First Lines

So here is a challenge for all of you. Following are the first lines from 20 well-known books. List the books. Only one rule: you have to do it without searching online for the answer. The first one to correctly list all the books (or come closer than anyone else) will win fame and fortune by having their name listed on this blog! Pretty exciting isn't it? I'll post the answers next Tuesday.

1. Call me Ishmael.

2. In my time I have been called many things: sister, lover, priestess, wise-woman, queen.

3. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

4. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

5. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

6. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

7. In a hole in the ground there lived a . . .

8. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

9. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

10. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

11. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.

12. I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

13. Lee Chong’s grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply.

14. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

15. You better not never tell nobody but God.

16. To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

17. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

18. Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

19. All children, except one, grow up.

20. The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.