So, along with the fact that I'm considering doing an adult education course (Open University degree or otherwise) and the fact that I'm currently having a few stresses at work*, I'm considering a vast range of things to do to take my mind off stuff.  Which has led me to a question that I would like you guys to answer if you can.

If I wasn't doing what I'm doing, what job would you consider me most suited for?  Or to put it another way, knowing me as well as you do, what profession do you think I would most enjoy or excel in?

* and in saying that I am the mistress of understatement.

Now, somehow I don't see myself wearing that. Gotta save the eyes of this and every other generation. *grin* Just put in the same answers but changed the gender and got Batman! Bah humbug!

Below are the first lines to some famous books written in the past 100 odd years. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to name the book. The books quoted below are from a mix of genre's and a mix of easy and hard. Each is relatively well known and not just pulled from the bookshelves that I really have to get around to culling soon.

1. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, correctly guessed by maeritrae.

2. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, correctly guessed by nwhyte

3. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - 1984, George Orwell, correctly guessed by rayvanna

4. 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. - Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, correctly guessed by maeritrae

5. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. - Neuromancer, William Gibson, correctly guessed by nwhyte

6. All this happened, more or less.

7. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. - Voyage of the Dawn Treader, CS Lewis, correctly guessed by maeritrae

8. It was the day my grandmother exploded. - The Crow Road, Iain M. Banks, correctly guessed by rayvanna

9. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

10. It was love at first sight. - Catch 22, Joseph Heller, correctly guessed by nwhyte

There ye go. Now, all ye gotta do is guess. Kudos goes to the first correct guesser.

Tell me about a story I haven't written, and I'll give you one sentence from that story.