It Was the Best of Quizzes, It Was the Worst of Quizzes: Can You Name These Classic Novels From Their Opening Lines?

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Which book starts with the following graphic and unexpected sentence? ''Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

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War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

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Which book starts with this truth bomb? ''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.''

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

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''Call me Ishmael." Simple and effective. Which book?

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Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

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This book opens with a series of opposites: "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..."

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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Trial by Franz Kafka

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Some books open with killer wisdom like: ''All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.''

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Middlemarch by George Eliot
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Tess of the d’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

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Some books catch your attention with the unexpected, like this one: ''I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.''

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The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

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If you don't know this one, we have to disown you: ''Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.''

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

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Which book starts with this meta opener? "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

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Which dystopian novel begins this way? "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and in a shield, the World State's motto, Community, Identity, Stability."

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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

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Which book begins this way, leaving the reader to question the truth? "All this happened, more or less."

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The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

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Which novel begins with these wise words? "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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This disturbing introduction leads to which book? "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."

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The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

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Last question - how would you rate this quiz?

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Which book starts with the following graphic and unexpected sentence? ''Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Which book starts with this truth bomb? ''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.''

''Call me Ishmael." Simple and effective. Which book?

Some books open with killer wisdom like: ''All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.''

Some books catch your attention with the unexpected, like this one: ''I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.''

If you don't know this one, we have to disown you: ''Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.''

Which book starts with this meta opener? "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

Which dystopian novel begins this way? "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and in a shield, the World State's motto, Community, Identity, Stability."

Which book begins this way, leaving the reader to question the truth? "All this happened, more or less."

This disturbing introduction leads to which book? "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."

Last question - how would you rate this quiz?

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