Last week, I revealed you had correctly identified six of the ten quotes I gave you from some of my favorite books.

With some additional clues (some more clever than others, I admit), raidergirl3, Jenn, Rudi, and Grey Kitten correctly identified three more:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.” — The Eyre Affair

3. “The year began with lunch.” — A Year in Provence

9. “It was a dark and stormy night.” — A Wrinkle in Time

The only quote no one could identify:

7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”

My additional clue: When driving across the country to Tucson, you want to be very careful about picking up reptiles at rest stops. It just might change your life. [I later asked in the comments if capitalizing reptiles would have helped anyone guess, but the resulting silence suggests that no, that wouldn’t have been useful.]

The answer? The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.

Admittedly, the opening line of the story does not have much to do with the rest of the book, but I was hopeful that the reptiles bit of the clue might trigger your recollection of Turtle, who enters the tale during a rest stop in Oklahoma.

Thanks for playing along, everyone!

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

From the jacket: “All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds of a victory are grim. Kronos’s army is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, the evil Titan’s power only grows. While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Now it’s up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.”

My take: As the end of the Harry Potter series neared, a number of people mourned the fact that they’d never again have that amazing feeling of being able to crack open a new book in the series. I sympathized with the sentiment, even as I stood in line at midnight hoping for a fitting conclusion to a beloved series.

Obviously, though, I took it to heart. Although I was an early fan of The Lightning Thief and read the second book as soon as it came out, I slowed my pace down when I found out the Percy Jackson series would only number five. I didn’t read the third book until several months after it came out and the fifth book was imminent when I read the penultimate novel. But then I stopped. Sure, I’d periodically scan the library shelves to see if Book 5 was available, but I didn’t put in a request or anything like that. I just didn’t want to have the series end.

However, when I went to hear Rick Riordan speak this spring, he mentioned that he was working on a related series of books destined to take place at Camp Half-Blood. Knowing that even if the main story about Percy and Grover and Annabeth came to a conclusion that I didn’t have to leave the world behind made it okay to read the final book. Plus, my friend Shelley’s son, Daschel, told me that it was excellent. If you can’t trust an 11 year-old boy on the matter, who can you trust?

I picked the book up a couple weeks ago when I saw it at the library and have been saving it for a day when I had the time to immerse myself into Riordan’s well-crafted world. I packed it to take to the beach Saturday and finished it up Sunday afternoon before the concert.

It did not disappoint.

Filled with all the familiar characters from earlier in the series, we join Percy as he frets about how to stop Kronos — who’s taken over the body of demi-god Luke — before the Titan (the gods around before the now-familiar Olympic Greek gods took power) is able to return to full strength and destroy Mount Olympus and Manhattan along with it. A prophecy foretelling doom and a mission gone awry suggests the Oracle may just have known what she was talking about. Now Percy must embark on the most dangerous of all his quests — into the realm of Hades — in order to lead a hodgepodge army of demi-gods and woodland spirits attempting to prevent the ultimate destruction of the Olympic gods.

And if that’s not enough, the nearly 16-year old must figure out who he likes more — fellow demi-god Annabeth, daughter of Athena, or mortal Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who can see through the Mist that prevents most humans from seeing the supernatural.

It’s going to be a rough couple of days for Percy. But as Dasch promised, it’s so worth it.

Pages: 400

So last I left you, we had ten quotes from books I love.

You have correctly identified six of them:

2. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.” The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

4. “Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder.” The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

5. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” To Kill a Mockingbird

6. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

8. “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow…” Anne of Green Gables

10. “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, he was splashing … enjoying the jungle’s great joys … when Horton the elephant heard a small noise.” Horton Hears a Who

Well done, Jenn, raidergirl3, RandomRanter, and Allegra!

This leaves us with four quotes, at least three of which I bet many of you have read. These are the four I expected there would be the most challenging, so let’s see if anyone can get them if I offer a clue:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.”
You’ll think about this quote the Next time you get sucked into a good book.

3. “The year began with lunch.”
Spend some time with Annie and Peter near the Mediterranean. The food is excellent. The house is a bit of a mess. Watch out for the pastis.

7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”
When driving across the country to Tucson, you want to be very careful about picking up reptiles at rest stops. It just might change your life.

9. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
There is a thin line between religion and science, and another between life and poetry.

I don’t usually participate in the literary-themed Weekly Geeks meme/carnival, but for a change I thought I would this week. Not coincidentally, this week’s challenge invites you to go back through the archives and pick a previous challenge to fulfill.

I have chosen Trivia Time, which asks participants to:

So take a moment, don’t stress about it all, and write down five to ten questions that pop into your mind. You could center all your questions around a particular theme or genre, maybe something in which you specialize. Or ask questions about one certain book. Or teach us about your favorite author through your questions.

You could do really easy ones that you know we’ll all get or really hard ones that will challenge even the best of us.

Once you post your questions and add your link here, be sure to go around and answer the questions posted by everyone else. Remember, no fair Googling! At the end of the week, don’t forget to do another post with the answers to your questions.

And most importantly, have fun!

Below you’ll find the first lines of ten novels books [one of these, while fiction, is not a novel] I particularly like. Some are quite easy, but I think others may pose more of a challenge. Your job is to guess the books (without Googling, remember!) and leave your thoughts in the comments:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.”
2. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.”
3. “The year began with lunch.”
4. “Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder.”
5. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”
6. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”
8. “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back int he woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through the woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.”
9. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
10. “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, he was splashing … enjoying the jungle’s great joys … when Horton the elephant heard a small noise.”

Good luck!

Heat by Mike Lupica

From the jacket: “Michael Arroyo grows up in the shadows of hallowed Yankee Stadium, a boy forever on the outside looking in. His only chance to see his field of dreams? Pitch his Bronx all-star team to the district finals and a shot ta the Little League World Series. But there is a problem. Michael is good — too good. Rival coaches and players can’t believe a boy could be this good and be only twelve years old.”

My take: Ace pitcher Michael, his 17-year-old brother Carlos, and their Papi are relatively recent arrivals in New York, having escaped from Cuba with the hope of getting the gifted Michael to the Little League World Series and, eventually, to the Majors.

All is progressing according to plan: Michael is feeling great both from the mound and at the plate. He and his best friend Manny, a fast-talking catcher with a secret passion for dance, books, and movies, are part of an unbelievably good summer all-star team in the Bronx. And there’s this beautiful girl named Ellie who’s started showing up at the playing field some days who’s got a wicked arm and a great laugh.

You’d think life just couldn’t get any better for Michael until an opposing father/coach writes a letter to the local Little League saying he suspects Michael is older than he’s allowed to be, and the league votes to suspend Michael until he and his family can produce his birth certificate to prove his age. Suddenly, life has just gotten much more complicated, threatening to reveal a secret that Michael is guarding closely and that could get him and his loved ones into a lot of trouble.

Sports columnist Lupica has created an interesting backstory for his main character and his secondaries and does not feel obligated to share all of it with us. This helps to make the characters feel like people with stories outside of the confines of the novel. Also, there were several spots in the book where I thought, “Oh, so this is where the story is going to go.” And often it didn’t. I don’t know if those were intentional false leads or if Lupica just, as Jasper Fforde puts it, built himself a lot of off-ramps that he didn’t end up needing, but, again, it works.

I think this is a book that a lot of boys would really like. Michael’s not an outwardly emotional character, but he’s got a lot going on beneath the surface. He feels out of control in his life, but when he’s on a baseball field that all slips into the background. Plus, Manny makes an awesome best friend. The boys try to solve their own problems without getting adults involved, which recalls to mind a number of poor interesting choices I made as a teenager because I could see grownups were just going to complicate things. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, merely that it’s real.

It’s not just boys who’ll like the book, though. Anyone with an appreciation for a well-told tale focusing on the underdog also will close the back cover with a smile on their face. I’m glad I picked it up.

Pages: 220

Mikaiya and I are making progress on our summer readalong. Here’s my latest installment:

The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum

From the jacket: “One of the true classics of American literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has stirred the imaginations of young and old alike for over four generations. Originally published in 1900, it was the first truly American fairy tale, as Baum crafted a wonderland out of such familiar items as a cornfield scarecrow, a mechanical woodman, and a humbug wizard who used old-fashioned hokum to express that universal theme, ‘There’s no place like home.’
“Follow the adventures of young Dorothy Gale and her dog, Toto, as their Kansas house is swept away by a cyclone and they find themselves in a strange land called Oz. Here she meets the Munchkins and joins the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion ion an unforgettable journey to the Emerald City, where lives the all-powerful Wizard of Oz.”

My take: I have no idea what kept me from this 110-year-old classic for so long. I love the movie. I’ve read Gregory Maguire’s response. Heck, I even read the second book in the Oz series as a kid. But I am pleased to report that the wait was well worth it. And this centennial edition, a hardcover with gilt edges and a bookmark ribbon featuring W. W. Denslow’s original illustrations, was a beautiful introduction to Baum’s story.

If your exposure to the Oz series comes exclusively from the Judy Garland film, you will notice several differences when you sit down with the book. First, no Miss Gulch. No running away. The shoes are silver, not ruby-hued. And all who enter the City of Emeralds must wear a pair of green spectacles to protect their eyes from the “brightness and glory” that would blind them otherwise.

But you will find the story not unfamiliar. A cyclone still sends Dorothy and Toto and their house swirling into Munchkinland. The way to the Emerald City is still along the road of yellow brick, which leads past a cornfield with a scarecrow who longs for some brains and through the forest where a Tin Woodman rusted solid while pining for a heart and where a Cowardly Lion quakes in terror that his fellow animals might realize he’s all roar and no bite. And the way back to Kansas and Aunt Em, for, according to the great and terrible wizard ruler, in Oz, “everyone must pay for everything he gets,” still lies with the destruction of the Wicked Witch of the West.

An enduring classic I’m delighted to have finally encountered in its original format.

Pages: 267