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

[nyctanessa.livejournal.com]

I'm also obsessive about matching covers. I need to get a hold of T2T and ROTK massmarkets with the same cover design as my Hobbit and FOTR.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

My LotR is the seven-book box set, which is also pretty and black. I'm not going to find a Hobbit (or other Tolkien) to match, so they'll all have to be consistent with a special LotR.