Welcome back to Book Break. Today I am testing your knowledge with this quiz of famous first
lines from books. So you can play along with me. I'm going to read all of the questions out like
we're at a pub quiz, and then I will read them out again with the answers so you can play along and
mark your own scores as you go. And I've tried to do a little bit of a mix in here so a lot of them
are classics, a lot of them are very famous first lines, but I've also thrown in some
books that have been particularly popular recently to see if you just recognize them,
and hopefully they have enough context clues that you might be able to solve them. I've been testing
myself on first lines a lot recently, I will link below and at the end of this video to a playlist
of my own guessing the first lines of books games - I think I'm pretty good at it! So let's see if
you're even better. Okay I've got 15 questions, let's get into it. So question number one, I'm
starting with a really nice easy one: which book has this first line? “It is a truth universally
acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Question number two: another very famous one. Which book has
this first line? “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
Number three is one very close to my heart. “‘Christmas won't
be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.”
Number four. “It was a bright day in April and the clocks were striking 13.” Cast your minds back,
a lot of you may have read that for the first time at school maybe. Number five, a personal favourite
of mine. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” Such a great image. Okay number six,
things are getting slightly harder now. “In my younger and more vulnerable years,
my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.” Some of you
will recognize that one instantly but it's harder to guess if you don't instantly recognize it.
Number seven is a good intriguing one. “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”
A very iconic first line there. Number eight I think is such a brilliant first line of a book.
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks
before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
Definitely helps having some names in there to help trigger your memory, and number nine
also has a lot of names and context clues for you to piece together. Are you ready?
“Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer. How Isabelle, the last of the
Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.” Okay number 10 I
think is pretty hard, it's nice and short, so that is “I lost an arm on my last trip home.”
Very strange line, what does that mean? Try and think about it and see if you can remember which
book involves that. Number 11 is another pretty recognizable one: “It was a queer sultry summer,
the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.”
Number 12 is a really hard one I think. This is a very very well-known book, it's a dark opening
to this book, so the first line is “You better not never tell nobody but God.” Very creepy.
Okay number 13 is the first and only book actually on this list that I haven't read,
but this first line definitely makes me want to read it. “Hale knew before he had been in
Brighton three hours that they meant to murder him.” Isn't that such a good strong opening?
Okay number 14 I think is really really hard. This is one of my favourite books,
it's a classic. Before doing research for this quiz I would not have remembered that this was
the first line, so this is a challenge, but give it a go. I'll be really impressed if any of you
get this one. It's a nice first line. “Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.”
What is that? Can you figure out which book has that first line? It's such a good book.
Okay and finally number fifteen. I wanted to finish with a fun one, and I wanted to give you
more chances to get this because the very first line is I think too hard, so I'm actually going to
give you the whole first paragraph, which I think should give you enough information to work out.
“I like to save things. Not important things like whales or people or the environment.
Silly things. Porcelain bells, the kind you get at souvenir shops. Cookie cutters you'll never use,
because who needs a cookie in the shape of a foot. Ribbons for my hair. Love letters.
Of all the things I save, I guess you could say my love letters are my most prized possession.”
Okay so that was 15 questions, I'm now going to go through and give you all the answers
so you can score yourself, and let me know in the comments below how you did.
I will be amazingly impressed if any of you got 15 out of 15, I definitely would not have got 15 out
of that quiz, but hopefully there are enough in there that you could get. So back to the beginning
let's go through and reveal the answers. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man
in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” is of course the first line of Pride
and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Possibly the most famous first line in all of literature?
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” is the first line of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier,
another brilliant book. The lovely first line “‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any
presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug” is the first line of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
Then the very dystopian “It was a bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen”
is the first line of 1984 by George Orwell. Did you study that one at school? I definitely did.
Number five, “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink” is the first line of I Capture the Castle by
Dodie Smith which was one of my favourite books growing up. Okay then number six. I'm interested
to see how many of you instantly knew this one. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father
gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since” is the first line of The Great
Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, another one that was a very popular book to study at school. I actually
never did. Number seven is another dystopia. “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium” is the
first line of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. And then number eight, that brilliant
first line, “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks
before we came to understand the gravity of our situation” is the first line of The Secret
History by Donna Tartt. Definitely helps that the name Bunny is in there. And then on that theme,
number nine “Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer, how Isabelle, the
last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.” So
that one had a ton of clues, it gave you the name of the place, the name of the family, the name of
the youngest child, and even the plot of the book is all wrapped up in there. That was Little Fires
Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Really really popular book. Okay then at number 10, that tricky one
“I lost an arm on my last trip home.” That is the first line of Kindred by Octavia Butler,
it's a time travel novel, it's very dark, amazing. Number 11 I imagine quite a few of you recognized:
“It was a queer sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know
what I was doing in New York” is the first line of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. But I think it
would have been a lot harder to recognize the next one. “You better not never tell nobody
but God” is the first line of The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It's a pretty harrowing first line
when you read it in context. The book does become much much more uplifting as it goes on. Number 13,
“Hale knew before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to murder him.”
That is the first line of Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. I haven't read it but
it sounds great. Okay number 14 was really really hard. “Ships at a distance have every man's wish
on board” is the first line of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Did any of you
recognize that one? And then finally I tried to give you enough clues for this one. Number 15 was
“I like to save things. Not important things like whales or people or the environment.
Silly things. Porcelain bells, the kind you get at souvenir shops. Cookie cutters you'll never use,
because who needs a cookie in the shape of a foot. Ribbons for my hair. Love letters.
Of all the things I save, I guess you could say my love letters are my most prized possession.”
That is the first paragraph of To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han,
such a cute book trilogy, such a cute movie trilogy, and love letters are of course a
very important theme. So let me know in the comments below how you got on with this quiz,
how many out of 15 you got right. I will link here to some videos of me also trying to identify
books by their first lines so you can watch me struggle this time and see you next time!