Meme: what's on page 123?

I've been tagged in a meme by one of my favourite literary bloggers, Books Please.

It's pretty straight forward. All you have to do is:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I'm currently reading The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (and will blog on this when finished), which I am enjoying like a well aged pinot noir.

The sentences required as per the meme are:

"It's very beautiful. But it is probably a kind of mock period piece done only a few years ago. Isn't that right?"

Is this meme simply a great way to find and explore new blogs, or a way to see if three sentences can convey a writer's style, or the feel of a novel. In my example, I'd say not (because the sentences are short and in dialogue), but I've read other meme posts that may come closer to that purpose.

For me, I tag (if they'd like to play):

Bec
Lee
Linda
Maree
Gautami

Personally, I don't mind whether the book is fiction or not (it actually could be quite interesting if they're not!)

And please, anyone else can feel free to play along!

Lists that make you go hmmmm.....

There are lots of interesting memes floating around the web about books. The list below is not strictly a meme, as I have pinched some questions from elsewhere and made up my own.

Anyway, the idea of creating such a list piqued my curiosity, so I thought I would give it a go.

Please feel free to treat this as a meme if you like (answer the questions on your own blog and leave a link here as a post), or just post your answers here. I'd just be really interested in other people's answers.

Obviously, this is a subjective list for here and now. All of us will no doubt answer differently in 12 months' time, or 10 years, as our stack of "read" books gets bigger.

So here we go.

Most recent book to make you cry
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

A book that scared you
The Throat by Peter Straub (although it was about a decade ago - don't read a lot of horror these days)

A book that made you laugh out loud
Joel and Cat set the story straight by Rebecca Sparrow

A book you loved as a child
The Man From Snowy River by Elyne Mitchell

A book you loved as a teenager
There were five actually, in the initial Belgariad series by David Eddings

A book you hated in high school
Tender is the night by F Scott Fitzgerald

Favourite crime novel
Bad Debts by Peter Temple

Favourite literary novel
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A series you love
Harry Potter by JK Rowling (why pretend otherwise?).

Favourite fantasy book
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Most over-rated book you've read
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

A book that took time to realise you actually liked it
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The most recent book you put aside without finishing
The Confederacy of Dunces (I've previously blogged on my guilt about this)

A book you put aside half-way through but intend to finish one day
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dosdoyevsky

Sexiest literary hero
Of course there's Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, but for a contemporary sexy protagonist, I'd have to say Mac from Mark Abernethy's spy thriller The Golden Serpent.

Your turn.