Teaser Tuesdays Times Two: The Post-Birthday World (Lionel Shriver) and The Laying On Of Hands (Alan Bennett)

It's been a long time since my last Teaser Tuesday post, and I'm reading at least one good book at the moment (I suspect the other will be but I've only just started it).

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TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today (book one):

"Irina was perched at the kitchen table over the New York Times with a lone glass of coffee, whose bottom she had carefully sponged before setting it first in a saucer, then on a coaster. In preference to explaining that in this household eating was a sign of weakness, she waved him off with a mumble about not being hungry."

Page 362 of The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

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And my bonus “Teaser” Sentences for today (book two):

"These thoughts had taken him and the procession to the chancel, where the choir filed into their pews and the spare clergy disposed themselves around, while still leaving the hymn with a couple of verses to run. This gave father Jolliffe a chance to think about what he ought to say about Clive and what he ought not to say."

Page 34 of The Laying On Of Hands by Alan Bennett

Teaser Tuesdays: The Electric Michelangelo (Sarah Hall)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

"The show brought Claudia sadness finer than any requiem or any gravestone or anything beautiful or sorrowful that she could think of. On afternoons when she wasn't working with her husband or rotating on the platform in the Human Picture Gallery at Luna, she would go off by herself and pay her dime and linger in the corridors of the exhibit."

Page 231 of The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall

Teaser Tuesdays: The Story of Forgetting (Stefan Merrill Block)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

* 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 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!
* Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

"After I sold almost all of what remained of my family's farm, the endless mansions, once held at the periphery, quickly surrounded my house on all sides, the construction occurring all at once, as a sing thought. The faceless walls of grey brick and Spanish stucco now cast long shadows accross Iona's barn in the evening and eclipse the sunset view once available from my bedroom window."

Page 110 of The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block

Teaser Tuesdays: Change of Heart (Jodi Picoult)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

"I had already outlines his features in Black - the broad brow, the strong chin, the hawk's nose. I'd used a shank to shave ebony from a picture of a coal mine in National Geographic and added a dab of shampoo to make a chalky paint."

Page 29 of Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult

Teaser Tuesdays: Staring at the Sun (Julian Barnes)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

"At eighty-seven, Jean had taken up smoking. Cigarettes had finally been pronounced risk-free, and after dinner she would light one, close her eyes, and suck on some tangy memory from the previous century."

Page 140 of Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes

Teaser Tuesdays: The English Year (Steve Roud)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

"The Old Horse is both the name of a song and a dramatic Christmas house-visiting custom, similar to the Old Tup or Derby Ram. In 1903, George Addy recorded the following version of the song that was sung during the visit:
It is a poor old horse
And he's knocking at your door
And if you choose to let him in
He'll please you all I'm sure
Poor old horse, let him in"

Page 505 of The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to The Nation's Customs and Festivals, From May Day to Mischief Night by Steve Roud

So I'm still on the same book as last week - actually I've been reading this for at least a month, it's a good job I haven't posted it every week. Like last week though this is really the only thing I'm reading (or at least the only thing I'm reading for fun) so there wasn't an alternative to post.

Teaser Tuesdays: The English Year (Steve Roud)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“Nevertheless, she does not seem to have had a lasting traditional impact, and no major festivals, customs, or superstitions are reported for her day, although itmust have had local significance in parishes where the church was named after her.
In weather-lore, St Margaret's Day was often expected to be wet; if it was, it was termed 'Margaret's flood', or, somewhat confusingly it was said that St Mary Magdalene (whose feast day was washing her handkerchief to go to her coursin St James's Fair (25th July).”

Page 337 of The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to The Nation's Customs and Festivals, From May Day to Mischief Night by Steve Roud

Teaser Tuesdays: Brown Owl's Guide to Life (Kate Harrison)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“I pass the diagram showing the right way to hang a Union Jack, and the illustration explaining how to tell if a track has been made by a lame horse, before reaching anything remotely relevant. Page 373, right opposite the frogs in cream, is a whole section on Good Temper and Cheeriness.”

Page 97 of Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison

Teaser Tuesdays: A Wayne in a Manger (Gervase Phinn)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“'Was Baby Jesus induced?'
'No, He wasn't induced.'”

Page 23 of A Wayne in a Manger by Gervase Phinn

Teaser Tuesdays: Migraine (Oliver Sacks)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“The diagnosis of migraine is usually made on the basis of a clinical history, supported where possible by observation of the patient during an attack. It is usually good sense to perform a few basic investigations (skull X-rays, EEG, etc.), although these may be expected to be within normal limits in the vast majority, say 99 per cent, of all cases.”

Page 106 of Migraine by Oliver Sacks

Teaser Tuesdays: Pyramids (Terry Pratchett)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“It is astonishingly difficult to walk with legs full of straw when the brain doing the directing is in a pot ten feet away, but he made it as far as the wall and felt his way along it until a crash indicated that he'd reached the shelf of jars. He fumbled the lids of the first one and dipped his hand gently inside.”

Page 256 of Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

Teaser Tuesdays: Starbook (Ben Okri)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• 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 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!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My 2 “Teaser” Sentences for today:

“But the wise men and women were hard to find and mostly did not want to be found. And when he made enquiries and was directed to this hut or that place, when he arrived he would discover that the wise man, learning that the prince was seeking him, had disappeared, had, as they say, made himself scarce.”

Page 274 of Starbook by Ben Okri