# 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:** 124
**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:** [May 1, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2471 "2023-05-01T18:10:47Z")
“There’s no sound in space, but my saucer cannons simulated a shriek with every blast.” _Emperor Mullusk Versus the Sinister Brain_, by A. Lee Martinez ---
**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:** [May 2, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2472 "2023-05-02T20:31:43Z")
“Nature is like a giant clockwork mechanism.” _The Secret Network of Nature: The Delicate Balance of All Living Things_, by Peter Wohlleben, translated by Jane Billinghurst. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2473 "2023-05-04T20:39:26Z")
“Peter Parker looked at the clock on the wall, smiled, and said, ‘We’ve got a few minutes, so let’s go to the next chapter: The Periodic Table of Elements’.” _Spider-Man: Down These Mean Streets_, by Keith R. A. DeCandido ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2474 "2023-05-04T23:24:12Z")
“I am writing this for you. My enemy. My friend. You know, already, you must know. You have lost.” _The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August_ by Claire North ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2475 "2023-05-04T23:30:27Z")
“It started with the Cold War.” – _Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles_ by David Darlington ---
**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:** [May 5, 2023, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2476 "2023-05-05T00:28:34Z")
The autumn air hung mild and faintly misty, and the grass in Callander Square was dappled yellow with fallen leaves in the late afternoon sun. _Callander Square_, by Anne Perry On May 7, 1944, in the deep of night, a train carrying the 130th Chemical Processing Company of the U. S. Chemical Warfare Service steamed toward London. _12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon_, by Jamie Holmes ---
**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:** [May 5, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2477 "2023-05-05T18:47:40Z")
“Edwin St. John St. Andrew, eighteen years old, hauling the weight of his double-sainted name across the Atlantic by steamship, eyes narrowed against the wind on the upper deck: he holds the railing with gloved hands, impatient for a glimpse of the unknown, trying to discern something — anything! — beyond sea and sky, but all he sees are shades of endless grey.” _Sea of Tranquility_ by Emily St. John Mandel ---
**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:** [May 6, 2023, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2478 "2023-05-06T18:00:42Z")
“Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.” _The Plot Against America_ by Philip Roth ---
**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:** [May 6, 2023, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2479 "2023-05-06T19:02:14Z")
“In the small hours of morning, when sleep has fled and the strange noises of night crowd young imaginations, numbers can be magical.” _Clockwork Futures: The Science of Steampunk and the Reinvention of the Modern World_, by Brandy Schillace ---
**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:** [May 8, 2023, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2480 "2023-05-08T14:31:03Z")
Slowly and carefully – as befitted her years, which were many – the star tramp _Caliban_ dropped down to Port Forlorn. _The Rim of Space_, by A Bertram Chandler ---
**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:** [May 8, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2481 "2023-05-08T15:38:20Z")
“It’s hard to stay cordial while fighting for your life, even when your life doesn’t amount to much.” _Kiln People_, by David Brin ---
**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:** [May 8, 2023, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2482 "2023-05-08T16:19:51Z")
“I was born on July 3, but I wanted a birthday on the Fourth of July.” _Robert E. Lee and Me_ by Ty Seidule ---
**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:** [May 10, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2483 "2023-05-10T19:14:31Z")
The glass in the French window shattered. _Cocaine Blues_, by Kerry Greenwood ---
**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:** [May 11, 2023, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2484 "2023-05-11T21:40:03Z")
“The space elevator (alias Sky Hook, Heavenly Ladder, Orbital Tower, or Cosmic Funicular) is a structure linking a point on the equator to a satellite in the geostationary orbit directly above it.” _Liftport: Opening Space to Everyone, edited by Bill Fawcett, Michael Laine, and Tom Nugent, Jr_. (Note that this is an anthology of articles and stories about space elevators. The above sentence is from the article “The Space Elevator: ‘Thought Experiment’ or Key to the Universe?” by Sir Arthur C. Clarke.) ---
**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:** [May 13, 2023, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2485 "2023-05-13T18:25:08Z")
“The trap had closed at sundown.” _Brain Wave_, by Poul Anderson ---
**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:** [May 13, 2023, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2486 "2023-05-13T18:29:24Z")
It was eleven by the Green Mill’s clock when the cornet player went into a muted reprise in ‘Bye Bye Blackbird,’ and one of the marathon dancers plunged heavily and finally to the floor at Phryne Fisher’s feet. _The Green Mill Murder_, by Kerry Greenwood ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2023, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2487 "2023-05-14T02:36:21Z")
“Cardinal de Retz very judiciously observes, that all historians must of necessity be subject to mistakes, in explaining the motives of those actions they record, unless they derive their intelligence from the candid confession of the person whose character they represent; and that, of consequence, every man of importance ought to write his own memoirs, provided he has honesty enough to tell the truth, without suppressing any circumstance that may tend to the information of the reader.” Tobias Smollett: “The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom” ---
**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:** [May 14, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2488 "2023-05-14T21:08:35Z")
“When I was a young woman at the police training academy, I learned two important things.” _Curfew_, by Jayne Cowie ---
**Author:** ![bmasters1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2023, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2489 "2023-05-15T08:28:17Z")
From _A Slaying in Savannah_ by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, part of the _Murder, She Wrote_ mystery novel series… “Ah’m hoping to make contact with a Mrs. Jessica Fletcher.” ---
**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:** [May 15, 2023, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2490 "2023-05-15T18:20:49Z")
“The original NASA photographic film from the Apollo missions is some of the most important and valuable film in existence.” _Apollo Remastered_ by Andy Saunders [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=123) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=125)