# What is the first sentence from the book you are currently reading? **URL:** \ **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:** 17
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/321 "2018-02-24T01:54:49Z")
“So far, being dead is about as much fun as a barbed-wire G-string.” Richard Kadrey, _The Kill Society_ ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/322 "2018-02-26T14:44:50Z")
“Children have always tumbled down rabbit holes, fallen through mirrors, been swept away by unseasonal floods or carried off by tornadoes.” _Beneath the Sugar Sky_, by Seanan McGuire. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/323 "2018-02-28T00:13:04Z")
“According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children usually had their lives planned out from scratch.” _Time for the Stars_, by Robert A. Heinlein ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/324 "2018-02-28T03:09:51Z")
Wow, thanks to all the participants over the time that this thread has been up and running. I’ve got a nice source for what will doubtlessly be a fun bit of bedside reading. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/325 "2018-02-28T05:53:05Z")
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” – _David Copperfield_, by Charles Dickens ---
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/326 "2018-03-01T02:42:41Z")
[From the circumstances, Dortmunder would say it was a missing-heir scam.](http://a.co/9kUGQXA) ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/327 "2018-03-01T06:30:25Z")
> [@MacSpon](#): > > Two sentences, because the first one is kind of short: > > From _Kemlo and the Space Lanes_ by E. C. Eliott. > > There’s just so much…_wrong_ with those two sentences. I used to love the _Kemlo_ series when I was a kid, but on re-reading now, they’re…kind of bad. They’ve been visited by the [Suck Fairy](https://www.tor.com/2010/09/28/the-suck-fairy/). It’s always a sad thing to find that something you enjoyed as a child and remember with fondness turns out to be pretty stinky when you’re an adult. > [@The Wonder Engine](#): > > The first thing they saw when they got into Anuket City was a corpse. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/328 "2018-03-01T13:19:51Z")
“The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic, and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.” - _Cold Comfort Farm_, by Stella Gibbons ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/329 "2018-03-04T23:15:56Z")
“Left Munich at 8:35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.” _Dracula_, by Bram Stoker ---
**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/330 "2018-03-05T20:27:02Z")
“When Mr. William Faraday sat down to write his memoirs after fifty-eight years of blameless inactivity he found the work of inscribing the history of his life almost as tedious as living it had been, and so, possessing a natural invention coupled with a gift for locating the easier path, he began to prevaricate a little upon the second page, working his way up to downright lying on the sixth and subsequent folios.” ― Margery Allingham, Dancers in Mourning ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/331 "2018-03-05T22:50:52Z")
> [@](#): > > You could always tell when you were near a town from the bodies hanging from the gibbets by the main road, thought Sergeant Dodd. _A Plague of Angels_ by P F Chisholm. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/332 "2018-03-12T13:50:03Z")
“Years are what they are.” _Wait Till Next Year: The Story of a Season When What Should’ve Happened Didn’t and What Could’ve Gone Wrong Did_, by William Goldman and Mike Lupica. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/333 "2018-03-20T15:10:50Z")
“The sun was going down behind the Big Burger when the alligator came flying in the drive-through window.” _The Pope of Palm Beach_ by Tim Dorsey ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/334 "2018-03-20T15:42:58Z")
It was a four-day journey by train from the coast to the desert where the Tower of Babel rose like a tusk from the jaw of the earth. - Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/335 "2018-03-20T17:44:46Z")
“He had four names at various times.” _Laurus_ by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa Hayden ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/336 "2018-03-21T00:29:27Z")
Jerry Redlands opened his eyes in freefall. [http://www.rogermwilcox.com/Pentagon/Pentagon1.html](http://www.rogermwilcox.com/Pentagon/Pentagon1.html) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/337 "2018-03-21T21:12:58Z")
John Rolfe had rented the house for seventy-five a month, which sounded extortionate but was something close to reasonable given the way costs had gone crazy in the Bay area since Pearl Harbor. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/338 "2018-03-22T05:02:36Z")
Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe With loss of Eden til one greater Man Restore us and regain the blissful seat Sing heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning, how the heav’n and earth Rose out of chaos. Milton’s Paradise Lost. I’m trying to improve my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/339 "2018-03-23T14:12:26Z")
“Aliette is cooking cauliflower once again.” _Mandelbrot the Magnificent_ by Liz Ziemska ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/340 "2018-03-23T14:40:00Z")
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