Page 56, Sentence 5

I’ve been tagged by my friend Ann-Kat over at Today I Read (who has just about the most beautiful blog I’ve ever seen).

Here are the instructions:

Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, and turn to page 56.
Write out the fifth sentence, along with the following two to five sentences.
Pass this along to five blog friends. (What kind of meme would this be if you didn’t require the (un)willing participation of others?)

It was a tough call figuring out which book was closest to me at this moment. I’m a book stacker, which means the area around my desk can be kind of a danger zone. The winner? On Writing, by Stephen King. It’s the paperback version that I ordered recently because I couldn’t find my hardcover version, and I simply had to re-read it.

Here’s what’s on page 56, sentence 5, plus the remaining sentence in the paragraph, and the ones in the next paragraph (more than five sentences but I couldn’t resist):

I won’t try to argue that “A Gradual Canticle” is a great poem (although I think it’s a pretty good one). The point is that it was a reasonable poem in a hysterical time, one sprung from a writing ethic that resonated all through my heart and soul.

Tabby was in one of Jim Bishop’s rocking chairs that night. I was sitting on the floor beside her. I put my hand on her calf as she spoke, cupping the curve of warm flesh through her stocking. She smiled at me. I smiled back. Sometimes these things are not accidents. I’m almost sure of it.

The story of how King meets his wife Tabitha is a very sweet one. Of course, a lot of the book is about writing, but On Writing is very much a memoir, too.

I’ve decided to tag the last five bloggers who’ve made comments here (not that I want to scare anyone away from commenting here!):

Laura at Lines – in Pleasant Places, Ruth at BookishRuth, Kathy at Bermudaonion, J. Kaye at J. Kaye’s Book Blog and Cathy at Kittling: Books.

But since book bloggers are often busy and also, the five wonderful bloggers I’ve tagged might have already done this meme, if you’d like to give this meme a try, please consider yourself tagged!

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