# 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:** 161
### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2024, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3211 "2024-12-24T12:35:14Z")
“She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance.”
_The English Patient_ by Michael Ondaatje
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2024, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3212 "2024-12-24T12:35:50Z")
> [@Strenger](#):
>
> eksetera
Is that really a word? Or is it just a horrible misspelling of _et cetera_?
\*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\*
“And if it’s a boy,” said Phyllida cheerfully, “we’ll call him Prospero.”
_This Rough Magic_, by Mary Stewart
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### Author:  [@Strenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strenger)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2024, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3213 "2024-12-24T12:42:48Z")
> [@SCAdian](#):
>
> Is that really a word? Or is it just a horrible misspelling of _et cetera_?
It’s a joke! And et cetera.
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### Author:  [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2024, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3214 "2024-12-25T04:58:12Z")
“i had thought I’d heard the last of Harold, the writing dog when he delivered his book, _Bunnicula_ to my office some time ago.”
That’s actually from the EDITOR’S NOTE, so Chapter one of the sequel _Howliday Inn_ reads,
“Looking back in it now, I doubt that there was any way I could have imagined what lay ahead.”
I’m re-reading old childhood favourites after stumbling across a 40th anniversary (now, like, 45) edition of Bunnicula at a book sale and promptly buying it. I then found books 2 and 4 at a used book store that I wandered into at random while visiting family and doing a bit of shopping.
They hold up! They are silly and whimsical and full of word play and every bit as enchanting as my childhood self remembers them as. My son has now read the first, a loved it.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2024, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3215 "2024-12-25T05:23:28Z")
Again, I encourage you to take any actual book discussion to the threads created for that. Here’s the current one: [Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - December 2024 edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2024-edition/1011041)
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2024, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3216 "2024-12-25T17:06:20Z")
“She liked waiting for the wave more than riding the wave.”
_The Waiting_ by Michael Connelly
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3217 "2024-12-26T20:26:24Z")
> “What are you looking at?”
>
> Bunny pulled his eyes away from what he was looking at to look at the man sitting in front of the what he was looking at.
“Three Wise Men”, a story by Caimh McDonnell
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3218 "2024-12-26T22:55:54Z")
“Redmond, you’ve got to get up here, fast.”
– _Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic_ by Redmond O’Hanlon
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3219 "2024-12-26T23:01:23Z")
Josiah Harlan’s hunt for a crown began with a letter.
_The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan_ by Ben Macintyre
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### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3220 "2024-12-26T23:13:55Z")
His children are falling from the sky.
_“Bringing Up the Bodies”, Hilary Mantel_
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3221 "2024-12-26T23:32:53Z")
“On the little branch line which starts at Wockley Junction and conveys passengers to Eggmarsh St John, Ashenden Oakshott, Bishop’s Ickenham and other small and somnolent hamlets of the south of England the early afternoon train had just begun its leisurely journey.”
– _Uncle Dynamite_, by P. G. Wodehouse
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2024, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3222 "2024-12-27T00:42:26Z")
“The mist that rose off the lake cut the small boat off from the rest of the world.”
_The Shining Cog and Other Steampunk Tales_, by Doc Coleman (This is from the first story, “The Cross of Columba”.)
“It is quite some storm.”
_Grailblazers_, by Tom Holt
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2024, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3223 "2024-12-30T00:27:39Z")
“The death of Steve Jobs gave birth to this book.”
_The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices That Changed the Course of Business_, edited by Verne Harnish, et al.
“Sergeant Dixon!”
_The Spectre General_, by Theodore Cogswell
“The captain was met at the airport by a staff car.”
_E for Effort_, by T. L. Sherred
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2024, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3224 "2024-12-30T19:17:03Z")
“During the winter of 1927-28 the federal government mobilized hundreds of agents into a force that would subsequently descend upon an isolated and decrepit seaport town in Massachusetts known as Innsmouth.”
_The Shadow Over Innsmouth_ by H.P. Lovecraft, adaptation and artwork by Gou Tanabe
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2025, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3225 "2025-01-01T12:37:27Z")
“The call to adventure came in libraries, in faculty offices, at campus football games.”
_Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II_, by Elyse Graham
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2025, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3226 "2025-01-01T13:28:21Z")
“I’m sitting in a bedroom with the kind of vaulted ceiling I wanted in my own, in a house much larger and more extravagant than the one I can’t go back to, and the fact that I can’t enjoy it upsets me.”
_Cherish Farrah_ by Bethany Morrow
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2025, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3227 "2025-01-01T23:24:28Z")
“Killing someone is easy. Hiding the body, now, that’s the hard part. That’s how you get caught.”
_The Thursday Murder Club_ by Richard Osman
(Yes, I know it’s three sentences…)
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3228 "2025-01-02T23:21:56Z")
“There was a monster in Greta Helsing’s hotel bathroom sink.”
_Dreadful Company_ by Vivian Shaw
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2025, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3229 "2025-01-03T04:41:41Z")
“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_, but that ain’t no matter.”
_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain
“It seems strange that the story of one of the most famous American battles should begin in Europe.”
_The_ Monitor _and the_ Merrimac _and Other Naval Battles_ by Fletcher Pratt
“The Game is Afoot!”
_The Pocket Sherlock Holmes_ by Gemini
“One of my earliest childhood memories is of my father waking me on 7 February 1952 to tell me that the king was dead.”
_God Save the Queen_ by Dennis Altman
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2025, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3230 "2025-01-03T13:59:24Z")
_Prologue:_ Like other books, this one began in a garden.
_Chapter 1:_ Although it had just finished raining, the air was hot and close.
_1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created_, by Charles C Mann
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