Book meme

No, that's not a typo. This is something going around the Ubuntu RSS feeds. It's kind of a game with very simple rules:

-Grab the nearest book.
-Open it to page 56.
-Find the fifth sentence.
-Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
-Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

OK, here's mine:

Now both of those have been torn down, and some new brick buildings - not brilliant architecturally, but certainly an improvement on the gas station - have been erected in their place.

Even though you don't have to tell what book it comes from, I got mine from neither here nor there by Bill Bryson.