Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Teaser Tuesday - 12 May



Teaser Tuesday

The rules are:
  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  • You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Bit of cheating today as this isn't a very random selection!
Learning the Queen's English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had.

From Chris Cleave's 'the other hand' a review is here as well as lots of links on his website. The book is strongly recommended (by me!)
I wanted to place that quote alongside this one from Salley Vickers 'Instances of the Number 3' which I finished today:
Something sharp attacked her toe. Frances looked down to see a tortoise nibbling at her feet. 'Hey!'
'It's your red nail varnish - thinks you're a tomato!

'the other hand' is our current book group book, I'm looking forward to the discussion!

3 comments:

Phyl said...

I just love the quotation about the "Queen's English." Thank you! (Is it trying to say that the red varnish is your old speaking habits, or that that's all that shows up of the Queen's English after you've tried to learn it?)

Anyway, my teaser is at Bookishgal

The Bumbles said...

Thanks for the double shot - it makes the second one more amusing. And I've never heard anyone compare language to removing nail polish! Now I'll always have something to make me smile whenever I'm trying to get that last bit of polish off my nails ;0)

(oh - and my Teasers are rarely random - but 99% of the time they are 2 sentences. I think everyone kind of creates their own version of the original "rules")

rajm said...

I think - Phyl - it's the learning process itself, intricate and full of little nuances. The 'little bit left at the end' reminded me of beyond the fringe! (probably a very UK reference!)