...of the book you're currently reading - write it down (together with booktitle). I start:

"There was something inhuman about this man, who now swayed to and fro like some great forest beast while his mirthless laughter boomed out again."
- The Horrorstories of Robert E. Howard

"It was a surprise to everyone, sir," Bobby Shaftoe says.

annual reread of Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson.

You fire your pistol in here and the ricochet of your ball will be what kills you.

Kingdom beyond the waves, Stephen Hunt (eBook so it may be different from other versions.)

Violet thought (or did she? - he spent hours grappling with her cryptic remarks, with Dr. Bramble's elaborate explications for a guide, and yet he wasn't sure) that it was always spring There.

Little, Big by John Crowley

The other disciples whispered that the tall fair man who led the procession was a eunuch, one Jade Tiger, advisor to the king of Quain.
-Master of Devils by Dave Gross

"If he were to die now...what would happen to Noriko Nakagawa?"

-Koushan Takami's "Battle Royale"

"Cutter was crying."

--Iron Council, by China Miéville

They're a fine match, the shameless sods,
Those poofters Caesar and Mamurra.

Catullus, the complete poems.

She had a smudge of ink on her chin and on the fingers of her right hand, and she wore a name tag that had the store logo at the top and HI, MY NAME IS SHEILA below it.

-Dead Beat, Dresden Files Book 7 by Jim Butcher (e-book)

That blew me away.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Hisvet continued to whisper in her ear while Frix giggled and cooed again from time to time, continuing to watch the Mouser impishly.

The Swords of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber

'Four days ago!'

-Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

"As soon as this result occurred, Justinian stopped persecuting the Monophysites (in 530/531), restoring monks to their monasteries, but not bishops to their sees."

The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State - Yehudo D. Nevo & Judith Koren

"The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege taught the Spartans their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault."

Landmark Thucydides, Edited by Robert B. Strassler

"Could you have finally screwed the pooch?"

- Powers - The Definitive Hardcover Collection - Volume I by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming

"Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a summoner knows is not affected by his Charisma score."

-- Pathfinder: APG, Jason Bulmahn et.al.

Surprised to be the first to be reading a gaming book at the moment...

"Only sweaty blankets and a great buzzing absence where the clamour of war had once been."

-The Darkness That Comes Before - R. Scott Bakker

Surprised to be the first to be reading a gaming book at the moment...

I am not. Most people don't read RPG books in multiple sittings. I may sit down with a book on occasion, but when I put it away I am no longer "reading" it. On the other hand, I have a stack of books by my bed that I am "reading". So the book I looked at last and plan to pick up next is the book I count as "reading" when one of these pops up. Which tends to either be a novel or a history book. Or philosophy.

I tend to read more than one book at a time (in fact, at the moment I think I have a separate book for each room in the flat), so...

"Rumours persisted that Soviet servicemen were flying helicopters and operating tanks on combat missions." Afgantsy by Rodric Braithwaite

"Death kneeled down and peered at it, because it was so small." Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.

"Until night came, and the sun disappeared all the advantage was with Manuchehr, because the world's soul loved him." Shahnameh: The Persian book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (translated by Dick Davis). Just a pity it wasn't one of the bits where Davis kept the verse-format.

"Figure 3.7 shows a chariot pulled by two or more animals, depicted on a stela from Zarza Capilla (south-west Spain)." Bronze Age Warfare by Richard Osgood and Sarah Monks with Judith Toms.

Most people don't read RPG books in multiple sittings.

Hmmm. I must be the odd one, then.

When they had to endure the constant heat and humidity night and day, the novelty soon wore off.

The Tower and the Hive, by Anne McCaffrey. She will be missed.

"In this section, we briefly introduce the main ideas of learning agents."

-- Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd.

Could I be happy if I married him? she wondered.

-Inheritance, Christopher Paolini.

The breeze was light and fitful; the caravel nosed her way slowly past the spectacular Arches guarding Hulburg's harbor.

Corsair by Richard Baker.

(I find he is the only Forgotten Realms author I can stomach. In fact, I actually like his stuff so far.)

"'He has--among other trifles--a good house and a large estate--that of Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire.'"

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Kindle location 1055.

"The bones were stripped so clean that not even threads of tendon remained to bind them together."

Dust, by Charles Pellegrino.

Parking space is limited, but there is seldom much competition for it.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area - Robert Beymer

Not really reading it, but its the book on my desk and I most recently opened it up to start thinking of route plans for next year.

The titles cannot mean anything else when they are used of Christ in 22:13

- Thr Theology of The Book of Revelation, by Richard Bauckam

"Alexei's softscreen on the wall flashed red." --Firstborn, by Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter

Not the most profound or exciting line...

"Perhaps in washing dirt off your driveway."

-- William B. Miller and Vicki L. Schenk, All I Need To Know About Manufacturing I Learned In Joe's Garage.

"While there are many independant habitats and settlements in the inner system, they are largely under the thumb of the hypercorps."

Eclipse Phase Core Rule Book, by Posthuman Studios (multiple author credits including: Lars BLumenstein, Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Jack Graham, John Snead, Bruce Baugh, Randall N. Bills, Davidson Cole, Tobias WOlter)

The governor at Mergui welcomed the Mocha and allowed the ship to remain and stock up on provisions.

The Pirate Hunter (Captain Kidds biography) by Richard Zacks

"The cascade begins in the large eddies, which drain kinetic energy from the mean flow and transfer it to smaller ones through eddy-eddy interactions; it terminates in the smallest eddies, which convert kinetic energy into internal energy through viscous friction."

Turbulence in the Atmosphere by Wyngaard

(I wish I were reading fiction instead of work related stuff that makes me want to take a nap)

"They cause damage in several ways: they are inedible or poorly edible to livestock and wild animals, but they crowd out edible plant species, so they reduce the amount of livestock fodder by up to 90%; some of them are toxic to animals; and they may triple rates of erosion because their roots hold the soil less well than do roots of native grasses."

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. He's talking about Montana, btw.

"Cugel abruptly set down the goblet, and watched as Derwe Coreme raised hers to her lips."

The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance. Cugel the Clever, always willing to endanger a beautiful woman's life to save his own!

"As had its fellow, the creature gave a hissing howl; then it chittered and sprang sideways upon the young thief, bowling him over and preventing him from using his sword."

Artifact of Evil by Gary Gygax. Gord the Rogue meets an ettercap!

"Hacking it free, he had seen the characters on the inner surface--rude forceful symbols, doubtless the cast of a powerful antique rune...best take it to a magician and have it tested for sorcery."

In my new copy of Jack Vance's Tales of Dying Earth, Liane the Wayfarer goes forth to meet his fate.

"I observed their visits were always short, and paid late in the evening; thus a shadow of mystery enveloped my infant days, and perhaps gave its lasting and ineffaceable tinge to the pursuits, the character, and the feelings of my present existence."

Alonzo de Moncada, like everyone else in Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer takes a while to say anything.

In some ways, that is a good thing-for writers, going out of print is a little taste of dying-but it exacerbates the problem of quantity.

Time Magazine, Charles in ChargeThe secret of Dickens' enduring success By Radhika Jones

"From the beginning of the divorce case until his death, Clement repeatedly weakened his own position, risking betrayal of the principles by which justice required that the case be judged, in a fruitless effort to placate Henry."

The Tudors, GJ Meyer

Two books right now;

"Hard boil (hard cook) some eggs and cut in half, Mash most of the yolks with an equal volume of sauce aurore containing chopped herbs" - LAROUSSE GASTRONOMIQUE ~Potter, Clarkson

"Every community has it's firebrand, or madman. or self-taught politician." - SNUFF ~Pratchett, Terry

Brian

"And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place."

Genesis 31:55 in the King James Bible with SUPER GIANT PRINT (it was the only one they had at the library--and despite all the potential jokes about impending age, I am glad--I hate all that two columns of text stuff!)

"2
A Dream

He climbed over the rim
of the huge tower
looking down afraid,
descended the escarpment

over sheaves of rock,
crossed railyard gullies
and vast river-bridges
on the groundward slope

under an iron viaduct,
coming to a rivulet
in a still meadow
by a small wood

where he stood trembling
in the naked flowers,
and walked under oak
to the house of folk."

Allen Ginsberg, "The Shrouded Stranger" in Collected Poems 1947-1997

"'It was, after all, your mistake, daughter.'"

--Ghostly Anne Boelyn chides ghostly Elizabeth I in "The Haunted Tower (London)" in C.J. Cherryh's Sunfall

"The peasants who made up the bulk of its [the Imperial Japanese military] recruits remained unliberated from feudal social relations in agriculture, disposed to resist the authority of superior officers, and so deeply resentful of conscription that oldest sons were eventually exempted from military service."

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert Bix

"I also noted the failure of the prohibition of alcohol from 1919 to 1933."

Uncharacteristically bland sentence from Gore Vidal's Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated.

"It was partly a gesture of farewell, partly of triumph, and it was beautiful."

Kay and the Wart celebrate killing a bunny in T.H. White's The Once and Future King

"He was supposed to take part in a symposium out there entitled 'The Future of the American Novel in the Age of McLuhan.'"

Kilgore Trout on his way to meet his only fan in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.

Marshall McLuhan jokes were kinda de rigeur in the seventies.

Forgot all about this again.

"Not everyone was allowed to leave, however."

The Opium Wars by W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello.

"For otherwise it could as well be false as true."

Sense and Goodness Without God by Richard Carrier.

Well, Samnell, I guess it's just me and you:

"They were like bonds we had accumulated, gilt-edged securities of which I would be the beneficiary when they and I reached maturity."

--Rabo Karabekian, who met Kilgore Trout at the symposium mentioned above, reminiscing about his mail in Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

"'I visited his grave one winter afternoon six months later,' van Agtmael writes, 'and the scene of his death is never far from my thoughts.'"

--Chris Hedges, quoting from Peter van Agtmael's 2nd Tour, Hope I Don't Die, in Death of the Liberal Class

and, finally:

page 55 of Chagall by Shearer West is taken up withThe Smolensk Newspaper

Unfortunately, I already gave The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White back to the library. :(