> That was a short-lived contest. Maryam wins, finding five titles out of eight.
>
> Ok, so to account for the fact that a lot of you haven't even seen this thread yet, let alone played the game enough to know where the excerpts in question are, I'll keep a lid on the titles for the next couple weeks or so. Anybody that comes up with five correct titles can share the glory.
>
> And three of the eight are still unknowns.
>
> So in a couple weeks, I'll post the correctly guessed titles, the names of those who got them, and the number of titles that remain unguessed.

It's been a long couple of weeks. Seems like, oh, ten years or so. But all eight titles have been correctly guessed in an email sent to me by lelo14. Congratulations, lelo14, and whoever else guessed what these excerpts were from.

THE ANSWERS:

(1) The Color of Magic -- Terry Pratchett

(2) The Big Sleep -- Raymond Chandler

(3) The Trumpet of the Swan -- E.B. White

(4) Dealing with Dragons -- Patricia C. Wrede

(5) Curious George -- H.A. Rey

(6) Very Good, Jeeves! -- P.G. Wodehouse

(7) Captain Hornblower, R.N. -- Cecil Scott Forester

(8) She -- H. Rider Haggard