# 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:** 165
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2025, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3291 "2025-03-14T23:24:21Z")
I, too, prefer to use the more interesting of the two.
“_Peaches_, Michael Rosario thought.”
_The First State of Being_, by Erin Entrada Kelly
“I was supposed to be looking for _T. Rex_.”
_When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance_, by Riley Black
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2025, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3292 "2025-03-15T23:50:09Z")
Nezam stacked a few bricks and squirted lighter fluid on some wood chips.
_Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan_, by Lt Col Scott Mann (Ret.)
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3293 "2025-03-16T02:47:00Z")
“It was the start of a very important year - 1776 - and James Cook had become a very important figure, a celebrity, a champion, a hero.”
_The Wide Wide Sea_ by Hampton Sides
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3294 "2025-03-17T17:36:36Z")
“They’re at it again.”
_Between a Flock and a Hard Place_, by Donna Andrews
“Dorothy Parker didn’t like films.”
_Dorothy Parker in Hollywood_, by Gail Crowther
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3295 "2025-03-18T17:49:06Z")
“I’m going to tell you about a year. This year. 1978. A lot of shit is happening and I think somebody had better write it down before we all forget.”
_The Lesser Dead_, by Christopher Buehlman
(yes, well, they were short sentences)
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3296 "2025-03-20T23:09:03Z")
“To be the skipper of the only boat on the Moon was a distinction that Pat Harris enjoyed.”
_A Fall of Moondust_ by Arthur C. Clarke
“Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., paced back and forth in her drab Lower West Side apartment, stopping occasionally to glance through her parlor window at the blizzard swirling outside.”
_The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women’s Lives Forever_, by Lydia Reeder.
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3297 "2025-03-20T23:54:29Z")
“The golden gates of Anadawn Palace glittered in the setting sun. each spike as sharp as a dagger.”
_Twin Crowns_ by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3298 "2025-03-21T19:21:59Z")
“It’s another Iraqi town, nameless to the Marines racing down the main drag in Humvees, blowing it to pieces.”
_Generation Kill_, Evan Wright
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2025, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3299 "2025-03-25T21:24:34Z")
“Helen Gibson stood on the roof of the train depot and felt the rumbling in her bones.”
_Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman_, by Mallory O’Meara
“She reached for her mother’s hand, excited and just a little bit afraid.”
_Gilt_, by Jamie Brenner.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3300 "2025-03-25T22:31:29Z")
The secret war started long before the shooting did.
_The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas 1939-1945_ , by Max Hastings
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2025, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3301 "2025-03-28T21:09:30Z")
“Alexander Calder was an alchemist, transmuting simple industrial metals into exquisite constructions.”
_CalderScuplture_, by Alexander S. C. Rower
“It was in my hair, Severian,” Dorcas said.
_The Sword of the Lictor_, by Gene Wolfe
“The first essential value of the detective story lies in this, that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life.”
_Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club_, edited by Martin Edwards. (Note that this is an anthology, and the above quote is from the first essay, “The Value of Detective Fiction” by G. K. Chesterton.)
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3302 "2025-03-31T01:50:46Z")
“This is how I always start: ‘I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime.’”
_Presumed Innocent_ by Scott Turow
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3303 "2025-03-31T15:53:53Z")
“Isabella hears the unmistakable vibration of a rattlesnake tail, freezing her in a cold chill.”
_The Texas Murders_ by James Patterson
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3304 "2025-03-31T19:42:11Z")
“There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.”
_The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Became Real_, by Margery Williams
“Blue is one of nature’s rarest colors.”
_Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World_, by Catherine E. McKinley
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3305 "2025-04-04T00:00:07Z")
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
_An Easter Sourcebook: The Fifty Days_ (Gabe Huck et al, editors. Note that this is an anthology of works relating to Easter and Pentecost.)
“Basit Deniau’s greatest architectural triumph is the house he died in.”
_Rose/House_, by Arkady Martine
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3306 "2025-04-04T00:46:58Z")
“The walls of the estate emerged from the morning fog before me, long and dark and rounded like the skin of some beached sea creature.”
_The Tainted Cup_ by Robert Jackson Bennett
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### Author:  [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3307 "2025-04-04T05:03:55Z")
“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.”
_Circe_ by Madeline Miller
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### Author:  [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2025, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3308 "2025-04-04T11:59:34Z")
> “We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.
Song of Ice and Fire George R R Martin
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3309 "2025-04-05T01:55:34Z")
Brussels
July 1636
Every morning, César, duc de Vendôme, attended to his personal toilet.
_1637: The French Correction_, by Eric Flint and Walter H Hunt
Japanese-Occupied Manila, Philippines, January 1, 1943
The woman they called Madame Tsubaki sashayed onto the nightclub floor after dark in a spotlight that cast her exotic silhouette against creamy drapes.
_MacArthur’s Spies: The Soldier, the Singer, and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese in World War II_, by Peter Eisner
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2025, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3310 "2025-04-05T23:28:25Z")
“When I turned back to the house, my father called after me and asked me did I figure that I was finished.”
_April Morning_ by Howard Fast
“At the earliest edges of my memory, my father is plowing, and I am running behind him.”
_Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting_, by Michael Perry.
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