# 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:** 115
**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:** [November 28, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2290 "2022-11-28T22:01:26Z")
“I don’t see how it can harm me now to reveal that I only passed math in high school because I cheated.” _A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age_, by Alec Wilkinson. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2291 "2022-11-29T01:13:39Z")
There was a new rumbling sound below, but it went unnoticed by the eight-year-old girl swaying in the sailcloth hammock. _Maelstrom_, by Taylor Anderson (‘Destroyermen’ #3) ---
**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:** [December 1, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2292 "2022-12-01T19:05:30Z")
“My gown was beautiful.” _The Echo Wife_ by Sarah Gailey ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2293 "2022-12-02T02:34:44Z")
This was NAP 1/c Nataka’s last chance. _Distant Thunders_, by Taylor Anderson (‘Destroyermen’ #4) ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2294 "2022-12-02T03:49:30Z")
“It was so quiet, one of the killers would say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.” _Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders_ - Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry ---
**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:** [December 3, 2022, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2295 "2022-12-03T15:24:54Z")
“Hey, Doaker…Doaker!” _The Piano Lesson_, by August Wilson ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2022, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2296 "2022-12-03T19:30:35Z")
“Bosch had the pills lined up on the table ready to go.” – _Desert Star_, by Michael Connelly ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2297 "2022-12-03T22:02:20Z")
The atmosphere in the wardroom of the old Asiatic Fleet “four-stacker” destroyer USS _Walker_ (DD-163) was no longer animated; it was more … subdued and sickened than anything else. _Rising Tides_, by Taylor Anderson (‘Destroyermen’ #5) ---
**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:** [December 4, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2298 "2022-12-04T15:00:44Z")
“It’s the Day of Good Birds in the city of Um-Helat!” _How Long 'Til Black Future Month?_ by N.K. Jemisin (Note that this is a short story collection, and the above sentence is from the first story, “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”.) ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2022, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2299 "2022-12-04T17:50:07Z")
At four minutes after ten on the evening of November 28, 1942, Maurice and Eugene Levy, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, were distracted from their chat with a couple sitting opposite them in the basement bar of the Cocoanut Grove in Boston. _FIRE! In Boston’s Cocoanut Grove - HOLOCAUST!_ by Paul Benzaquin 1959 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2300 "2022-12-05T16:17:10Z")
“Stephen Maturin squared up to his writing-desk once more: he had been called away to attend to one of the ship’s boys who in the lightness of his heart had contrived to stun himself in the foretop by taking the maul from its place, tossing it to a considerable height and so misjudging the revolutions as it fell that the massive head struck him down, speechless and unnaturally pale.” _21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey_ by Patrick O’Brian ---
**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:** [December 6, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2301 "2022-12-06T21:06:26Z")
“One bright night in the year 2016, my face aglow with who knows how many MilliGAUSS of x-radiation from the computer screen in front of me, I was surfing the net when I moused upon a web node reading THE MYSTERY OF LANGUAGE EVOLUTION” _The Kingdom of Speech_ by Tom Wolfe ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2302 "2022-12-07T18:02:08Z")
If Jim Qwilleran had read his horoscope in the daily paper on that particular morning, perhaps none of this would have happened. _The Cat Who Went Underground_, by Lilian Jackson Braun ---
**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:** [December 8, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2303 "2022-12-08T18:51:35Z")
“Look out! The wombats are loose again!” _The Twelve Jays of Christmas_ by Donna Andrews ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2022, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2304 "2022-12-08T19:00:32Z")
“The man lives, or the man dies. It is a matter of the weather.” _Goodwin, Jason. The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim Book 5) (p. 9). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition._ ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2305 "2022-12-09T00:38:55Z")
Behold: Kali Tragus, the Russian thistle. Thistlefoot, by GennaRose Nethercott. In the present day, 70 years after the death of it’s previous owner, two siblings unexpectedly receive their inheritance - the hut of Baba Yaga! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2306 "2022-12-11T21:38:43Z")
“Josh agreed to meet her at the Coffee Club, which was where they’d met the first time he interviewed her.” – _Racing the Light_, by Robert Crais ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2307 "2022-12-12T03:30:51Z")
Shug, Stalker of Hare, was enjoying a warm day on the Ridge. _That Was Now, This Is Then_, by Michael Z Williamson ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2308 "2022-12-12T15:32:21Z")
“No one had any doubt that the bombers would come.” _The Splendid and the Vile_ by Erik Larson ---
**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:** [December 13, 2022, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2309 "2022-12-13T19:37:25Z")
“The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen.” _Nettle & Bone_ by T. Kingfisher [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=114) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=116)