# 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:** 144
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2024, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2871 "2024-01-22T13:50:40Z")
HEIRESS, ASSOCIATES AMONG VICTIMS OF EAST VILLAGE BLAST: REPORT Zoey Ashe, 23, is reportedly among the victims of this morning’s explosion in the trendy East Village neighborhood of Tabula Ra$a, along with an unknown number of her associates. _Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia_, by Jason Pargin ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2872 "2024-01-23T07:04:18Z")
“It looked set to become even hotter by the afternoon, just when the job was becoming more fiddly and needed extra concentration.” - Jasper Fforde, _The Last Dragonslayer_ ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2873 "2024-01-24T18:19:05Z")
I have a question. If a book has a short prologue is the first sentence from that, or the main text? ---
**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:** [January 24, 2024, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2874 "2024-01-24T20:35:21Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > If a book has a short prologue is the first sentence from that, or the main text? I’ve had this situation a couple of times. I used the main text. I’m not real sure why I did that. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2875 "2024-01-24T23:20:54Z")
I looked at the prologue again and decided, as it’s not all that short, but thirty pages, to use its first sentence. _The comet’s tail spread across the dawn, a red splash that bled above the crags of Dragonstone like a wound in the pink and purple sky._ **A Clash of Kings** ---
**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:** [January 25, 2024, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2876 "2024-01-25T18:54:13Z")
“James Christopher Harrison peered out the paned living-room window of his family home in the railway town of Junee in New South Wales, Australia.” _Good Blood: A Doctor, a Donor, and the Incredible Breakthrough that Saved Millions of Babies_, by Julian Guthrie ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2877 "2024-01-27T08:03:02Z")
Now that is a book I want to read!! I have been an admirer of Mr. Harrison for as long as I have known about him. I like what he said, that he never saw the needles in his arm because he was afraid of being stuck. Yet all those years he donated. ---
**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:** [January 27, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2878 "2024-01-27T20:24:35Z")
_Good Blood_ is an inspiring book, definitely. On topic: “Sunday morning, Ordell took Louis to watch the white-power demonstration in downtown Palm Beach.” _Rum Punch_, by Elmore Leonard. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2879 "2024-01-27T20:28:56Z")
“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.” _True Grit_ by Charles Portis ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2880 "2024-01-28T02:12:36Z")
Love that book. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2024, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2881 "2024-01-29T22:34:49Z")
“Chris Barbic and Donald Kamentz were sitting at a pub in Houston, recuperating from another 14-hour day running their start-up charter school.” _The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact_, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath ---
**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:** [January 30, 2024, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2882 "2024-01-30T04:20:11Z")
“The cop climbed out of his car exactly four minutes before he got shot.” _Persuader_ by Lee Child ---
**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:** [January 31, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2883 "2024-01-31T20:40:29Z")
“The school fund-raiser couldn’t have come at a more serendipitous time for Joan Nesbit Mabe.” _Sole Sisters: Stories of Women and Running_, by Jennifer Lin and Susan Warner ---
**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:** [February 1, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2884 "2024-02-01T20:06:51Z")
“It was a bright, unusually mild late-autumn morning when the men known as McNelly’s Rangers rode away from Richard King’s ranch on fresh horses and, for those who needed them, new saddles.” _Follow Me to Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice_ by Tom Clavin “One day, when I was a kid, our house caught fire.” _Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!_ by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker ---
**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:** [February 1, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2885 "2024-02-01T20:40:26Z")
“You are she.” _The Fifth Season_, by N.K. Jemisin ---
**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:** [February 4, 2024, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2886 "2024-02-04T21:34:19Z")
“London.” – _Bleak House_, by Charles Dickens ---
**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:** [February 4, 2024, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2887 "2024-02-04T21:57:08Z")
“There’s all sorts of bad advice out there about how to deal with bullies.” _Sal & Gabi Break the Universe_, by Carlos Hernandez ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2024, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2888 "2024-02-05T14:00:15Z")
“They were standing in a group under the trees tossing up wishes for the future, wishes and predictions, grand and wild and inflated, boys and girls alike, but Nina, lost in her own musings, wasn’t taking it like that. _The Court of the Stone Children_, by Eleanor Cameron ---
**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:** [February 5, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2889 "2024-02-05T20:06:59Z")
_“Granma?” Sarah said, running into the cluttered living room._ “Starry, Starry Night”, by John Ringo, first story in _Voices of the Fall_, edited by Ringo and Gary Poole. Part of Ringo’s “Black Tide Rising” zombie apocalypse series. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2890 "2024-02-05T21:38:13Z")
“He didn’t exist.” Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens- David Mitchell [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=143) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=145)