Meme nicked from ianthefira

[active_apathy]

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal...along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

Right. So, the closest book is the Collins Australian Pocket English Dictionary; it's the 1986 reprint of the 1981 edition. A thrilling read, for some. A useful reference for everyone else.

The fifth sentence is:

Callisthenics (kal'əs then'iks) n.pl. [ < Gr. kallos, beauty + sthenos, strength ] exercises to develop a strong, trim body —cal'listhen'ic, cal'listhen'ical adj.

Thrilling, isn't it. The second-closest - and much more fun - book is Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves (at exactly one inch closer than Pyramids). And this time, the quote is:

However, so long as there remain sentences on this earth that begin with capital letters and end with full stops, there will be a place for the semicolon.

Disregarding that last inch, we come to Mr Pratchett who, in this particular copy of Pyramids (which I am, in fact, yet to read), gives us:

That's one of the signs of real royalty, not having any money.

Comments

[one-bullet-left.livejournal.com]

Guards! Guards! is the first Pratchett book I ever read.* It's the book where the series starts to grow up a bit. I'm not really a fan of the earlier Discworld books, though they have their moments. Once you get as far as Night Watch, they are downright powerful (but still bloody hilarious). Make sure you also read his YA Discworld books. They are AMAZING. And as long as you're in the section you should pick up Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand. Similar sense of humour and bloody brilliant. (Erm... sorry... my inner book tyrant got out of its cage in this comment)

*See, I didn't want to read Pratchett. I spent years deliberately not reading Pratchett despite the pestering of many good friends. You see, the covers (Josh Kirby *snarl*) were ugly and I Don't Read Satire and I'd heard they were very intelligent humor and What If I Just Didn't Get It? I'd have felt mighty stupid. Then one day on Thanksgiving my brother-in-law showed up and said "Hey, Erin, there's this author you've REALLY got to read, he's like listening to you talk!" and handed me Guards! Guards! At which point I threw up my hands and said "FINE, I'LL BLOODY READ THEM IF YOU'LL ALL STOP PESTERING ME!" Which confused the poor boy. But I read the book and then spend stupid amounts of money on the rest of the books and... yeah.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

One of my friends bought me a copy of Carpe Jugulum, which I read despite the covers which I agree were hideous (but the black ones are stylish and pretty and look beautiful on my bookcase, which means I'll be buying new copies of Carpe Jugulum, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites on principle) and then made a mental note to buy and read all the rest sometime. And then put off doing it for quite some time, and now plan to exchange my bank balance for pretty black Pratchett books.

And your inner book tyrant may run free in this journal whenever you want. Your suggestion is now on a scrap of paper held under the foot of the plush huskie sitting on top of my monitor, where I cannot help but see it until next I'm in a bookshop (which will be when my copy of Wicked arrives, I think).