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Questions and Answers Feel free to ask any questions about Accrington and the surrounding area and hopefully one of our members can help you out. |
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Welcome to Accrington Web!
We are a discussion forum dedicated to the towns of Accrington, Oswaldtwistle and the surrounding areas, sometimes referred to as Hyndburn! We are a friendly bunch please feel free to browse or read on for more info. You are currently viewing our site as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, photos, play in the community arcade and use our blog section. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please, join our community today!
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06-05-2012, 17:08
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#31
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Resting In Peace
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Morecambe
Posts: 4,208
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
If we're going for poetry, Ozymandias by Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land
The imagery in the poem, of ancient statues in the desert, has stayed with me rather like the image conjured up by the opening of Metamorphosis.
I also go for Byron's The Eve of Waterloo, part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage but also published separately:
There was a sound of revelry by night...
describing a ball followed by hasty preparations for the battle the following day, which of course ends in slaughter.
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Let sleeping polar bears lie...
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06-05-2012, 17:41
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#32
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a multieloquent Mule
Xeno Tactic Champion!
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Back in Bramsche, Germany
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Less
Aaaargh! Looks like another trip over to Amazon, haven't read it in years, let someone borrow my copy, usual thing happened, meanwhile, might just go to bed with 'The Lord Of The Rings',
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Try to read them at least once a year, "The Children of Húrin", "The Silmarillion", "The hobbit" & "Lord of the rings" All from Tolkien. Pretty heavy going in places, but worth the effort & I think the re-reading helps things fall into place more easily.
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I don't know half of you as well as I should like, and I like half of you, half as well as you deserve. (Bilbo Baggins)
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06-05-2012, 18:11
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#33
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Full Member+
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Accrington
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveinGermany
Try to read them at least once a year, "The Children of Húrin", "The Silmarillion", "The hobbit" & "Lord of the rings" All from Tolkien. Pretty heavy going in places, but worth the effort & I think the re-reading helps things fall into place more easily.
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A long time ago I bought the Tolkien Encyclopedia; it helps with all the names and places. It also has maps which are helpful as the geography of Middle Earth seems to change with every new "age".
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06-05-2012, 18:51
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#34
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a multieloquent Mule
Xeno Tactic Champion!
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Back in Bramsche, Germany
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
As for lighter reading,
September, the 3rd 1939. The last minutes of peace ticking away. Father and I were watching Mother dig our air-raid shelter. "She's a great little woman," said Father. "And getting smaller all the time," I added. Two minutes later, a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless;
Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall. Spike Milligan, the rest of the series are also worth a look.
Rommel, Gunner who ?
Monty: His part in my victory.
Mussolini: His part in my downfall.
Goodbye Soldier.
__________________
I don't know half of you as well as I should like, and I like half of you, half as well as you deserve. (Bilbo Baggins)
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06-05-2012, 19:20
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#35
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Beacon of light
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Oh son...I read all those books...must be thirty years ago.
I laughed so much....what a comic genius he was...and me with my pictorial imagination.
If you are going through a 'brown phase'(you know the kind of thing - you plant pansies and all that comes up is manure) or are a bit fed up with what life is dishing out to you, I would heartily recommend them.
They will make your sides ache and your eyes leak!
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The world will not be destroyed by evil people...
It will be destroyed by those who stand by and do Nothing.
(a paraphrase on a quote by Albert Einstein)
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06-05-2012, 19:29
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#36
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God Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Italy
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy."
Ian Mc Ewan: On Chesil Beach
Brilliant, touching and sad. Pocket sized book, great read.
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“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
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06-05-2012, 19:42
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#37
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God Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by susie123
If we're going for poetry, Ozymandias by Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land
The imagery in the poem, of ancient statues in the desert, has stayed with me rather like the image conjured up by the opening of Metamorphosis.
I also go for Byron's The Eve of Waterloo, part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage but also published separately:
There was a sound of revelry by night...
describing a ball followed by hasty preparations for the battle the following day, which of course ends in slaughter.
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Love Ozymandias ... has a great last line too ... but if we start getting into that
Also "Sailing to Byzantium" ... "That is no country for old men." ... even tho' he got it from a movie title. And that's another can of literary worms ... movie and book titles filched from lit. "Gone With the Wind" ... "Splendor in the Grass" ... "Look Homeward Angel" ... "Soup to Nuts" (had to get the Stooges in somewhere; what's a thread without a click? " Arrrgh ... enough.
And now that I'm on a roll: Susie, go for the tomes ... and when you finish one you can use it to stand on so that you can reach stuff on your kitchen shelves
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06-05-2012, 19:46
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#38
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God Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Italy
Posts: 4,419
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric
And now that I'm on a roll: Susie, go for the tomes ... and when you finish one you can use it to stand on so that you can reach stuff on your kitchen shelves
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Very cheeky, Eric!
__________________
“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
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06-05-2012, 19:48
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#39
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God Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Italy
Posts: 4,419
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric
Love Ozymandias ... has a great last line too ... but if we start getting into that
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You are right though - the possibilities are infinite.
__________________
“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
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06-05-2012, 19:49
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#40
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God Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mobertol
Very cheeky, Eric!
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Ain't that the truth But I did resist the temptation in another thread ....
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06-05-2012, 19:52
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#41
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a multieloquent Mule
Xeno Tactic Champion!
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Back in Bramsche, Germany
Posts: 9,023
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
I knew that one day I could become a famous writer or a famous whore. It was my spelling that let me down.
"Bare Nell", Leslie Thomas. Also enjoyed "The loves & journeys of revolving Jones"
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I don't know half of you as well as I should like, and I like half of you, half as well as you deserve. (Bilbo Baggins)
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06-05-2012, 20:14
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#42
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Resting In Peace
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Morecambe
Posts: 4,208
Liked: 416 times
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric
Ain't that the truth But I did resist the temptation in another thread ....
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Yeah, you really made me wait for that one...
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Let sleeping polar bears lie...
Last edited by susie123; 06-05-2012 at 20:19.
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06-05-2012, 20:15
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#43
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Senior Member+
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: London town
Posts: 3,643
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveinGermany
I often re-read books, usually after a long enough interlude. Another evocative introduction is :-
In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit...
J.R.R Tolkien "The hobbit"
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I read the Hobbit in early 80's a great book, havn't managed to read Lord of the Rings though!
Just picked up copy of "Slumdog Millionaire"...
"I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show. They came for me late last night, when even the stray dogs had gone off to sleep..."
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07-05-2012, 06:47
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#44
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JFT96
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: In the Sky, yeeeehawwwww
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
"I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me."
Edgar Allen Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum.
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"your mind will find a way to be unkind to you somehow. But all we really have is happening to us right now. Happiness is the road"
Steve Hogarth, lead singer Marillion
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07-05-2012, 11:08
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#45
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God Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Italy
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Re: Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boeing Guy
"I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me."
Edgar Allen Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum.
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Sounds a laugh a minute book!
__________________
“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
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