# What is the first sentence from the book you are currently reading?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858
**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:** 149
### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2024, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2971 "2024-04-19T23:00:31Z")
I loved those books, have most of them.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2972 "2024-04-21T21:30:58Z")
“As a sprawling world city covering some 600 square miles, with 300 different languages spoken and more than 8 million people sharing a history stretching back 2,000 years, it’s hardly surprising that London throws up so much that is strange, unexplained, or just plain odd.”
_Bizarre London: Discover the Capital’s Secrets & Surprises_, by David Long.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2973 "2024-04-23T00:41:42Z")
“Sergeant Manuel Santiago Garcia, second in command of the troopers stationed at Reina de Los Angeles, sat in his room.”
_Zorro: The Daring Escapades_, edited by Audrey Parente and Daryl McCullough. (Note that this is a story collection written after the character–created by Johnston McCulley-- entered the public domain. The quote is from the first story, “Zorro: Death of a Grandee”, by John L. French.)
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2974 "2024-04-24T22:46:57Z")
“Brad Miller woke up at 6 A.M. even though his meeting with Roy Kineer, the retired Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was scheduled for nine.”
_Executive Privilege_, by Phillip Margolin
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2975 "2024-04-25T20:38:28Z")
“In 1917 Harvard’s Robert Yerkes assembled a dream team of American psychologists in Vineland, New Jersey.”
_How Do You Fight A Horse-Sized Duck? And Other Perplexing Puzzles From The Toughest Interviews In The World_, by William Poundstone
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2024, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2976 "2024-04-27T20:14:14Z")
“Look at the fans, Neos and Slans
Milling in the hotel lobby.”
_Rivets!!!: The Science Fiction Musicals of Mark M. Keller and Sue Anderson_ (The above is from the first one, “Mik Ado About Nothing”.)
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2024, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2977 "2024-04-28T04:26:52Z")
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> “Brad Miller woke up at 6 A.M. even though his meeting with Roy Kineer, the retired Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was scheduled for nine.”
>
> _Executive Privilege_, by Phillip Margolin
Aiyeeee! A pet peeve and frequent nitpick: the title is “Chief Justice of the United States,” no more and no less (Margolin’s fault, not yours, obviously).
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2024, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2978 "2024-04-28T08:59:09Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> A pet peeve and frequent nitpick: the title is “Chief Justice of the United States,”
I wondered if anybody else would notice that!
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2024, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2979 "2024-04-28T23:12:30Z")
A pet peeve of mine is books that begin with the character waking up this way. And what’s odd about getting up at six under the circumstances? Isn’t he going to shower–and look at himself in the mirror so the author can describe his appearance–eat breakfast, maybe review what the meeting’s about, and travel to the meeting? (Unless the Chief Justice is going to Miller’s home, in which case I’d lead with that.) I get up three hours before I go grocery shopping.
Back in play:
“I slipped into Sudan’s enclosure at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy and cautiously approached the gentle giant.”
_Wilder: How Rewilding Is Transforming Conservation and Changing the World_, by Millie Kerr (Note: The animal is a rhino.)
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2024, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2980 "2024-04-29T02:47:37Z")
“It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.”
_Trumps of Doom,_ Roger Zelazny
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2981 "2024-04-29T13:24:46Z")
“When I think of purity, I don’t think of the water that runs in the river past our backyard, or the water in the baptism font at the front of the church, where my mother and father and their mothers and fathers were baptized, all the way back; where I was baptized too.”
My Throat An Open Grave, by Tori Bovalino
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2024, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2982 "2024-04-30T11:01:19Z")
“Like bureaucracy, knowledge has an inexorable tendency to ramify as it grows.”
_Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth_, by Lynn Margulis and Karlene Schwartz; foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2024, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2983 "2024-04-30T23:07:47Z")
" ‘You’re bad luck for me,’ said Haakon Chevalier."
_The Oppenheimer Alternative_, by Robert J. Sawyer
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2984 "2024-04-30T23:48:04Z")
“This is an image of a fumarole; an opening in the crust of the earth that emits steam and volcanic gas, and was made in 1867, in what was then the three-year-old state of Nevada, where the photographer set up his camera in a small, dry basin that is still today an area of significant geothermal activity.”
_Double Exposure: Resurveying the West with Timothy O’Sullivan, America’s Most Mysterious War Photographer_ by Robert Sullivan
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2985 "2024-05-03T17:56:37Z")
“The man was covered in seaweed, gnarled fronds covering him like garlands.”
_A Haunting in the Arctic_, by C.J. Cooke
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2986 "2024-05-03T21:13:23Z")
“–and that was how we got the moon back up the mountain and into the sky, and no one was ever the wiser.”
_Mammoths at the Gates_, by Nghi Vo
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2987 "2024-05-04T17:47:32Z")
“In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do.”
– _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_, by Charles Mackay
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2024, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2988 "2024-05-04T19:41:43Z")
“Newsstand-borne science fiction and fantasy, and supernatural-horror fiction, are changing.”
_Benchmarks Concluded: F&SF “Books” Columns 1987-1993_, by Algis Budrys. (This is from the first column, about the books _Interzone, The First Anthology_, edited by John Clute et al and _Terry Carry’s Best Science Fiction of the Year #15_, edited by Terry Carr.)
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2024, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2989 "2024-05-05T02:58:14Z")
“First day of school. Ever.”
_Misfit_ by Gary Gulman
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/2990 "2024-05-07T23:00:15Z")
“It was to be the final theory, a single framework that would unite all the forces of the cosmos and choreograph everything from the motion of the expanding universe to the most minute dance of subatomic particles.”
_The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything_, by Michio Kaku
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