice in this area is evolving, the fundamental need is clear: persistent, citable, permanent identifiers for electronic content." Though I guess I like "fundamental need" and "permanent identifiers." I could take that further.

[zdenka]

Pretty much anything becomes more entertaining by the addition of armadillos.

Mine is as follows:

"Hour after hour for nearly three weary days he had jogged up and down, over passes, through long dales, and across many streams."

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

And why was this book closest to my computer? Because I was helping a random internet stranger by answering a Tolkien question and wanted to cite chapter and verse. I am such a geek. (Not that this is any way a distinction among your acquaintances.)

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

No one ever actually wants me to do this one, because the closest things to me are always the Peter Sotos books that sit on the shelf closest to my hand of the bookshelf closest to the desk.

It doesn't matter which one I pick. Page 56 (and every other page in the book) is guaranteed to offend someone.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

How are you liking Jane Gardam?

Nine

[mrbelm.livejournal.com]

"The length of an array is actually a property of that object, and arrays also have methods like push and splice, which we'll use later in this book."

-- Kevin Yank & Cameron Adams, Simply JavaScript

Sorry, can't keep fiction near my desk, it's too tempting a distraction.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I can't help but wonder now who or what are a form of armadillo and/or enlarged wood-lice.

Very hard to decide which book is actually closest to me, but we'll say:

"Master Drew rolled the body forward toward its side to extract the papers."
--Peter Tremayne, An Ensuing Evil and Others: fourteen historical mysteries (2006)

[thomasfreund.livejournal.com]

"Amoureux? Le diable m'emporte si jamais je le deviens!"
(In love? Devil take me if I ever go there!)

-- Jules Barbier/Jacques Offenbach Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Yeah, I keep scores closest. Under the Hoffmann score is a hymnal, and number 56 is "All Praise to Thee, My God" set to the Tallis Canon. Scary.