A Bit of a Thinker

Ok, so I totally swiped the title of this post and the idea for the meme from another bookworm, Carrie, at Reading to Know. She in turn got the idea from another bookworm. But it is too good an idea not to take and make my own.

Here's how it works: In this meme I am to post the first lines of 11 of my favorite books (this part is hard!). If you can guess them (all) correctly, I will mail you a copy of one of my favorite books (included in the meme). Feel free to guess as many times as you like. Just make sure you leave me with some way to contact you if you have guessed correctly. Also, please play honestly. Don't Google search for the answers. That's no fun. Be fun, be fair and we'll see what happens!

1. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

2. When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

3. This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

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

5. William Wilmer was twenty-nine years old before he discovered that he could converse with animals.

6. "Edith!" said Margaret, gently, "Edith!" But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep.

7. "I Wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?" said my brother's wife.

8. On the morning of the eleventh of November, 1937, precisely at eleven o'clock, some well-meaning busybody consulted his watch and loudly announced the hour, with the result that all of us in the dining car felt constrained to put aside drinks and newspapers and spend the two minutes' silence in rather embarrassed stares at one another or out of the window.

9. The worst winter in fifty years, the old Scotsman had told me. I'd only been around for sixteen, but it was the worst I'd seen, and I was willing to take his word for the other thirty-four.

10. I believe that a well-known anecdote exists to the effect that a young writer, determined to make the commencement of his story forcible and original enough to catch and rivet the attention of the most blase of editors, penned the following sentence...

11. They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.

Let the games begin! (And if you decide to participate in this meme, leave a comment with your answers or a link if you decided to post your own meme.)