# 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:** 153
### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3051 "2024-07-28T22:46:05Z")
“I woke up late the day they found out Raphael was missing.”
Zeroglyph, by Vivek Pravat
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3052 "2024-07-29T15:23:06Z")
“At the height of the civil rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a prima ballerina for a major international company, starring in iconic works like George Balanchine’s Agon and Swan Lake, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, and William Dollar’s Le Combat.”
_The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History_, by Karen Valby.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2024, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3053 "2024-07-29T15:42:29Z")
“Twenty-one years after killing his mother and one year after killing a man in a bar fight, Hal Isaac stands on the steps of St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Vandergriff, Texas, and smokes a cigarette.”
_The Dissonance_, by Shaun Hamill
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2024, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3054 "2024-07-31T20:09:23Z")
“_Yorktown_ was laid down on 21 May 1934, at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia.”
_USS Yorktown, CV-5_ by Steve Wiper
“It was the coldest winter for forty-five years.”
_Eye of the Needle_ by Ken Follett
“Perched on a rocky hilltop in the Marah Valley of Afghanistan, Matt Secor certainly looked the part of U.S. Special Forces.”
_Warplane_ by Hal Sundt
BANG “Laura!”
_Rorschach_ by Tom King, Jorge Fornes and Dave Stewart
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3055 "2024-08-01T16:44:33Z")
“Geography was my best subject. You can imagine how I feel when I read that the average American high school student is likely to identify Alabama as the capital of Chicago.”
_Piece by Piece_ by Calvin Trillin
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3056 "2024-08-03T19:29:40Z")
“I hate being sent out on missions without a proper briefing.”
_Murder in the Dark_, by Simon R. Green
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3057 "2024-08-04T19:55:34Z")
“I build robots–their bodies and brains.”
_The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots_, by Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2024, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3058 "2024-08-05T03:46:36Z")
“The oars were audible before the boat came into view, this despite a noisy wind that coarsened the waters of the bay.”
– _The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War_, by Erik Larson.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3059 "2024-08-06T20:21:55Z")
“Mr. Strang walked up the steps through a haze that might have been fog and onto the flag-draped platform.”
_The Man Who Solved Mysteries_ by William Brittain. (Note: This is a short story collection, and the above sentence is from the first, “Mr. Strang Finds the Answers”.)
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2024, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3060 "2024-08-07T20:32:34Z")
“They’d rung the doorbell unannounced on a chilly Friday night.”
We Used To Live Here, by Marcus Kliewer
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2024, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3061 "2024-08-08T20:16:28Z")
“If you love maps, trivia, or just learning more about our world, then I think you’ll love this book.”
_Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World_, by Ian Wright
“The action of the play takes place in the backyard of a house in Pittsburgh in 1948.”
_Seven Guitars_, by August Wilson
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2024, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3062 "2024-08-09T18:43:33Z")
“Thick cloud had pressed down on Berlin all night, and now it was lingering into what passed for the morning.”
_Fatherland_ by Robert Harris
“If I don’t remember my father’s name, who will?”
_Earning the Rockies_ by Robert D. Kaplan
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2024, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3063 "2024-08-09T21:18:52Z")
“The train itself–a marvel of the age, a monument to the ingenuity of Man and to his ceaseless striving for mastery over the earth.”
_The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands_, by Sarah Brooks
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2024, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3064 "2024-08-09T23:37:39Z")
In the summer of 1843, a group of African American activists in Ohio - among them ministers, teachers, and laborers - convened in the state capital of Columbus with the primary goal of fighting the state’s racist laws.
_Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction_ by Kate Masur
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2024, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3065 "2024-08-12T14:29:41Z")
“When Les Clark retired from the animation industry in 1975 he had worked for Walt Disney Productions for almost half a century.”
_The Nine Old Men: Lessons, Techniques, and Inspiration from Disney’s Great Animators_, by Andreas Deja
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2024, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3066 "2024-08-12T19:07:47Z")
“Ectoplasm was the tattletale of the amateur.”
The Shadow on the Glass (Call of Cthulhu), by Jonathan L. Howard
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3067 "2024-08-13T19:25:05Z")
“By creativity, I simply mean new ways of thinking about things.”
_Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide_, by John Cleese
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2024, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3068 "2024-08-14T23:41:38Z")
“My name is Ruth.”
_Housekeeping_, by Marilynne Robinson
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2024, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3069 "2024-08-14T23:54:10Z")
“It’s more rain than I’ve ever seen, all the summer’s hidden water coming down at once.”
_Paper Cage_, by Tom Baragwanath
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3070 "2024-08-16T18:01:11Z")
“Where have you been?”
_The Longmire Defense_, by Craig Johnson
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