# 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:** 168
### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3351 "2025-05-20T16:26:42Z")
“The images were grainy and blurred. But they told a story.”
_Open Season_ by Jonathan Kellerman
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3352 "2025-05-20T23:22:22Z")
“Welcome curious explorer!”
_Ripley’s Believe It or Not!: Dare to Discover_, edited by Jordie R. Orlando
“Robots were chasing him.”
_A Talent for the Invisible_ by Ron Goulart
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3353 "2025-05-22T18:25:04Z")
“Deputy White House Chief of Staff Alexander Lipsyte walked through the doorway and into the Oval Office and was surprised that the President was not at his desk. ‘Where’s the boss?’ he asked.”
_The President’s Brain is Missing_ by John Scalzi
“Rotating about the earth in their spacecraft they are so together, and so alone, that even their thoughts, their internal mythologies at times, convene.”
_Orbital_ by Samantha Harvey
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3354 "2025-05-22T22:46:25Z")
“The wind came whooping out of eastern darkness, driving a lash of ammonia dust before it.”
_Call Me Joe_, by Poul Anderson
“Josiah Horatio Titweiler arrived at Wichita Station in Open Range wearing a mask.”
_Gunfight on Europa Station_, edited by David Boop. (Note that the above is from the first story in the anthology, “Greenhorn”, by Elizabeth Moon.)
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3355 "2025-05-24T10:58:24Z")
Otto Skorzeny was feeling rather pleased with himself as he stood before Adolf Hitler in Berlin on 21 October 1944.
_Hitler’s Winter: The German Battle of the Bulge_, by Anthony Tucker-Jones
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2025, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3356 "2025-05-27T16:04:47Z")
“Bob Barnes says they got a dead body on BLM land.”
_The Cold Dish_ by Craig Johnson
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3357 "2025-05-27T20:30:30Z")
“What many historians call ‘modern times’ began in 1763, when Great Britain forced the French coalition to accept a humiliating peace at Paric, thus ending the Seven Years’ War and initiating the _Pax Britannica_.”
_For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga_, by Robert Sobel
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2025, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3358 "2025-05-27T20:37:51Z")
Every evening, Sergeant Major Gustav Rothenberger carried out an inspection of the castle perimeter, checking that the sentries were alert at their posts and hoping to catch one napping.
_Prisoners of the Castle_, by Ben Macintyre
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3359 "2025-05-30T20:23:35Z")
“Children of the Doors know about being mislaid.”
_Mislaid in Parts Half-Known_, by Seanan McGuire
“I was twelve the first time I saw my dead father cross from the kitchen doorway to the hall that led back to the utility room.”
_Mapping the Interior_, by Stephen Graham Jones
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3360 "2025-05-30T20:27:57Z")
On the night of March 11, 1942, Douglas MacArthur was preparing to flee the island of Corregidor, headquarters of the Allied forces in the Philippines.
_The Ghost Mountain Boys_, by James Campbell
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3361 "2025-05-30T20:28:23Z")
"Before she became the Girl from Nowhere - the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years - she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.”
_The Passage_ by Justin Cronin
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3362 "2025-06-01T21:48:58Z")
“It must be that all children are actors.”
_Adventures for Readers (Book One)_, edited by Fannie Safie. (This is an anthology textbook, and the sentence is from the first story, “Stolen Day” by Sherwood Anderson.)
“Making history rarely feels like it in the moment.”
_Becoming Spectacular: The Rhythm of Resilience From the First African American Rockette_, by Jennifer Jones
“It was there when I woke up, I swear.”
_Gun, With Occasional Music_, by Jonathan Lethem.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2025, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3363 "2025-06-04T02:19:51Z")
Emilie Michiels van Kessenich snapped awake just after 2:30 p.m.
_Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II_, by Robert M Edsel with Bret Witter
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3364 "2025-06-06T20:30:34Z")
“From Phyllis Neuswanger, my grandmother, I inherited a set of Lenox china, a crate of crystal stemware, and twelve sterling silver table settings.”
_The Heirloomist: 100 Treasures and the Stories They Tell_, by Shana Novak.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2025, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3365 "2025-06-06T21:43:06Z")
The kitchen smelled of roasting pans and spilled wine.
_London Calling_, by Sara Sheridan
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2025, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3366 "2025-06-07T16:14:45Z")
\*The destroyers came from out of the desert."
Catherine Nixey _The Darkening Age: the Christian destruction of the classical world_
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2025, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3367 "2025-06-08T04:17:09Z")
“HEY KIDS! Let’s learn about the moon!”
_When the Moon Hits Your Eye_ by John Scalzi
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3368 "2025-06-08T17:45:42Z")
8 a.m., Monday, 22 June 1953, Brighton
Joey Gillingham got off the train and checked his watch.
_England Expects_, by Sara Sheridan
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3369 "2025-06-08T22:44:36Z")
“It was a sure conversation-stopper: ‘This year I’ll be researching, observing, and writing about every single Jewish holiday on the calendar.’”
_My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew_, by Abigail Pogrebin
“This story I am about to share with you takes place in 1931, under the roofs of Paris.”
_The Invention of Hugo Cabret_, by Brian Selznick.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2025, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3370 "2025-06-11T23:23:57Z")
“If you use any search engine to identify the inventor of the black light, and when he did it, you will only find one answer.”
_Sandbows and Black Lights: Reflections on Optics_, by Stephen R. Wilk
“I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world.”
_Bridge of Birds_, by Barry Hughart
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