# Best Book Opening **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 27, 2002, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163 "2002-11-27T18:10:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Grit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@Grit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grit)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/41 "2002-11-30T06:40:46Z")
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. ---
**Author:** ![Grit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@Grit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grit)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/42 "2002-11-30T06:42:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mighty Maximino \* > \*\*The first page of **Snow Crash** , which describes the Deliverator, his cargo, his weapons, and his car, is possibly the best set of opening sentences in all of SF. \*\* After those opening lines there was no way I could set that book down. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/43 "2002-11-30T07:27:42Z")
I am Sam. … … Sam I am. … … “That Sam I am! That Sam I am! I do not like that Sam I am!” OR… “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet say.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/44 "2002-11-30T07:40:46Z")
Dangit, I meant _day._ ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/45 "2002-11-30T07:46:59Z")
**puddlegum** : > [@](#): > > I hope this hasn’t been done before, I did a search and found nothing. . . Back in the days before “Cafe Society,” I started a very similar [IMHO thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58940&highlight=lines%2Fcoda). There are some very decent selections in there, and not many have been repeated here. Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/46 "2002-11-30T08:31:05Z")
Although these aren’t really first lines of books, [the winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest](http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm) would make pretty good opening lines, and they’re pretty funny. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/47 "2002-11-30T11:17:47Z")
“Happy families are all the same. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy - _Anna Karenina_ The Karenins end up proving that opening sentence quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.A.Nemo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@Mr.A.Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.A.Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/48 "2002-11-30T18:14:18Z")
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” William Gibson, _Neuromancer_ ---
**Author:** ![DeepPurple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@DeepPurple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeepPurple)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/49 "2002-11-30T20:12:35Z")
Mine was in the old thread, so I endeavor, 12th Day of September I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say. ``` Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman ``` In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortume to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fourtunes. ``` Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones ``` Four small walls, sheathed with pine painted white. A window. A door onto the kitchen, for warmth. Two chairs. A bed, nearly filling up the room, like a bird held in cupped hands. Standing by the bed, squire beside his knight, a table bearing a Bible and a lamp. I’m certain you’ve stood in many such rooms. ``` The Borning Room by Paul Fleischman ``` and here’s the first paragraph of Valis, just for a taste, Horselover Fat’s nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. He asked her why she wanted them and she said that she intended to kill herself. She was calling everyone she knew. By now she had fifty of them, but she needed thirty or forty more to be on the safe side. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/50 "2002-12-01T03:11:30Z")
- The Lovely Bones \* begins something like: “My name is \_\_\_\_\_. I was 14 years old when I was murdered in 1973” That is a paraphrase, but close. And it’s not lyrical and beautiful, but it certainly keeps you reading! ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/51 "2002-12-01T11:26:31Z")
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” _One Hundred Years of Solitude_, by **G.G. Marquez.** ---
**Author:** ![rmbnxs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@rmbnxs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rmbnxs)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/52 "2002-12-02T03:56:30Z")
_The Metamorphosis_ÑFranz Kafka: _As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect._ Compare that with the sentence which ends the story: _And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and excellent intentions that at the end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet first and stretched her young body._ The entire story can be compressed into those two sentences: if you understand those two sentences, you understand the whole of _The Metamorphosis_ itself. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/53 "2002-12-02T09:22:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*The opening of Alfred Bester’s **The Stars my Destination** – not the opening sentence, but the opening sequence – is a superb hook. I’d love to see it done – properly-- as a movie. \*\* Just for your information, there is a bookstore here in Chicago by that name. **The Stars Our Destination** , 1021 W. Belmont, Chicago, IL, (sorry, no zip) tel: (773) 871-2722. As for my favorite opening, it has to be the first paragraph of **Perfume** by _Patrick Sullivan_. It grabs you and _will not_ let you go! ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/54 "2002-12-02T11:02:02Z")
[disclaimer] I’m translating from my Swedish copy[/disclaimer] “Before Hale had been in Brighton for three hours, he knew they were going to kill him.” _Graham Greene, Brighton Rock_ ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/55 "2002-12-02T13:28:53Z")
Patrick Sullivan doesn’t sound right as the author of PERFUME (if it’s the PERFUME I’m thinking of). " Patrick" maybe. Doesn’t the opening to “L’Etranger” go “Maman est morte”, not “Ma mere est morte”? That’s how I remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Sebhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Sebhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sebhal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/56 "2002-12-02T13:52:16Z")
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill Delight thee more, and SILOA’S Brook that flow’d Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th’ AONIAN Mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad’st it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert th’ Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men. Milton, _Paradise Lost_ How about _that_ for a statement of intent! And then: London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes–gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. Dickens, _Bleak House_ Brilliant description, and not a proper sentence there . . . ---
**Author:** ![Sebhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Sebhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sebhal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/57 "2002-12-02T13:55:51Z")
In fact, reading it again now, the whole of that first [chapter](http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/charlesdickens/BleakHouse/chap1.html) is inspired. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/58 "2002-12-02T14:00:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pseudotriton ruber ruber \* > \*\*Patrick Sullivan doesn’t sound right as the author of PERFUME (if it’s the PERFUME I’m thinking of). " Patrick" maybe. > > Doesn’t the opening to “L’Etranger” go “Maman est morte”, not “Ma mere est morte”? That’s how I remember it. \*\* It’s Patrik Susskind. ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/59 "2002-12-02T15:37:39Z")
“It was a dark and stormy night.” – That novel Snoopy never could get anyone to publish. 🙂 (And here I was going to say something about Snow Crash, but two people have already beaten me to the punch.) ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/60 "2002-12-02T15:44:08Z")
I don’t know if this is the BEST, but it’s certainly my favourite (as near as I can remember it): “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it: the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with the dog’s blanket and the tea cosy.” From “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith (she wrote 101 Dalmatians) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163.md?page=4)