Book meme

Pastor Jeff of Conblogeration fame is currently buried under a snow bank somewhere in St. Louis. It’s sunny and 75 here, Jeff. Sorry.

Before losing his DSL service to the howling blizzard, he tagged me with a “Book Meme,” which has the following rules:

• Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
• Open the book to page 123.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the next three sentences.
• Tag five people.

Fortunately for you, gentle readers, the latest tome from the telephone company is just out of reach. The book nearest to me is Scoop by British novelist Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1937.

Scoop is a witty send-up of the newspaper business. When rumors of war in a remote African country reach London, newspapers race to scoop each other by dispatching their best war correspondents to the scene.

Many misadventures later, the stampede of journalists arrive to find the capital at rest. Convinced that war must be raging somewhere, and with the British public clamoring for news, the reporters file a steady stream of more and more dubious reports based on whatever scraps of misinformation they can find.

On page 123, the latest train has arrived. Jakes, too busy working on his novel to leave the hotel, dispatches Paleologue, his hired boy, to find out who has arrived at the station.

“Who was on the train?”

“No one except [more] newspaper gentlemen and M. Giraud.”

“Who’s he?”

“He is [with] the Railway. He went down to the coast with his wife last week, to see her off to Europe.”

“Yes, yes, I remember. That was the ‘panic-stricken refugees’ story.”

Now, I will tag several bloggers who always have interesting books within reach:

Patrick at The Paragraph Farmer.
Grace at The Kingdom of Grace.
Skye Puppy at Skye Puppy.
Ken at C. Orthodoxy.
Kim at Threshing Floor.

Update: My friend Patrick informs me that he responded to this meme back in January, which means he gets a pass. You can see his book choice here.