From Alex’s journal (farmkingdude85):
DIRECTIONS:
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 — first sentence
3. Book #2 — last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 — second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 — next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 — final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.
8. Cite the books used for curiosity’s sake.
And here’s what I got:
Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other-it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher” – an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion. And that is why I came to you to get you to help me learn where the falcon was. They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever conducted – to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything. Most truly do I sign myself
Your increasingly and ravenously
affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
Here are the books I used…for curiosity’s sake:
(1) SMOKE AND MIRRORS by Neil Gaiman
(2) SELECTED POEMS AND TALES by Edgar Allan Poe
(3) THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
(4) THE ULTIMATE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE by Douglas Adams
(5) THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis
By the by I recomend Neverwhere
Dear Cousin Tassie,
Thank you for the lovely postcards. Richard found himself remembering a theatrical performance of Robinson Crusoe he had been taken to as a child: this was what Robinson Crusoe might have looked like, if he had been ship-wrecked on a rooftop instead of a desert island. Rebekah is sterile, Isaac prays for her, and Yhwh grants the prayer. What I learned too late does matter. And because these are my wagers, they are undeniably limited and partisan, dependent on others for broader vision.
Book 1 Ella Minnow Pea: a Novel in Letters Mark Dunn
Book 2 Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
Book 3 Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)Versions of Biblical Narratives J. Cheryl Exum
Book 4 Pearl Cove Elizabeth Lowell
Book 5 Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church