Friday Fragments the Seventh

Well, it’s a day late, but welcome, everyone, to Friday Fragments where I combine First Line Friday, hosted by Carrie over at Reading is my Super Power and Friday Book Snippets, which is co-hosted by Anne at My Head is Full of Books and Olivia over at Bemused & Bookish. For First Line Friday, you post the first line of the book nearest you. For Friday Book Snippits, you share two spoiler-free snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from the book’s beginning then from page 56 (or thereabouts) in the book you are currently reading. If your book doesn’t have pages, as with audiobooks and many digital books, simply replace page 56 with 56%.

I always have multiple books on the go, so I have two personal rules for myself: To use a different book for the two memes. And to not repeat any books in a given month.

First Line Friday

Muswell Hill is a leafy suburb on a hill overlooking North London.

A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage by MK Oliver with Perdita Weeks (Narrator) Audiobook Cover

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The witty and gripping new thriller introducing your new favourite murderous heroine: Lalla Rook.

There’s a dead body in my living room.

I’ve not called the police because it was I who stabbed him. Seven times in all. The truth is, it’s surprisingly difficult to dispatch someone with a vegetable knife.

In case you’re wondering, the dead man is not my husband. I do resent our pitiful sex life and his woeful lack of ambition, but I wouldn’t murder him for it. Not yet, anyway.

Right now, I have far more pressing concerns: scheming to get my daughter into the perfect school; buying my dream home in Hampstead; and disposing of a corpse.

A woman’s work is never done. I’ve created the perfect life – and I’ll kill to keep it.

(description from The StoryGraph)

Friday Book Snippets

First Lines

Is zero a number? If you’re one of those people who insist that white is not a colour, you probably think not. After all, it’s neither positive nor negative. It’s simply nothing, so how can it exist as a number? Well, as the saying goes, if you can put money on it in Vegas, it exists.

Page 56

Norse mythology is set in nine realms connected by a giant tree called Yggdrasil. At the top of the tree (Asgard) live the gods, and among the roots (Niflheim) lies the underworld, ruled by the goddess Hel. There are three realms in the nine levels which made up the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, with Metnal the ninth and most unappealing. And 9 was the number chosen by 14th-century Italian poet Dante in writing his epic about the afterlife, The Divine Comedy. In the poem he is guided through nine concentric circles of hell and nine spheres of heaven. In each case, the degree of evil and good increases at each level.

Dante was inspired by the Greek interpretation of the underworld, Hades, the centre of which was reached by crossing the river Styx, which circled Hades nine times.

The Book of Numbers by Tim Glynne-Jones Book Cover

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Within these pages, every number of significance is listed together with its special qualities and associations, featuring explanations, for example, of how a pack of playing cards came to have fifty-two cards, or why there are fifty-two weeks in a year. Where else in one place could you find out how the illegal numbers racket works, what makes some people see numbers as colors, why the standard US rail gauge exactly matches the axle width of an ancient Roman chariot, and the numerological connection between Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden? Our lives are ruled by numbers and this book tells you about every one that counts.

(description from The Storygraph)

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So, what do you think? Do these snippets intrigue you, bore you, inspire you to pick up the books, or turn you away from them altogether? Let me know in the comments.