The Eighth Wonder of the World: The First Lines Challenge

Tags

Challenges, First Lines, Games

As I have done for the past seven Thanksgiving weekends, I hereby present the “first lines” challenge, stolen from James over at Following Pulitzer.

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

The most important rule of this game is to rely on your own memory and brain and not to cheat by using Google or another resource, print or online. This includes looking up my recent reading at Goodreads.

I’ll say it again, DO NOT use any other resources other than your own brain and/or the brains of those around you.

So, what’s the game, you say?

Below I’ve posted a list of first lines from books I’ve read (or am reading) this year—your job is to guess the author and title of the work I’ve quoted from.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

—The opening of Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

Some truths:
• Some of these should be quite easy; others are fairly difficult.
• I’ve used discretion as to what counts as the first line.
• The line may be in translation, my own or another’s work.
• The authors or books are generally well known, have won or been nominated for prizes, have been adapted for the silver screen, or have been otherwise much discussed recently.
• The selections can be from any time period or genre, fiction or non-fiction—what ties them together is that I have read (or am reading) them this year.

If you own a copy of the work, it’s fine to check it before you post it as a guess. Any other reference work or tool, print or online, is strictly forbidden. If it’s driving you crazy and you end up googling the answers, that is certainly understandable, but don’t share your findings with the rest of us, that is unforgivable!

Anybody is welcome to comment and guess and I encourage you to do so since even an incorrect guess may trigger something in someone else’s memory. I may also offer hints in my responses so be sure to subscribe to the comments. Whatever is not guessed outright or crowd-sourced through the comments will be posted on Monday, November 30.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—The opening of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

1. It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard, in ordinary discourse, that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods, which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus.
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

2. Travellers crossing the wheat-yellow plains to Dungatar would first notice a dark blot shimmering at the edge of the flatness.
[Hint: Like #4, this was adapted into one of my favorite wryly comic films, starring an English actress named Kate.]
[ETA: This title has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

3. The coach from Ellsworth to Butcher’s Crossing was a dougherty that had been converted to carry passengers and small freight.
[Hint: Along with #5, the most obscure title and author on here, but if you have read it, there is no way you wouldn’t get at least the title.]
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

4. The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

5. A man with small eyes and a ginger moustache came and spoke to me when I was thinking of something else.
[Hint: Along with #3, the most obscure title and author on here. Even if you’ve read it, this line may not trigger anything since the man in question disappears from the novel until the very end, one of the most incredible endings to a book that I have ever read, so incredible in fact that one of the people on the podcast that recommended this book didn’t even realize he was there.]

6. “Linnet Ridgeway!”
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

7. Charles Monet was a loner.
[Hint: A date is given just above this first line: 1980 New Years Day. If you’ve noticed a theme in some of my selections, this one is part of it.]

8. I am writing this at the behest of my advocate, Mr Andrew Sinclair, who since my incarceration here in Inverness has treated me with a degree of civility I in no way deserve.
[Hint: Though the opening has a whiff of a classic, this is a recent book.]

9. Our house is old, and noisy, and full.
[Hint: #9 and #10 are by the same author.]

10. The weather falls more gently on some places than on others, the world looks down more paternally on some people.
[Hint: #9 and #10 are by the same author.]

11. London, the crouching monster, like every other monster has to breathe, and breathe it does in its own obscure, malignant way.
[Hint: Almost as obscure as #3 and #5, sorry! I just couldn’t not include this fantastic opener. I took out two books by this author from the library; the other one was for #Noirvember, but I couldn’t get into it and it ended up on the DNF pile.]

12. By the time Edwin Rist stepped off the train onto the platform at Tring, forty miles north of London, it was already quite late.
[Hint: This work of non-fiction is way more riveting than you might think based on the title.]

Baker’s Dozen Holiday Bonus: In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-of-war’s men or merchant sailors in holiday attire, ashore on liberty.
[Hint: I first picked this up because I was seeing the opera.]
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not, before or after seeing the hint.]

Double-Secret-Probation Bonus Round: The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious hall in which he found himself.
[Hint: Like #6, this was adapted into a movie this year, and not for the first time, but unlike #6, I doubt you have seen it. However, the book itself shows up in a Nabokov novel, a Sergio Leone film, and a French television series.]
[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments. Please feel free to add there whether you knew it or not.]

Please post any guesses below, not on Twitter. That way, everyone will be contributing to the challenge in the same place. If you want time to think and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the comments below and remember to check back on November 30 for a new post with the answers.

For the seven previous annual challenges, click here.

Good luck!

Seventh Heaven: The First Lines Challenge

Tags

Challenges, First Lines, Games

As I have done for the past six Thanksgiving weekends, I hereby present the “first lines” challenge, stolen from James over at Following Pulitzer.

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

The most important rule of this game is to rely on your own memory and brain and not to cheat by using Google or another resource, print or online. This includes looking up my recent reading at Goodreads.

I’ll say it again, DO NOT use any other resources other than your own brain and/or the brains of those around you.

So, what’s the game, you say?

Below I’ve posted a list of first lines from books I’ve read (or am reading) this year—your job is to guess the author and title of the work I’ve quoted from.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

—The opening of Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

Some truths:
• Some of these should be quite easy; others are fairly difficult.
• I’ve used discretion as to what counts as the first line.
• The line may be in translation, my own or another’s work.
• The authors or books are generally well known, have won or been nominated for prizes, have been adapted for the silver screen, or have been otherwise much discussed recently.
• The selections can be from any time period or genre, fiction or non-fiction—what ties them together is that I have read (or am reading) them this year.

If you own a copy of the work, it’s fine to check it before you post it as a guess. Any other reference work or tool, print or online, is strictly forbidden. If it’s driving you crazy and you end up googling the answers, that is certainly understandable, but don’t share your findings with the rest of us, that is unforgivable!

Anybody is welcome to comment and guess and I encourage you to do so since even an incorrect guess may trigger something in someone else’s memory. I may also offer hints in my responses so be sure to subscribe to the comments. Whatever is not guessed outright or crowd-sourced through the comments will be posted on Monday, December 2. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—The opening of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

1. “Once upon a time … a little girl lived in the Big Woods”: the opening of the Little House series has the cadence of a fairy tale.

2. Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy woke soon after dawn. [Hint: The title of this work comes from a poem by T.S. Eliot.]

3. It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. [Hint: I read this for my “summer” book salon.]

4. On Friday, August third, 1923, the morning after President Harding’s death, reporters followed the widow, the Vice President, and Charles Carter, the magician. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

5. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

6. The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

7. The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

8. Even in Los Angeles, where there is no shortage of remarkable hairdos, Harry Peak attracted attention. [Hint: This is a work of nonfiction.]

9. The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

10. I do not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the Lady Vain. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

Holiday Bonus: The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to note it as the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments below.]

Double-Secret-Probation Bonus Round: This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. [Hint: I wanted to read this book because the title inspired that of one of my favorite #Noirvember discoveries, even though the plots have nothing to do with each other.]

Please post any guesses in the comments here, not on Twitter. That way, everyone will be contributing to the challenge in the same place. If you want time to think and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the comments and remember to check back on December 2 for a new post with the answers. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

For the six previous annual challenges, click here.

Good luck!

A Sixth Sense: The First Lines Challenge

Tags

Challenges, First Lines, Games

As I have done for the past five Thanksgiving weekends, I hereby present the “first lines” challenge, stolen from James over at Following Pulitzer.

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

The most important rule of this game is to rely on your own memory and brain and not to cheat by using Google or another resource, print or online. This includes looking up my recent reading at Goodreads.

I’ll say it again, DO NOT use any other resources other than your own brain and/or the brains of those around you.

So, what’s the game, you say?

Below I’ve posted a list of first lines from books I’ve read (or am reading) this year—your job is to guess the author and title of the work I’ve quoted from.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

—The opening of Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

Some truths:
• Some of these should be quite easy; others are fairly difficult.
• I’ve used discretion as to what counts as the first line.
• The line may be in translation, my own or another’s work.
• The authors or books are generally well known, have won or been nominated for prizes, have been adapted for the silver screen, or have been otherwise much discussed recently.
• The selections can be from any time period or genre, fiction or non-fiction—what ties them together is that I have read (or am reading) them this year.

If you own a copy of the work, it’s fine to check it before you post it as a guess. Any other reference work or tool, print or online, is strictly forbidden. If it’s driving you crazy and you end up googling the answers, that is certainly understandable, but don’t share your findings with the rest of us, that is unforgivable!

Anybody is welcome to comment and guess and I encourage you to do so since even an incorrect guess may trigger something in someone else’s memory. I may also offer hints in my responses so be sure to subscribe to the comments. Whatever is not guessed outright or crowd-sourced through the comments will be posted on Monday, November 26. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—The opening of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

1. On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

2. I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte.

3. My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

4. A Frenchman named Chamfort, who should have known better, once said that chance was a nickname for Providence.

5. Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

6. “The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart.”

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

7. I might have been ten, eleven years old—I cannot say for certain—when my first master died.

8. When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

9. One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Bunker Hill, down in the very middle of Los Angeles.

10. If you’re like me, the Trump presidency has turned you into a light sleeper.

11. That summer I hunted the serial killer at night from my daughter’s playroom.

[ETA: This book has been partially guessed correctly in the comments.]

12. It was a dark and stormy night.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

Baker’s Dozen “Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams” Holiday Bonus: Alexa Monroe walked into the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco that Thursday night wearing her favorite red heels, jittery from coffee, and with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne in her purse.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

Double-Secret-Probation Bonus Round: Today I dropped my laptop on the concrete floor of a bar built on the beach. It was tucked under my arm and slid out of its black rubber sheath (designed like an envelope), landing screen side down.

Please post any guesses below, not on Facebook or Twitter. That way, everyone will be contributing to the challenge in the same place. If you want time to think and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the comments below and remember to check back on November 26 for a new post with the answers.[ETA: For the answers, click here.]

For the five previous annual challenges, click here.

Good luck!

A Perfect Fifth: The First Lines Challenge

Tags

First Lines, Games

As I have done for the past four Thanksgiving weekends, I hereby present the “first lines” challenge, stolen from James over at Following Pulitzer.

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

The most important rule of this game is to rely on your own memory and brain and not to cheat by using Google or another resource, print or online. This includes looking up my recent reading at Goodreads.

I’ll say it again, DO NOT use any other resources other than your own brain and/or the brains of those around you.

So, what’s the game, you say?

Below I’ve posted a list of first lines from books I’ve read (or am reading) this year—your job is to guess the author and title of the work I’ve quoted from.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

—The opening of Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

Some truths:
• Some of these should be quite easy; others are fairly difficult.
• I’ve used discretion as to what counts as the first line.
• The line may be in translation, my own or another’s work.
• The authors or books are generally well known, have won or been nominated for prizes, have been adapted for the silver screen, or have been otherwise much discussed recently.
• The selections can be from any time period or genre, fiction or non-fiction—what ties them together is that I have read (or am reading) them this year.

If you own a copy of the work, it’s fine to check it before you post it as a guess. Any other reference work or tool, print or online, is strictly forbidden. If it’s driving you crazy and you end up googling the answers, that is certainly understandable, but don’t share your findings with the rest of us, that is unforgivable!

Anybody is welcome to comment and guess and I encourage you to do so since even an incorrect guess may trigger something in someone else’s memory. I may also offer hints in my responses so be sure to subscribe to the comments. Whatever is not guessed outright or crowd-sourced through the comments will be posted on November 30. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

 

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—The opening of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

 1. It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

 2. At dawn in an outlying district of Warsaw, sunlight swarmed around the trunks of blooming linden trees and crept up the white walls of a 1930s stucco and glass villa where the zoo director and his wife slept in a bed crafted from white birch, a pale wood used in canoes, tongue depressors, and Windsor chairs.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

 3. This is my story of what happened.

[Hint: Seriously, people, come on!]

 4. On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff’s edge, tending the small, newly made driftwood cross.

[Hint: This was made into a stunningly gorgeous movie in 2016.]

 5. In the early 1850s, few pedestrians strolling past the house on H Street in Washington, near the White House, realized that the ancient widow seated by the window, knitting and arranging flowers, was the last surviving link to the glory days of the early republic.

[Hint: Do not throw away your shot to get this one.]

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

 6. The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

 7. When the train stopped I stumbled out, nudging and kicking the kitbag before me.

[Hint: The second line of this Booker Prize nominee is “Back down the platform someone was calling despairingly, ‘Oxgodby… Oxgodby.'”]

 8. Henry and I dug the hole seven feet deep.

[Hint: Another book I read due a movie adaptation.]

 9. The method of laying out a corpse in Missouri sure took the proverbial cake.

[Hint: Another much talked about recent prizewinner.]

10. On the rare nights that she sleeps, she is back in the skin of the woman from before.

[Hint: Sorry, you are probably out of luck on this one.]

11. The night Effia Otcher was born into the musky heat of Fanteland, a fire raged through the woods just outside her father’s compound.

[Hint: A book which everyone seemed to be reading recently yet was not awarded any major prizes.]

12. Each night, our city dreamed of danger, crying out for help I could not give.

[Hint: This book is the third in a trilogy.]

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

***

Baker’s Dozen Holiday Travel Bonus: Isma was going to miss her flight.

[ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

Fourteen opening lines so glorious they could practically be a sonnet to the woman in question:

Years later, when she had gone and was no longer part of their lives, the thing they remembered about her was her smile. Coloring and features were indistinct, hazy in memory. The eyes, surely, were blue—but they could have been green or grey. And the hair, knotted in the Grecian fashion piled high on top of the head in curls, might have been chestnut or light brown. The nose was anything but Grecian—that was a certainty, for it pointed to heaven; and the actual shape of the mouth had never seemed important—not at the time, or now.

The essence of what had been lay in the smile. It began at the left corner of the mouth and hovered momentarily, mocking without discrimination those she loved most—including her own family—and those she despised. And, while they waited uneasily, expecting a blast of sarcasm or the snub direct, the smile spread to the eyes, transfiguring the whole face, lighting it to gaiety. Reprieved, they basked in the warmth and shared the folly, and there was no intellectual pose in the laugh that followed, ribald, riotous, cockney, straight from the belly.

This was what they remembered in after years. The rest was forgotten. Forgotten the lies, the deceit, the sudden bursts of temper. Forgotten the wild extravagance, the absurd generosity, the vitriolic tongue. Only the warmth remained, and the love of living.

[Hint: It is unlikely anyone has read this, but it is likely that you have read another novel about an unforgettable woman by this same author (or at least seen the movie).]

Rugby World Cup 15-Man Bonus Round: So there were kookaburras here.

[Hint: Eerily relevant for our times, but the times they seem to be a-changin’.]

***

Please post any guesses below, not on Facebook or Twitter. That way, everyone will be contributing to the challenge in the same place. If you want time to think and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the comments and remember to check back on November 30 for a new post with the answers. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

Good luck!

Go Fourth and Conquer: The First Lines Challenge

Tags

First Lines, Games

As I have done for the past three Thanksgiving weekends, I hereby present the “first lines” challenge, stolen from James over at Following Pulitzer.

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

The most important rule of this game is to rely on your own memory and brain and not to cheat by using Google or another resource, print or online. This includes looking up my recent reading at Goodreads.

I’ll say it again, DO NOT use any other resources other than your own brain and/or the brains of those around you.

So, what’s the game, you say?

Below I’ve posted a list of first lines from books I’ve read (or am reading) this year—your job is to guess the author and title of the work I’ve quoted from.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

—The opening of Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

Some truths:
• Some of these should be quite easy; others are fairly difficult.
• I’ve used discretion as to what counts as the first line.
• The line may be in translation, my own or another’s work.
• The authors or books are generally well known, have won or been nominated for prizes, have been adapted for the silver screen, or have been otherwise much discussed recently.
• The selections can be from any time period or genre, fiction or non-fiction—what ties them together is that I have read (or am reading) them this year.

If you own a copy of the work, it’s fine to check it before you post it as a guess. Any other reference work or tool, print or online, is strictly forbidden. If it’s driving you crazy and you end up googling the answers, that is certainly understandable, but don’t share your findings with the rest of us, that is unforgivable!

Anybody is welcome to comment and guess and I encourage you to do so since even an incorrect guess may trigger something in someone else’s memory. I may also offer hints in my responses so be sure to subscribe to the comments. Whatever is not guessed outright or crowd-sourced through the comments will be posted on November 30. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—The opening of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

1.  He rode into our valley in the summer of ’89. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

2.  Eilis Lacey, sitting at the window of the upstairs living room in the house on Friary Street, noticed her sister walking briskly from work. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

3.  When it became common knowledge that the great writer Prétextat Tach would die within two months or so, journalists from around the world requested private interviews with the eighty-year-old gentleman. [Hint: This first line is my own translation.]

4.  The city that Sunday morning was quiet. Those millions of New Yorkers who, by need or preference, remain in town over a summer week-end had been crushed spiritless by humidity. Over the island hung a fog that smelled and felt like water in which too many soda-water glasses have been washed. [Hint: I would wager no one has read this, but many probably have seen the movie. If not, you really should, it is the epitome of classic Hollywood.]

5.  Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, curving like a trout through the rings of previous risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake. [Hint: With an opening like that, it is perhaps no surprise that this author has a Pulitzer Prize to his name.]

6.  It was going to be the sale of the century. [Hint: At times, this novel is narrated by the item to be sold at the “sale of the century” of the first sentence.]

7.  Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

8. The church is blowing a sad windblown ‘Kathleen’ on the bells in the skid row slums as I wake up all woebegone and goopy, groaning from another drinking bout and groaning most of all because I’d ruined my ‘secret return’ to San Francisco by getting silly drunk while hiding in the alleys with bums and then marching forth into North Beach to see everybody altho Lorenz Monsanto and I’d exchanged huge letters outlining how I would sneak in quietly, call him on the phone using a code name like Adam Yulch or Lalagy Pulvertaft (also writers) and then he would secretly drive me to his cabin in the Big Sur woods where I would be alone and undisturbed for six weeks just chopping wood, drawing water, writing, sleeping, hiking, etc., etc. [Hint: You should at least be able to guess the author on this one. And the title is right there in the first sentence if you can find it.]

9.  For a long time, my mother wasn’t dead yet. [Hint: Not the shortest novel I read all year (that would be #10), but pretty darn short.]

10.  My dear Brother, I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profitting by your kind invitation when we last parted, of spending some weeks with you at Churchill, & therefore, if quiet convenient to you & Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to be introduced to a Sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

11.  The stranger came early in February one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. [Hint: I read this because of my classic horror film project.]

12.  The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as “The Styles Case” has now somewhat subsided. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

Baker’s Dozen Holiday Bonus:  My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder. People called me Sue. I know the year I was born in, but for many years I did not know the date, and took my birthday at Christmas. [Hint: As is the case with #10, this book was adapted into one of my favorite films of the year.]

Double-Secret-Probation Bonus Round:  Messenger birds launched as one flock from the council platform. Black bodies studded the blue sky in a cloud of purpose. [ETA: This book has been guessed correctly in the comments.]

Please post any guesses below, not on Facebook or Twitter. That way, everyone will be contributing to the challenge in the same place. If you want time to think and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the comments and remember to check back on November 30 for a new post with the answers. [ETA: For the answers, click here.]

Good luck!