Better Late Than Never

Nearly three weeks ago, I got tagged with a meme by the Greenish Lady at what else but the Greenish Lady blog, follow the link to check her out. My first, I must add, so that makes me a meme virgin. I haven't decided how I feel about the whole meme business. It's wonderful to be acknowledged and particularly by someone I haven't met in person and it seems a great way to initiate contact with the blogging community, something I've been on the outside of looking in for way too long now. My apologies for taking so long to respond, another hospital stay is to blame, I'm afraid.

So here goes... my first meme.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

The book I'm reading at the moment was one my mom gave me on my recent trip back home, it's called The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly and it's truly a joy to read. I'm not sure if joy is the right word, because it's a sort of twisted and graphic and magical and poetic and dark and a little disturbing, but it's the kind of book that you can become completely absorbed in and not have to think too much about. I love a little magic in a tale, so this is one I'd recommend.

David, a boy of 12, has just lost his mother to a "creeping, cowardly thing, a sickness that ate away from her from the inside..." and whose father has re-married and now had a new baby. While having difficulty coping with the change and after a particularly nasty row with his new step mother, David is magically transported to a otherwordly type of place, a land where fairy tales are born, where lost children boiled in pots and wolves with teeth that gnash can stand upright and speak. He's lost in this fantastic land and must find his way back to the real world.

While on this journey,....'Suddenly, it seemed as if David was surrounded by short, unhappy men muttering about ''rights" and "liberties" and having enough of "this sort of thing". They were all filthy, and they all wore hats with broken bells. One of them kicked David in the shin.'

It isn't a particularly exciting or controversial quote. What about you, have you got something better?