Thursday, October 2, 2008

What an author says to her editor

Susan of Patchwork Reflections has tagged me to do a meme:
* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your blog along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
* Tag five other people to do the same.
I started counting sentences. Let's see ... fifth sentence down ... "I think pizza should be at the top, what about you?" ... Yes, I do. Wait! That's the fifth sentence down in the closest BLOG, which happened to be Susan's, but it's supposed to be the closest BOOK, dummy. So the closest book, on top of a short stack of three I got from the library, is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. On page 56 is a letter from Juliet to her editor:
I have an idea for a new book. It's a novel about a beautiful yet sensitive author whose spirit is crushed by her domineering editor? Do you like it?
I haven't read the book yet, but I'd say something interesting must have happened on the previous pages. The other letter on page 56 has only three lines:
Dear Sidney,
I was only joking.
Love, Juliet
Okay, I am officially curious about the relationship between author Juliet and editor Sidney.

Now to tag five people. Count off as you read this post. Yes, really, count off in the comments section. The first five people to comment are tagged. (I am sitting at the computer chuckling to myself at my own cleverness. Isn't this just the best way in the world to get out of having to single out five people? Unless ... oh me, oh my, this didn't occur to me in time ... unless what happens is that NOBODY will admit to having read this post and I get no comments at all. So be it. If that happens, then the meme stops here. Ready, set, go!)

Nothing yet.

Still nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Does it seem extremely silent in here today?

Nothing ...

... nothing ...

3 comments:

Susan Tidwell said...

Thanks Bonnie! Your books sounds much more interesting than mine. Have a great weekend!

Linda Jacobs said...

I'm not crazy about memes but I loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's a fairly quick read but the characters and historical info are very interesting.

Hope you enjoy it!

Rebel with Cause said...

Hello Bonnie,

This is my first time visiting your blog. I have found it via Google search for book review templates. After that I started reading your entries and came to this one. The idea of passing on memes by tagging them is new to me. So, I am just off to get the first book and follow instructions.

Ok, confession time. My laptop is on the kitchen table -not at its usual place. Hence, the nearest book is SIEMENS Built-in appliances 2008 Cataligue and I opened p.56 but except for the pictures and details of double built-in ovens there were no sentences.

So, I moved to the dining room table and picked the first book. It is Weaving the Web by its Inventor Tim Berners-Lee. On p.56, after 5 sentences, I read the following:

"During our cab ride from the airport, Robert had asked the driver what the nearest university was and found out that it was the University of Texas in San Antonio. So Robert called the school and found some people who understood about the Internet and may be about the Web, and they agreed to let us used their dial-in service so we could call the computer back at CERN."

First thing that struck me here is the enormous power of coincidence in random acts. Having visited here just this once and picked this post, then decided to reply which I do seldom, I had to find a second book and landed on one I have yet to read and which I bought last month for my husband at the local Help the Aged charity shop. Then following the rules, I get to a sentence that talks about the city where my daughter just spent her Christmas holidays with her boyfriend and his family. It also talks about the university where he was an undergraduate student. And it finishes by talking about CERN, a Geneva based research institute where my current work collaborator and friend Sabine has been working at the time in the same group as the author.

Thank you for this challenge.

Lilly (from UK)