# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jerevan\_Somerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@Jerevan\_Somerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerevan_Somerville)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/61 "2002-12-02T17:56:31Z")
From Ngaio Marsh’s False Scent [1963 Fontana-HarperCollins ed., pp9-10): "When she died it was as if all the love she had inspired in so many people suddenly blossomed. She had never, of course, realised how greatly she was loved, never known that she was to be carried by six young men who would ask to perform this last courtesy: to bear her on their strong shoulders, so gently and with such dedication. {snipped two paragraphs of details.} Miss Bellamy paused, bogged down in her own fantasy. Enjoyable tears started from her eyes. She often indulged herself with plans for her funeral and she never failed to be moved by them. The only catch was the indisputable fact that she wouldn’t live to enjoy it. She would be, as it were, cheated of her own obsequies and she felt there was some injustice in this." The complete reversal of where I _thought_ this passage was going – it was, after all, a detective novel – made me laugh out loud. On an airplane. The woman in the next seat asked me what was so funny. ---
**Author:** ![Orange\_Skinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3be4f8/32.png) [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/62 "2002-12-03T01:40:45Z")
_Last night I dreamed I went to Manderly again…_ Rebecca ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/63 "2002-12-03T02:40:48Z")
_Speechless, castaway, and wry, a spellbound oddity am I. My feet are planted in the clay, my gaze is locked upon the sky._ The quote that begins “The Ill-Made Mute” by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. I knew then that I would love it, and I was right. And **Orange Skinner** , I’m with you on Rebecca. That just set the mood for the rest of the novel. ---
**Author:** ![Toffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@Toffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toffe)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/64 "2002-12-03T03:31:00Z")
These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds. -Herodotus ---
**Author:** ![Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/db5fbb/32.png) [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/65 "2002-12-03T04:07:23Z")
“Just before dawn one winter’s morning, New Year’s Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky.” _The Satanic Verses_ by Salman Rushdie ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/66 "2002-12-03T04:20:08Z")
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1.1 Other favorites would be David Copperfield, “To begin with, I was born…” and the afore mentioned _Moby Dick_ ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Wrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@Mr.Wrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Wrong)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/67 "2002-12-03T04:31:01Z")
> [@](#): > > The beginning of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book is okay, but the summary of the the two primaries running around LA loading up on various “treats” is brilliant. “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/68 "2002-12-03T04:57:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by neutron star \* > \*\*“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. \*\* That was going to be mine when I opened this thread, nice to see somebody thinks like me…or perhaps it’s frightening 😉 I always found that line very clever, and in fact it was hearing the first line on some quiz show that made me first want to read that book. My honorable mention goes to the succinct: “It was a squat grey building of a mere 42 stories.” Aldous Huxley, _Brave New World_ ---
**Author:** ![Juniper200](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163/69 "2002-12-03T05:15:01Z")
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. —Shirley Jackson, _The Haunting of Hill House_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-book-opening/139163.md?page=3)