Nearest Book Meme

Laura Purdie Salas tagged me for the Nearest Book meme. Here are the rules.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

Beyond the stack of children's literature I have at hand (none of which have more than 40 or so pages), I am reading two nonfiction books, so I'm going to use both of them.

Book 1 - Birth of the Chess Queen: A History by Marilyn Yalom

Soon after the chess queen brought a feminine presence to the game, chess came to be regarded as a field for romantic, as well as military, conquests. In considering this strange conjunction of opposites, we must look beyond the narrow confines of the board to those social and artistic movements that made it possible for chess to assume a romantic dimension. At the turn of the twelfth century, a fledgling cult of love was the decisive cultural phenomenon.

Book 2 - Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields
There were always a few servants in the several households Jane Austen occupied, but never so many that the family escaped a share of domestic duties. She was probably ambivalent about such tasks, taking at least minor pleasure in what she was obliged to do. Routine was essential to her creativity; the grounding in domestic reality was useful to her fiction and allowed her a wider range of understanding.

Okay, that's my bit. I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, so if you're reading this and haven't participated yet, consider yourself tagged!