Stone cold classic. My favourite opening in all fiction.

Lo-lee-ta.

"Sanjaya, tell me what my sons
and the sons of Pandu did when they met,
wanting to battle on the field of Kuru,
on the field of sacred duty"

hey I got gypped on Godel escher bach....

Dunno this one.
It's not the Bhagavad Gita, is it? It's been so long since I read that.

It's definitely the Gita, I am actually working my way through it again this week.

Well, since I waffled on it, why don't you take the next one, Mike.

"Abraham Lincoln was an avowed enemy of prohibition. His wife was prescribed cannabis for her nerves after his assassination. Virtually every president from the mid-19th Century up until prohibition routinely used cannabis medicines "

Ummm, like, some, umm, some book on druggggs man...you got me.....

"The Emperor Wears No Clothes." It is a book on drugs. LOL Total luck on my part because I once did some research on Lincoln's wife. It's not the kind of book I'd usually know. The following is from a very different kind of book.

"Night was swallowing the square. The cobbles glistened with river mist and it was impossible to see more than a few steps ahead. Strange screams - he couldn't tell if they were human - penetrated the fog, and from the old fortress at the end of the quay came the thump of a samba rhythm."

Some voodoo story...?

Takes place in Brazil?

I could swear I remember a similar quote coming out of "Heart of Darkness".

It's the "samba rhythm" that's throwing me off.

Are there any vampire novels set in Latin America?

quote:

It's the "samba rhythm" that's throwing me off

Yeah, I guess "Heart of Darkness" doesn't make any sense when considering the Samba rhythm. Still, it seems familiar.

Not voodoo, not vampires, not "Heart of Darkness," but it does take place in an unnamed South American country, though that unnamed country seems more like a western South American one than Brazil.

Is is Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I've read him only in Spanish, so it doesn't immediately jump out.

No, I'm sorry, it is not Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The author is not Latin American.

Ok. I give up. Someone else is gonna know it.

It was made into a movie.

Put us out of our misery guv'nor before the samba rhythm takes me...oh, the sway, the sway, the SWAY!!!!

Not yet! Someone will surely get it with this clue: It was made into a movie starring Javier Bardem, who played a police detective.

The Dancer Upstairs by Nicholas Shakespeare

I never would have gotten it without the clues. At least, I hope I got it.

"The General looked at his watch as the speaker of the evening, the Assistant Minister of Agriculture, was winding up his address on the methods of fighting downy mildew.