# 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:** 157
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2024, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3131 "2024-10-10T20:58:47Z")
“As soon as he was born, Mr. and Mrs. Canker knew that their baby was not like other people’s children.”
_Which Witch?_ by Eva Ibbotson
“Caption contests are not new.”
_Your Caption Has Been Selected: More Than Anyone Could Possibly Want to Know About The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest_, by Lawrence Wood.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2024, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3132 "2024-10-13T04:28:50Z")
“I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father’s house.”
— _Kidnapped_, by Robert Louis Stevenson
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2024, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3133 "2024-10-13T14:52:25Z")
O, to give its full name:
_Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson._
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2024, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3134 "2024-10-13T23:33:06Z")
“They’d sip their shadows and the darkness stained them.”
_Sip_, by Brian Allen Carr
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3135 "2024-10-14T04:24:16Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> [Or], to give its full name:
>
> _Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson._
Paid by the word, was he? 😉
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2024, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3136 "2024-10-15T02:19:58Z")
“For the final time in a foreign country as president of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama eased into his seat as a Secret Service agent shut the heavy door. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.”
_The World as It Is_ by Ben Rhodes
_Sherlock Holmes and the Lady in Black_ by June Thomson
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2024, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3137 "2024-10-15T02:37:36Z")
Ooops, sorry. Took too long getting the exact wording.
“Those of you who are familiar with the events that occurred during the latter part of Sherlock Holmes’ life, after he had left our old lodgings at 221B Baker Street, will know that after giving up his career as a private consulting agent, he moved to Sussex where he took up beekeeping as a part-time livelihood.”
_Sherlock Holmes and the Lady in Black_ by June Thomson
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2024, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3138 "2024-10-15T02:43:38Z")
"_It was a bright cold day in April, the clocks were striking thirteen…_
1984…Orwell
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3139 "2024-10-15T04:01:23Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Paid by the word, was he? 😉
In the 18th century, books didn’t have slipcovers or paper back covers for the blurb, so the title served the role of getting the potential reader’s interest.
Davy wrote it in that style, and Stevenson, like Bilbo, simply repeated it for the modern reader. 😉
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3140 "2024-10-15T21:17:57Z")
“The summer day was drawing to a close and dusk had fallen on Blandings Castle, shrouding from view the ancient battlements, dulling the silver surface of the lake and causing Lord Emsworth’s supreme Berkshire sow Empress of Blandings to leave the open air portion of her sty and withdraw into the covered shed where she did her sleeping.”
_Pelican at Blandings_, by P.G. Wodehouse
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2024, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3141 "2024-10-16T20:12:57Z")
Back in June 1994, Major Lindley Johnson had a thought: Wouldn’t it be nice to try to save the world?
_How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defence_, by Robin George Andrews
Ramage felt dazed and grabbed at the thoughts rushing through his head: he guessed it was a nightmare, so he would soon wake up safely in his cabin; but for the moment his mind was apparently separated from his body, floating along free like a puff of smoke in the wind.
_Ramage_, by Dudley Pope
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2024, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3142 "2024-10-17T19:26:08Z")
“She first spotted him at Bobbie’s Coffee Shop on Twenty-Second street.”
_Every Vow You Break_ by Peter Swanson
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2024, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3143 "2024-10-17T21:24:23Z")
“The creaking plank of a fog-soaked wharf, the shadow of a ghost ship slipping silently out of harbor, legends of tentacles that can pull down a merchant vessel–the ocean is as vast as stories and legends as it is in size.”
_Beyond Bizarre: Frightening Facts and Blood-Curdling True Tales_, by Varla Ventura
“Blackmail speaks its own peculiar dialect, but it has this advantage over other forms of expression: It is the universal language, understood by all.”
_Queen’s Bureau of Investigation_, by Ellery Queen (This is a story collection, and the above sentence is from “Money Talks”.)
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2024, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3144 "2024-10-20T18:13:35Z")
“Are those dogs happy?”
_Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show_, by Tommy Tomlinson
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2024, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3145 "2024-10-21T14:22:36Z")
“Abbott Coburn had spent much of his twenty-six years dreading the wrong things, in the wrong amounts, for the wrong reasons.”
_I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom_, by Jason Pargin
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2024, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3146 "2024-10-21T14:59:51Z")
“She came here with nothing.”
The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3147 "2024-10-22T20:39:30Z")
“The Breeze blew into San Junipero in the shotgun seat of Billy Winston’s Pinto wagon.”
_Practical Demonkeeping_, by Christopher Moore
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2024, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3148 "2024-10-23T14:51:57Z")
Margaret de Beauchamp, eldest surviving child of Baronet Sir Timothy de Beauchamp, baronet of Churnet and Trent, waited patiently on a bench in the outer court of the Palace of Whitehall, nervous to see the king or the Earl of Cork.
_1635: The Weaver’s Code_, by Eric Flint and Jody Lynn Nye
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2024, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3149 "2024-10-23T18:30:43Z")
“Dr. Alexander Hoffman sat by the fire in his study in Geneva, a half-smoked cigar lying cold in the ashtray beside him, an angle-poise lamp pulled low over his shoulder, turning the pages of a first edition of _The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals_ by Charles Darwin.”
_The Fear Index_ by Robert Harris
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3150 "2024-10-24T20:10:56Z")
“Lord, what a menagerie!”
_Prayers from the Ark & The Creatures’ Choir_ by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden. (This is a double volume of verse, and the above is the opening sentence to the first poem, “Noah’s Prayer”.)
“The word has come that he is dead, now, and the girls.”
_Learwife_, by JR Thorp
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