# 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:** 167
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3331 "2025-04-27T02:55:20Z")
“March 1783. Newburgh, New York. George Washington had to wear glasses. It was a secret.”
_George Washington’s Spectacular Spectacles: The Glasses That Saved America_, written by Selene Castrovilla, illustrated by Jenn Harney
“A boy with a parrot on his shoulder was walking along the railway tracks. His gait was dreamy, and he swung a daisy as he went.”
_The Final Solution_ by Michael Chabon
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3332 "2025-04-30T23:21:41Z")
“The cool breath of evening slips off the wooded hills, displacing the heat of the day, and with it come the birds, as eager for the cool as I am.”
_The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World_, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Without the C,
crime is simply a cold case,
unsolvable here
or the future here.”
_The Reinvented Detective: Tales of Futuristic Crimes & Mysteries Beyond Time_, edited by Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek. (From “The Missing C: Police Report #1” by Jane Yolen)
---
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2025, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3333 "2025-05-02T03:51:40Z")
“A man is sitting on a bed. He is my father. The body of a woman is beneath the covers. She was my mother.”
_Innocent_ by Scott Turow
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3334 "2025-05-04T13:48:24Z")
To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters’ and rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.
- _Under Milk Wood_ by Dylan Thomas
---
### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3335 "2025-05-04T16:11:34Z")
“Nate Romanowski was thigh-high in the icy water of North Piney Creek under the craggy profile of the snow-covered Wyoming Range.”
_Battle Mountain_ by C.J. Box
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3336 "2025-05-04T18:21:30Z")
“My life was changed forever by a single photograph.”
_Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist_, by Jasmin Graham
“I had never seen war, or even talked about it at length with someone who had, but I was young and knew something of violence, and so believed that war would be no more than a new experience for me, as other things–the possession of authority in Thrax, say, or my escape from the House Absolute–had been new experiences.”
_The Citadel of the Autarch_, by Gene Wolfe
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3337 "2025-05-05T02:00:16Z")
October 25, 1944
San Bernardino Strait, Philippines
A giant stalked through the darkness.
_The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour_, by James D Hornfischer (reread)
Leslie Mayflower glowered out between the dusty blinds of his darkened living room, watching the street.
_Dead Man’s Hand_, by James J Butcher
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3338 "2025-05-08T21:26:35Z")
“The courtroom of the Honorable Arthur T. Freeman was as stern, stark, and impersonal as the justice it dispensed.” (Yes, “Honorable”, not “Honourable”, is how it appears in the book. Presumably the author isn’t British.)
_The Strange Trial of Mr. Hyde_, by John A. Sanford
“It’s a truism that there’s physics everywhere you look.”
_The Velocity of Honey: And More Science of Everyday Life_, by Jay Ingram
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3339 "2025-05-10T02:51:28Z")
The vertical cut in the cliff face only looked razor-thin.
_Hell Hath No Fury_, by David Weber and Linda Evans (reread)
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2025, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3340 "2025-05-11T23:23:54Z")
“By the time I was ten I had decided–in almost total ignorance of the difficulty of the problem–that the universe was full up.”
_Teaching Science Fiction: Education for Tomorrow_, edited by Jack Williamson (Note: The above sentence is from a preface by Carl Sagan.)
“The world is four thousand years old.”
_Learning the World_, a science fiction novel by Ken MacLeod.
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3341 "2025-05-12T05:46:16Z")
“Night is generally my time for walking.”
– _The Old Curiosity Shop_, by Charles Dickens.
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3342 "2025-05-12T12:06:30Z")
The very tall, powerfully built man strode down the early morning hallway like an icebreaker through floe ice.
_The Road to Hell_, by Davd Weber and Joelle Presby (reread)
---
### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3343 "2025-05-12T18:46:54Z")
“After an uneasy night, Phil went to retrieve the body with a tarp, because a blanket would need washing afterwards, and a garbage bag seemed too cruel as well as too thin.”
_No One Will Come Back For Us and Other Stories_, Premee Mohamed
(First line of the first story, Below the Kirk, Below the Hill)
---
### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3344 "2025-05-14T12:55:00Z")
“In sociological terms, they call it the _fundamental attribution error_.”
_The Drowning Woman_ by Robyn Harding
---
### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3345 "2025-05-17T00:16:15Z")
“It was not yet dawn when they came for her,”
_The Butcher of the Forest_ by Premee Mohamed
---
### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3346 "2025-05-17T12:26:26Z")
“Argenta is probably the second-oldest quartz camp in Montana.”
Ghost Towns of Montana, by Donald C. Miller
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3347 "2025-05-17T16:58:52Z")
The New Public Offices building lies just across the road from St. James’s Park, in the heart of Central London.
_Seven Days of Infamy_, by Nicholas Best
Crabs scurried out of the way of the two samurai as they and their companions walked along the beach of Sandy Bottom Bay, the large bay near the middle of the southwest coast of Texada Island.
_1637: The Pacific Initiative_, by Iver P Cooper
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3348 "2025-05-18T20:01:45Z")
“White clouds streaked across the bright blue sky over the Pacific Ocean near Baja California.”
_Who Owns the Moon? And Other Conundrums of Exploring and Using Space_, by Cynthia Levinson and Jennifer Swanson
“With a cheshire cat grin affixed firmly to his features as the ever-present cigar was to his person, Al Calavicci ascended the basement stairs of the Quantum Leap Complex at a jaunty pace.”
_Quantum Leap:_ _Search and Rescue_, by Melissa Crandall
---
### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3349 "2025-05-18T23:17:04Z")
“The good news, of course, is that someone died today.”
_I See You’ve Called In Dead_ by John Kenney
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3350 "2025-05-20T12:27:55Z")
Lieutenant Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy , was not a happy man.
_Abandon Ship! : The Saga of the U.S.S._ Indianapolis, _the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster_, by Richard F Newcomb
On a windswept fall day, on a gray morning after the colorful agony of autumn had passed but before the deep, blank snows of winter sealed off the world, Captain Charles Butler McVay III, the former commander of the World War II cruiser USS _Indianapolis_, woke and took stock of his day.
_In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the USS_ Indianapolis _and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors_, by Doug Stanton
(Yes, I’m reading two books on the same subject, getting a better view of the big picture than I would if I read one book and then the other. Interesting that the two books start with the viewpoints of the two captains involved.)
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=166)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=168)