Congratulations to your daughter! Definitely something to brag about. My family had a presence in all the wars too. My great uncle stormed the beach at Normandy. He was a paratrooper, and was later killed in France trying to help a woman during a domestic dispute.

Some great opening lines up there, and popular too. I saw quite a few of these today.

Congrats on your daughter's graduation! I know how much work it takes to come out on top of a class that large!

I knew #1 right away withoug a doubt.

#4 - I don't know why I remember that line so much when I don't even remember if I read that book or not.

#5 - As soon as I read 'Mrs. Rachel Lynde' I knew what that book is.

I actually knew most of these except #2, 3, 8, 9 and #10 even though I did read that book.

I don't have a good memory and I must admit, most of my favorite books have dull first lines. Books with great first lines does not necessary mean it's a great book but a dull first line does not mean a bad book so it really depends on you, I guess.

Have a lovely day.

OOoops I only recognized three!

Congrats to your daughter! That's awesome.
And your opening lines are great...I recognized all but #3 and #10. :)

Congratulations to your daughter! That is quite an accomplishment! Love your list, although I have to be honest - I didn't get many of them. Just Harry Potter and A Christmas Carol. Just means I need to read more!

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Great post. Congratulations to your daughter and a huge thank you to your family who served. I liked your little guessing game. I have read 8 of these books, guessed 6 of them by the first line, so not too shabby. Have a great day Susan.

Congrats to your daughter, that's fantastic!! Also, love how you set this post up as a sort of Q&A!

I only got 2...the most obvious ones!

Your Uncle Joe is a real hero. 💔💔💔 I honor his service.

That librarian and mule one makes me laugh. It's interesting for sure!

Congratulations to your daughter!! That is awesome..
My son is a junior in high school this year and looking forward to senior year while wondering how college applications are really going to work out..
And love how you made up the quiz... I recognized the ones I had read (and yet to read #3, 8, 10).. And I loved The Bookwoman too..

I just read Little Women, and it was so good! I adore the opening line :)

Love these. I kinda wish as a kid I had read the Green Gables books- they sound delightful!

Interesting quotes. My favourites are probably 2 and 8.

Thanks for visiting my TTT earlier.

Congratulations to your daughter! She did a great job.

And I love the opening line of Anne of Green Gables. It frames that story perfectly.

My TTT .

I recognized several of these. I hadn't thought of L.M. Montgomery as so wordy until I read that opening line again.

#2 & #3 really grabbed me.

What a fun way to structure your post. I got 5/10, and I'm pretty excited that one of those was #2, given that it was an educated guess and I haven't read it.

That is incredible about your daughter (my graduating class was about that size too, but so many people regularly got a 4.0 that the school's policy was simpy to acknowledge the top 10%; they stopped identifying valedictorian well over 20 years ago). The graduating rank is impressive enough on its own, but a full ride scholarship?? Wow!

Very nice Memorial Day mention as well. Nobody in my family has done military service since my grandparents' generation, either WWII or Korea, and it was never really talked about -- I only know from some photos.

Yes, love the iconic line from Little Women!!

Hey Susan, great to see we both picked Harry Potter and Little Women for our lists. I think A Christmas Carol is a brilliant choice, too - I only didn't go for it as I already had a Dickens' novel on my list.

I loved the opening line from Little Women.

Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.

Great post, Susan. I recognized about 5 (#4,5,6,7,9) of the first lines, although I've read 8 out of 10 of the books (all except #2 and #10) but some of them so long ago I didn't recognize the first line!

Here's a very memorable first line: "Where's Papa going with that ax?"

I'm sure you can name that book right away! :-)

Hope you're well, dear friend!

Forgot to say congrats to your daughter! Her accomplishments are awesome!!! You must be very proud and very excited for her!

And a pool party with people, I'm so envious! We're still locked down here in New Mexico with deaths at .00036 percent. 90% of the state has 0 deaths and a handful of cases, I'm going stir-crazy after almost 3 months!

Anyway, I digress . . . my grandfather and great-grandfather both served in WWI for England before immigrating to the USA a couple years later. England was getting so bombarded they were calling up everyone so my great-grandfather also served, leaving his wife and 6 other children at home. Thankfully, they both survived. My dad served in the army in the Korean War on the front lines setting up communication lines while under sniper fire and thankfully came home unscathed. Three months later he married my mom who waited for him. Then my baby brother served in the Navy in the Middle East for 25 years in the Navy (deployed overseas over and over again) until he died with brain tumors he probably contracted from equipment on the ship almost 8 years ago this Christmas. It's with pride but also a lot of emotion when we can remember them and honor them.

For Memorial Day, we watched the WWII movie, "The Longest Day" (Amazon Prime/Netflix), a movie released in 1962 with a whole slew of big name actors. John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, etc. It's about the Normandy invasion and there was so much historical stuff about that invasion I had no idea about and I thought I knew quite a bit. Really well done and I read that the directors/producers made sure it was all historically accurate. Really well done - and the actors play actual people who were there. So I digress again . . . sorry!

Take care! XOXO

Congrats to your daughter!

I managed to correctly guess three of those so I'll take that!

Big congrats to your daughter, Susan! What an accomplishment! Also, so poignant your tribute to your Uncle Joe. Loved your first lines and I even knew some of them...ha!

What fun!! I knew The Nightingale because I used that one too! I also knew Little Women and The Help!!

How could I forget about that Dickens line? Killer opening...

I only recognized three of the ten - and probably the easiest three in the whole list.

My favorite opening line is from Pete Dexter's novel "Spooner." (I may have posted aabout this line before...that's how much I love it):

"Spooner was born a few minutes previous to daybreak in the historic, honeysuckled little town of Millegeville, Georgia, in a makeshift delivery room put together in the waiting area of the medical offices of Dr. Emil Woods, across the street from and approximately in the crosshairs of a cluster of Confederate artillery pieces guarding the dog-spotted front lawn of the Greene Street Sons of the Confederacy Retirement Home."

This one sentence, long as it is, sets the tone for the rest of the book perfectly.

Hope you're doing well and staying safe. These are wonderful opening lines. I have been so swamped with work that no reading is happening. So frustrating

Your Uncle Joe sounds like an amazing man. My family has been lucky in that while we have had people in basically every war they've all survived though I doubt they came back the same. Love seeing the Anne line! I must admit Anne of Green Gables isn't my favorite of the Anne books but that line just makes me so happy.