April 9th, I hereby dub thee:

[ciroccoj]

Asstastic Unwise Use of Time Day.

Don't ask. Nothing big, just a conglomeration of not finding parking, not having proper coins, no change machines, sources missing from library, brand-spanking new librarian with complicated customers resulting in about 25 minutes total spent waiting for her on three separate occasions.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering:

1. Stavia saw herself as in a picture, from the outside, a darkly cloaked figure moving along a cobbled street, the stone sheened with a soft, early spring rain. The Gate to Women's Country, by Sheri S. Tepper. Read it. It's good. Don't read more than one other book by Tepper, though. They're all the same.
   
   
2. The reading woman sits by the window, lamplight falling over her shoulder onto the book. Memory and Dream, by Charles de Lint.
   
   
3. On a morning in the springtime of the year, when the snows of the mountains were melting and the rivers swift in their running, Aelis de Miraval watched her hsuband ride out at dawn to hunt in the forest west of the their castle, and shortly after that she took horse herself, travelling north and east along the shores of the lake towards the begetting of her son. A Song For Arbonne, Guy Gavriel Kay, guessed by ninja_kat.
   
   
4. The small boys came early to the hanging. Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett, guessed by daf9.
   
   
5. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, guessed by leaper182.
   
   
6. Mars was empty before we came. Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson, guessed by shellmidwife
   
   
7. Both moons were high, dimming the light of all but the brightest stars. Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay.
   
   
8. It was a dark and stormy night. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.
   
   
9. To be honest, I haven't been able to remember clearly everything that happened to me before and during Trial, so where necessary I've filled in with possiblities - lies, if you want. Rite of Passage, by Alexei Panshin.
   
   
10. If, standing alone on the back doorstep, Tom allowed himself tears, they were tears of anger. Tom's Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pierce.

And now, I'm off to find another source that will probably also be missing. Then, home.

Comments

[leaper182.livejournal.com]

Didn't realize that A Wrinkle in Time started out like that. I wonder if it was the first book to do so, and everyone kind of lifted it from there... ^_^

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

I looked it up! It was originally used by Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who used it to begin his novel Paul Clifford, 1830.

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

And B-L's writing was so bad, it has since inspired the "Bulwer-Lytton awards," which go to the worst introduction...ever.

L'Engle knew what she was doing. :)

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

The reading woman sits by the window, lamplight falling over her shoulder onto the book. Memory and Dream, by Charles de Lint.

*kicks self*

I shoulda known that one. But, in my own defense, it's been a few years since I read M&D.