Please Help Me Identify These Books!!!

[Coyote]

I am currently playing an internet riddle game and I am stuck with identifying two books I feel I should recognize immediately. I have managed to finish all the other parts to this level. We are given two very brief summaries and nothing else. Can anyone help? :) (And in case it is a concern, this is not cheating. We are encouraged to use all available resources!)

First book: Meddling girl fixes up a love match for a girlfriend causing lots of upset. However things resolve themselves and both she and her friend marry happily in the end.

Second book: Man in hot country pointlessly kills an Arab and awaits execution. There he accepts life has no meaning beyond the purely physical.

Thank you so much for any help.
~Coyote

[super_maz]

hey, I think the first novel could be Emma by Jane Austen. Dont know what the second one is though, sorry. Hope you complete your riddle game!
-maria-

[Logos]

Hello Coyote, welcome to the Literature Network :)

For the first book I'm not so sure about.. sounds like a pretty `classic' outline, could be one of thousands of books. :p

For the second book it's no doubt to me you're referring to The Stranger by Albert Camus (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679720200/104-9587774-3885517?v=glance)

[Nightshade]

the first book is Emma but also could be many other books using same plot outline :D never heard of the second

[Mark F.]

Emma by Jane Austen and The Outsider (L'Etranger) by Camus.

[mono]

I have never read Jane Austen's Emma, unfortunately, but I agree with Logos and Mark F. that the second one sounds a lot like Albert Camus' The Stranger.
Good luck! ;)

[Lady19thC]

I would definitely say the first one is Emma. Though there are love triangles and match making in many of the classics, Emma is the only one people usually refer to as "meddling"!! I haven't the foggiest on the second one.

[shortysweetp]

yup i agree that the first is Emma by Jane Austen