# 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:** 120
**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:** [March 1, 2023, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2390 "2023-03-01T23:59:26Z")
“Talking about novels strikes me as too broad and amorphous a topic to get the ball rolling, so I will start by addressing something more specific: novelists.” _Novelist as a Vocation_, by Haruki Murakami ---
**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:** [March 3, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2391 "2023-03-03T16:36:08Z")
“Elsie was with Gaspard, her live-in renal failure patient, when her ex-husband called to inform her that his girlfriend, Olivia, had been kidnapped in Port-au-Prince.” _Everything Inside_, by Edwidge Danticat (Note: This is a story collection, and the above sentence is from the first one, “Dosas”.) ---
**Author:** ![fordgt100](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fordgt100](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fordgt100)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2023, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2392 "2023-03-03T19:38:33Z")
“The doctor’s waiting room, which was very small, was almost full when the Turpins entered and Mrs Turpin, who was very large, made it look even smaller by her presence”. Yep, still reading Flannery O’Connor, the story is ‘Revelation’. ---
**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:** [March 4, 2023, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2393 "2023-03-04T21:38:49Z")
“Here they come.” _Teacher Man_ by Frank McCourt ---
**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:** [March 7, 2023, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2394 "2023-03-07T00:25:49Z")
“Fall had come to Bodgaru-by-the-Sea, and winter was not now far away.” _The Witling_ by Vernor Vinge ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2395 "2023-03-07T01:27:23Z")
“My name is August Epp–irrelevant for all other purposes, other than that I’ve been appointed the minute-taker for the women’s meetings because the women are illiterate and unable to do it themselves.” _Women Talking_ by Miriam Toews ---
**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:** [March 7, 2023, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2397 "2023-03-07T18:22:19Z")
Yeah, _Moby-Dick_ never gets old, does it…? “As the cruise ship almost tips over, the horizon that once bisected my lovely balcony door rises like a theater curtain and disappears. Now the sea is the stage. I tumble off my bed onto the floor and roll like a stuntman.” _The Passenger_ by Chaney Kwak ---
**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:** [March 8, 2023, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2398 "2023-03-08T20:18:22Z")
General of the Army and Marines Pete Alden hopped up on the freshly repaired dock on the Old Sofesshk waterfront and got his first good look at the ancient Grik capital. _Winds of Wrath_ – the fifteenth (and final) Destroyermen book by Taylor Anderson ---
**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:** [March 8, 2023, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2399 "2023-03-08T20:37:14Z")
“The morning was bleak and cold.” _A Man Called Peter_ by Catherine Marshall ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2400 "2023-03-09T06:47:46Z")
Marjory Hall is an author i can’t find anything on except she wrote a bunch of early post-high school “working girl” ie typist, secretaries etc in the big city novels … ---
**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:** [March 10, 2023, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2401 "2023-03-10T21:11:26Z")
Marjory Hall wrote a so-so book I read (last year, I believe) called _White Collar Girl_. Back on topic: “The Old North bell tolls the hour, and I realize that I’ll be late.” _The Personal Librarian_, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray ---
**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:** [March 12, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2402 "2023-03-12T17:53:20Z")
“Why make a scroll if you have the technology to make a book?” _The Role of the Scroll: An Illustrated Introduction to Scrolls in the Middle Ages_, by Thomas Forrest Kelly ---
**Author:** ![janis\_and\_c0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janis_and_c0/32/21_2.png) [@janis\_and\_c0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janis_and_c0)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2403 "2023-03-12T18:24:09Z")
Today I have been thinking about the dead. Enemy of God (Book two of the Warlord trilogy) Bernard Cornwell (Great books btw) ---
**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:** [March 12, 2023, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2404 "2023-03-12T19:01:22Z")
Eighty-three light-minutes from Saturn, a construct far smaller than Janus but still impressive orbited the planet Earth. _The Janus File_, third in a series by David Weber and Jacob Holo ---
**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:** [March 12, 2023, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2405 "2023-03-12T19:09:07Z")
“The King stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.” _Station Eleven,_ Emily St. John Mandel. ---
**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:** [March 13, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2406 "2023-03-13T17:15:11Z")
“As Detective Inspector Phil Auden went through the door of the Yellowthread Street Police Station in the district of Hong Bay and the day shift left, night fell, seven Jumbo jets carrying a total of two thousand tourists, businessmen, wives, and others landed in procession at Kai Tak airport, an American destroyer disembarked eight hundred bored, thirsty, lustful, belligerent sailors for forty-eight hours shore leave, and the Chinese Communists across the border took it into their heads to turn the water off.” _Yellowthread Street_ by William Marshall ---
**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:** [March 14, 2023, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2407 "2023-03-14T15:53:29Z")
Officially, on 30 August 1940, nothing happened at Shingle Bay. _The Suicide Exhibition_, by Justin Richards ---
**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:** [March 14, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2408 "2023-03-14T20:14:14Z")
“I don’t remember the first time I was on a horse.” _Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal_, by Sarah Maslin Nir ---
**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:** [March 16, 2023, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2409 "2023-03-16T23:15:57Z")
“The wargs chased the elf over Pittsburgh Scrap and Salvage’s tall chain-link fence shortly after the hyperphase gate powered down.” _Tinker_, by Wen Spencer ---
**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:** [March 16, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2410 "2023-03-16T23:25:06Z")
“July 4th 11:10 P.M. - Six warriors crouched in the shadow of a tomb.” _The Warriors_ by Sol Yurick [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=119) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=121)