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The following extracts are the first sentences taken from popular Penguin books. All you need to do is select the right title/author combination to discover if you're a literary scholar or a philistine! Top tip: some extracts are taken from our 'big read' titles. Once you have completed the quiz, click on the 'enter' button to see how you fare. Good luck!
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was not out of the question. Jane Aire by Charlotte Bronte Jane Norman by Charlotte Church Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages, might have claimed their share of public attention in a Court of Justice. The Woman In Red by Wilky Collins The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins The Woman In White by Wilko Johnson MANY YEARS LATER, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Sobriety by Gabriel One Hundred Years of Love by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible, - or from one of our elder poets, - in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper. Middlemarch by George Eliot Middle Mind by George Ely Middle May by George Elliot These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine. And these two very old people are the father and mother of Mrs. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Mr. Willy Wonka (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) by Roald Dahl The Complete Adventures of Charlie by Roald Dahl 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents', grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. 'It's so dreadful to be poor!' sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. 'I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all', added little Amy, with an injured sniff. Little Girls by Louise Alcott Small Ladies by Louise Elcott Little Woman by Louisa M. Alcott Ho Chi Minh City in the summer. Sweltering by anyone's standards. Needless to say, Artemis Fowl would not have been willing to put up with such discomfort if something extremely important had not been at stake. Artemis Owl by Owen Colfer Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer Artemis Loud by Owen Culper It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 1984 by George Orwell Nineteen by George Well My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue, could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. Great Ideas by Charles Dirk Great Times by Charlie Dickens Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17 -, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof. Treasured Lands by Rob Stevens Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure & Pleasures by Robert Louis



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