My sister found this at The Curious Musings of an Ordinary Life:

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next few sentences.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

For instance, a man turned a handle on a box, and music came out, while a small being, half-animal and half-man, danced about on the street and collected things in his hat. Peter Lake tried to talk to him. The man turning the handle said it would be wise to give the creature money.
"What's money?" asked Peter Lake.

From Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin (this was the fifth book I tried- the first four only had one or two sentences on page 56. How's that for odds?)