# 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:** 156
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2024, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3111 "2024-09-19T17:51:47Z")
“After she’d grown up, Ruth Bie couldn’t remember meeting Franklin Delano Roosevelt or patting the dog on his lap.”
_Designing Disability: Symbols, Space, and Society_, by Elizabeth Guffey
“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.”
_Wide Sargasso Sea_, by Jean Rhys
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2024, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3112 "2024-09-19T18:36:45Z")
“If you happened to find yourself on the banks of the Ohio River on a particular afternoon in the spring of 1806–somewhere just to the north of Wheeling, West Virginia, say–you would probably have noticed a strange makeshift craft drifting lazily down the river.”
_The Botany of Desire_ by Michael Pollan
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3113 "2024-09-20T20:56:32Z")
As darkness fell on Saturday, June 24, 1950, it was “party time” in Seoul, capital of the fledgling Republic of South Korea.
_The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950_, by Bill Sloan
The autumn of 1955 was like the other autumns that I could remember in my short life.
_Snake Pilot: Flying the Cobra Attack Helicopter in Vietnam_, by Randy R Zahn
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2024, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3114 "2024-09-22T18:25:37Z")
“The coat was advertised in Sunday’s paper.”
_Junior Miss_, by Sally Benson
“A strong tempest swirled in as my railcar approached Valdegeld University Platform.”
_The Mimicking of Known Successes_, by Malka Older
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3115 "2024-09-23T20:23:31Z")
“Back, back, back…seek out the roots of the fairy tale and we’re hacking one thorny hedge after another, all the way back to the Stone Age.”
_The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales_, by Nicholas Jubber
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3116 "2024-09-23T22:02:02Z")
“The front door opened, and I heard the stamp of the FBI agent’s feet on the doormat.”
_Eight Perfect Murders_ by Peter Swanson
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2024, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3117 "2024-09-26T17:32:28Z")
“When I got the wish list of things I could see from the collection I was completely overwhelmed.”
_Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100_, edited by Caro Llewellyn. (Note that this is a collection of essays about items in this library’s collection, and the above first essay is by Laurie Anderson, who writes about the the Declaration of Independence.)
“As the detective made his way along a bustling 14th Street in New York City on that late December day in 1910, he was confident that, after a frustrating month in Los Angeles, he was at least closing in on one murderer.”
_American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, and the Birth of Hollywood_, by Howard Blum.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2024, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3118 "2024-09-26T18:44:01Z")
“We were aboard Taz’s Revenge, headed back to the Gene.”
_Wise Guys_ by Jerry Boyd (Bob & Nikki Book 51)
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3119 "2024-09-27T00:17:29Z")
In the afternoon on Le Loi Street, uniformed children spill from school yards like flocks of freed birds, swinging backpacks, running or on bicycles, the boys in white shirts and shorts, the girls with their long black hair and the white flaps of their _ao dai_ flying.
_Hue 1968_, by Mark Bowden
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2024, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3120 "2024-09-27T01:00:30Z")
“I honestly don’t know why I started keeping all this stuff!”
_I’m Told I Had a Good Time_ by Micky Dolenz
A massive (500 pages, 11lbs) coffee-table book full of photos, clippings, press promos, memorabilia, etc. from his childhood, his days as Circus Boy and on to The Monkees. Quite a volume.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2024, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3121 "2024-09-27T18:51:36Z")
“The train tore along with an angry, irregular rhythm.”
_Strangers on a Train_ by Patricia Highsmith
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3122 "2024-09-30T19:23:27Z")
“Science fiction is the pulsing heart of humanity.”
_Damn You, Entropy: 1,001 of the Greatest Science Fiction Quotes_, edited by Guy P. Harrison.
“I knew with certainty that I would never be a doctor.”
_When Breath Becomes Air_, by Paul Kalanithi.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2024, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3123 "2024-10-05T11:44:10Z")
“Amelia,” said Miss Prunella Pendleham, “I have received a most impertinent letter this morning.”
_Alfred Hitchcock’s Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspens_e, edited by Henri Veit. (Note that this is from the first story, “The Triumph of Death”, by H. Russell Wakefield.)
“Viet Nhi had resigned herself, early on, to not liking people.”
_Navigational Entanglements_, by Aliette de Bodard
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### Author:  [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2024, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3124 "2024-10-05T13:50:14Z")
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
_The Fellowship of the Ring_ by J.R.R. Tolkien
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2024, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3125 "2024-10-05T13:52:39Z")
The night clouds were closing in on the salt licks east of the oxbow lakes along the folds in the earth beyond the Yalobusha River.
—Isabel Wilkinson, _The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration_
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2024, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3126 "2024-10-06T18:17:19Z")
“Call me Ishmael.”
I was tickled to discover that I happen to be reading Moby Dick for the first time at the same age (58) Captain Ahab is in the book.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2024, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3127 "2024-10-06T21:06:51Z")
“Most of us are used to the idea of having five senses.”
_Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other_, by Ben Alderson-Day, PhD.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2024, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3128 "2024-10-08T16:23:04Z")
“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.”
_On the Road_ by Jack Kerouac
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2024, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3129 "2024-10-08T23:13:41Z")
“If you’re going to visit Tom Hartwig, you will have to drive past the cannon.”
_Visiting Tom: A Man, A Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace_, by Michael Perry
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3130 "2024-10-09T21:00:24Z")
“Forget _great. The Great Gatsby_ is the _greatest_ - even if you didn’t think so when you had to read it in high school. I didn’t think so back then either.”
_So We Read On_ by Maureen Corrigan
“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
“The young man woke up angry. The window was closed.”
_Elleander Morning_ by Jerry Yulsman
“An old familiar dread was waiting for me this morning. I couldn’t tell where it came from.”
_The Morningside_ by Tea Obreht
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