# 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:** 180
### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2026, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3591 "2026-01-22T10:07:03Z")
> [@plankter](#):
>
> “She turned to avoid a broken mass of gleaming marble that had once been a temple.”
>
> _The Rose Field_ by Philip Pullman
May I ask a question about the end of that book?
How come the colonel with the thermobaric bomb ended up blowing himself up? They had set dozens of those off before.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2026, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3592 "2026-01-22T16:41:08Z")
I tried to split that off to a different thread, but apparently it did not work
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3593 "2026-01-25T22:41:21Z")
“Water lapping salt at his cheek roused him, a fresh cold trickle finding its way into the hollow of sand where his face rested.”
_Blood of Tyrants: Book 8 of Temeraire_, by Naomi Novik
“Here’s your new baby.”
_Cry When the Baby Cries_, by Becky Barnicoat.
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2026, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3594 "2026-01-26T00:15:35Z")
“The bells stopped tolling hours ago, so it must be near midnight.”
_Warrior Princess Assassin_ by Brigid Kemmerer
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3595 "2026-01-28T05:12:10Z")
“I was running away. I was running away from England, from my childhood, from the winter, from a sequence of untidy, unattractive love-affairs, from the few sticks of furniture and jumble of overworn clothes that my London life had collected around me; and I was running away from drabness, fustiness, snobbery, the claustrophobia of close horizons and from my inability, although I am quite an attractive rat, to make headway in the rat-race. In fact, I was running away from almost everything except the law.”
_The Spy Who Loved Me_ by Ian Fleming
“Jack Holloway set the skimmer to HOVER, swiveled his seat around, and looked at Carl. He shook his head sadly. ‘I can’t believe we have to go through this again,’ Holloway said.”
_Fuzzy Nation_ by John Scalzi
“The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it. It was minus fifteen degrees Celsius and a storm had passed just hours before.”
_Ancillary Justice_ by Ann Leckie
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3596 "2026-01-28T05:12:59Z")
“The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted.”
– _The Pickwick Papers_, by Charles Dickens
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3597 "2026-01-29T02:28:16Z")
War and Charlie Chaplin did not sit easily together in the mind of the Reverend Matthew Hearn.
_Deeds of Darkness_, by Edward Marston
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3598 "2026-01-29T03:04:14Z")
“Some people would say it’s a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library.”
_Libriomancer_ by Jim C. Hines
“She breathes in time with the sea.”
_The Sirens_ by Emilia Hart
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### Author:  [@stopnonstop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stopnonstop)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3599 "2026-01-29T05:39:08Z")
Reggie Nancarrow secured the body of his father after it had slid down and dragged behind the travois for a second time.
_Slake Your Thirs_t by D. G. Morris
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3600 "2026-01-29T10:48:03Z")
Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport. Nothing about her appearance or demeanour raises a red flag or even an eyebrow
Leanne Moriarty, _Here One Moment_. Highly recommended!
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3601 "2026-01-29T14:56:55Z")
Sounds interesting! But I can’t find it anywhere.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3602 "2026-01-29T15:31:51Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> _Fuzzy Nation_ by John Scalzi
Made it about a quarter of the way through that and took it back to the library.
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> Sounds interesting! But I can’t find it anywhere.
Presumably you’ve checked the library. The four in our system have a total of seven copies.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3603 "2026-01-29T15:47:54Z")
I checked the library, Goodreads, and Google! It’s kind of a moot point anyway, as our library system isn’t currently doing interlibrary loans due to budget cuts. 😟
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### Author:  [@stopnonstop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stopnonstop)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3604 "2026-01-29T16:58:17Z")
Sorry @Dung_Beetle. _Slake Your Thirst_ is my novel awaiting publication. I’ll let you know where you can purchase when/if it ever gets published!
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3605 "2026-01-29T19:01:00Z")
Aha! Well, you got a kick-ass first sentence there. 😁
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2026, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3606 "2026-01-29T19:44:11Z")
> [@stopnonstop](#):
>
> _Slake Your Thirst_ is my novel awaiting publication. I’ll let you know where you can purchase when/if it ever gets published!
Well. that explains why I couldn’t find it on Libby!
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2026, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3607 "2026-01-30T04:48:05Z")
I will again draw your attention to the name of the thread, and suggest that you take any actual discussion of books to this thread: [Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - January 2026 edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2026-edition/1026156).
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3608 "2026-01-30T19:12:35Z")
“As the phone started ringing, the leftmost indicator bulb in the row of seven lit up, blinking in time with the jangle of the buzzer but bright enough to shine clearly through the red gel and a patina of dust.”
_Scale_, by Greg Egan
“History shows us how to behave.”
_History Matters_, by David McCullough
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3609 "2026-01-31T14:57:15Z")
It was perfect Zeppelin weather – a dry, moonlit night without a breath of wind.
_Dance of Death_, by Edward Marston
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### Author:  [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2026, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3610 "2026-02-01T13:47:07Z")
Catching up:
“My name is Aruthur James Donovan, Jr., and for twelve seasons I played football in an organization called the National Football League.”
_Fatso - Football When Mere Were Really Men_, by Aruthur J. Donovan, Jr.
“When he was young – seventeen and eighteen years old – Lyndon Johnson worked on a road gang that was building a highway (an unpaved highway: roads in the isolated, impoverished Texas Hill Country weren’t paved in the 1920s) between Johnson City and Austin.” – _The Years of Lyndon Johnson – The Passage of Power_ by Robert A. Caro.
“There are certain idiosyncratic notions that you quietly come to accept when you live for a long time in Britain.”
_Notes From a Small Island_ by Bill Bryson
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