I am unashamed to say that I copied this from the Victorian Geek blog, who in turn purloined it from someone else. That’s why it’s a meme, I suppose.

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.

Don’t dig for your favourite book, the coolest book, or the most intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Well, for me that would be the wonderful line:

“The bridge to platform 4 is to me less interesting than Bifrost guarded by Heimdell with the Gjallarhorn.”

I doubt many people would guess what that’s from!  I read this when I was writing my chapter on children’s literature, and found it fascinating; it contains Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-stories”, as well as one of his early short stories, “Leaf by Niggle”.