# What is the first sentence from the book you are currently reading? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 20, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858 "2017-04-20T16:51:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/181 "2017-09-09T18:16:46Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > “This is a book about writing.” – _You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing_ (John Scalzi) How is that book? Sounds interesting. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/182 "2017-09-09T18:47:15Z")
“Eileen Delaney heard the door of the noisy old elevator close behind her, and the diminuendo of its bang and rattle as its ascent progressed up the shaft.” _Red Threads_, Rex Stout. But it was something else back in April when the thread began. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/183 "2017-09-09T19:29:05Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > How is that book? Sounds interesting. It has a lot of information about the business side of writing. It’s not about structuring a plot, for example, it’s more like this is how a professional writer should act. And he’s got some horror stories about what not to do. Parts of it are entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/184 "2017-09-10T13:57:08Z")
**Mrs. Anderson was dead.** _I am not a Serial Killer_ by Dan Wells **Amaranthe wasn’t dead.** _Forged in Blood II_ by Lindsay Buroker …I see a disturbing pattern in my reading here… ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/185 "2017-09-11T18:00:25Z")
“Just under nine feet high and five and a half feet wide, freestanding between aluminum supports, _The Large Glass_ dominates the Duchamp gallery in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.” _Duchamp - A Biography_ - Calvin Tomkins ©1996 ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/186 "2017-09-11T18:35:28Z")
“This book about scientists began with beef stroganoff.” _Headstrong: 52 Women Who changed Science–and the World,_ by Rachel Swaby. ---
**Author:** ![scruffycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scruffycat/32/200_2.png) [@scruffycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scruffycat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2017, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/187 "2017-09-11T19:46:30Z")
“It was 1932. Shigekuni Honda was thirty-eight” _Runaway Horses_ - Yukio Mishima ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/188 "2017-09-11T19:54:19Z")
Had to add this opening line, even though I read it a couple of years ago and am not technically reading it right now: “The periodic table is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot.” - Theodore Gray, **The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe** ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/189 "2017-09-12T05:49:25Z")
> [@Blurt](#): > > “The ground yielded easily under her blade, unlocking a black smell of earth.” > > _The City of Mirrors_ (_The Passage_, Book 3) -Justin Cronin A truly heartbreaking opening when one knows the context. From my current read: “Luce’s new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent.” NIGHTWOODS, by Charles Frazier ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2017, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/190 "2017-09-12T05:56:11Z")
From the west-facing window of the room in which Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774, one could look out at Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an opening to the West that invited exploration.— **Undaunted Courage** , by Stephen Ambrose ---
**Author:** ![Greathouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greathouse/32/2992_2.png) [@Greathouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greathouse)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/191 "2017-09-12T15:26:05Z")
Starting on of my favorite series again: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/192 "2017-09-13T00:12:10Z")
“The plane took off in weather that was surprisingly cool for central Bolivia and flew east, toward the Brazilian border.” _1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus_, by Charles C. Mann. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/193 "2017-09-13T17:32:27Z")
“He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted.” **The Killer Angels** , by Michael Shaara. I just finished it. Starting the book and finishing it were almost the same event. It is that good. I have the movie **Gettysburg** that was based upon this book, and follows it closely, but I just never got around to buying the book to read. No wonder it won The Pulitzer Prize. Having watched the movie first helped me to put a face to the characters in my mind’s eye. Man! What a great read! I agree with the quote on the dust jacket from General H. Norman Schwarzkopf: “The best and most realistic historical novel about war I have ever read.” ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/194 "2017-09-13T18:28:04Z")
Since this thread is still going, I thought I would note that I have finished Volume 2 of Shelby Foote’s _The Civil War_ (see post #58), and started on Volume 3: “Late afternoon of a raw, gusty day in early spring–March 8, a Tuesday, 1864–the desk clerk at Willard’s Hotel, two blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, glanced up to find an officer accompanied by a boy of thirteen facing him across the polished oak of the registration counter and inquiring whether he could get a room.” Spoiler alert: the officer is Ulysses S. Grant, just arrived from the west to accept a promotion to lieutenant general and take command of the entire Union Army. I think it’s significant that in each of Foote’s first two volumes, the first “character” to appear was Jefferson Davis, while in the third, it’s Grant. Tells you something about how the war is going. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/195 "2017-09-13T19:21:40Z")
Begun today: “I like to think I know what death is.” **Sing, Unburied, Sing** by Jesmyn Ward The jacket blurb tells me this is a family generational story. I picked it up because I so thoroughly enjoyed a previous book by this author, **Salvage the Bones**. Ward is a young author with some excellent work under her belt and has a powerful, lyrical writing style that I very much enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/196 "2017-09-13T20:34:03Z")
Lieutenant Commander Eddie Cantrell looked down at the stump six inches below his left knee as an orderly removed his almost ornate peg leg. _1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies_ by Eric Flint and Charles Gannon ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/197 "2017-09-14T00:11:26Z")
“State your name please.” And the second is “Armand Gamache.” Opening lines of Glass Houses by Louise Penny. Highly recommended but only if you have read several of the earlier books in the Gamache series. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/198 "2017-09-14T05:32:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Just as geographers, Sossius, crowd on to the outer edges of their maps the parts of the earth which elude their knowledge, with explanatory notes that “What lies beyond is sandy desert without water and full of wild beasts,” or “blind marsh,” or “Scythian cold,” or “frozen sea,” so in the writing of my Parallel Lives, now that I have traversed those periods of time which are accessible to probable reasoning and which afford basis for a history dealing with facts, I might well say of the earlier periods: “What lies beyond is full of marvels and unreality, a land of poets and fabulists, of doubt and obscurity.” Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of course. The text above is from the Loeb edition simply so I can copy and paste rather than write it out. Actually I’m using the so-called Dryden translation although Dryden wrote only the preface. It’s from the 17th century but still by far the most readable version. I haven’t read Plutarch since the early 70s and I wish I’d revisited it sooner. It’s an incredible work, just finished the life of Camillus, the 5th century BC Roman statesman/soldier. Great story about him - in the war against the Faliscans he was laying siege to the city Falerii and the Falerians were sitting tight within their walls. In fact they were so confident that they continued life as normal, their children going to school as usual and even taking their daily exercise outside the walls. One of the Falerian schoolmasters, who was getting pretty nervous about the Romans, decided he’d curry favor with them by taking some of the children of the chief citizens outside the walls as he usually did but on this occasion he led the kids right into the Roman camp,saying that he had delivered the city to Camillus for the Falerians would now surrender fearing for their children. If there was one thing Camillus hated it was a traitor whatever side he was on. He ordered that the schoolmaster be stripped and his hands bound behind his back. He then provided the children with whips and scourges and told them to whip their teacher back to the city. The Faliscans were so impressed by his attitude that they allied themselves to Rome. Camillus was quite a guy. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/199 "2017-09-15T20:11:22Z")
“I hold her, tight in my arms, and she screams.” **When the English Fail** by David Williams This is a novel exploring how the Amish would fare in a post-apocalyptic world. The premise piqued my curiosity as I had not seen this angle explored previously in pist-apocalyptic literature. ---
**Author:** ![Tinker\_Grey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tinker_grey/32/8136_2.png) [@Tinker\_Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinker_Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/200 "2017-09-16T03:03:20Z")
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