Hands up all the bookworms! How well do you think you know your literature? Well, here’s a quick test: presented below are the opening lines of 20 influential books (with their original spelling), a mix of canonical and more contemporary titles. See how many you can guess.
1. “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
