# 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:** 182
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3631 "2026-02-14T03:09:53Z")
“The plant was innocent.” _The Enchanted Greenhouse_ by Sarah Beth Durst ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3632 "2026-02-14T04:31:41Z")
In late January 1860, the members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce assembled in that city’s town hall for their annual meeting. _Empire of Cotton: A Global History_ by Sven Beckert ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3633 "2026-02-15T00:24:31Z")
It was just before midnight when she left. _Signal for Vengeance_, by Edward Marston ---
**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 15, 2026, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3634 "2026-02-15T00:39:51Z")
“Beetchermarlf felt the vibrations die out as his vehicle came to a halt, but instinctively looked outside before releasing the _Kwembly’s_ helm.” _Star Light_, by Hal Clement “I’m not be nature a wellness person.” _We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay: Tips, Tales, Travels_, by Gary Janetti. ---
**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 17, 2026, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3635 "2026-02-17T21:21:09Z")
“The story begins in the unforgettable spring of 1990.” _Stupid TV, Be More Funny: How the Golden Era of The Simpsons Changed Television–and America–Forever_, by Alan Siegel " ‘Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Ramsay." _To the Lighthouse_, by Virginia Woolf ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3636 "2026-02-17T22:03:51Z")
During its stay in Carlisle, the circus had made a vast number of friends and many of them had turned up at the railway station to bid farewell to their visitors. _The Circus Train Conspiracy_, by Edward Marston ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3637 "2026-02-18T01:58:28Z")
“some people count to ten to wake up from a nightmare, but Dolores always counted the bones oof her head instead.” _No Rest for the Wicked_ by Rachel Louise Adams ---
**Author:** ![bmasters1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3638 "2026-02-18T11:47:05Z")
“It was pure greed that drove Roy and Paul Fergus to habitually ignore the law.” _Treachery By Design_, Gary Birken, M.D., 2024 ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3639 "2026-02-18T15:33:26Z")
“The United States had throttled its foes with steel.” _Richard Nixon – The Life_ by John A. Farrell ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3640 "2026-02-18T23:14:59Z")
Whether I am sitting out there in the cold, the heat, the morning, the evening, a big city, or a tiny town, there is one thing I am approached about more than any other topic, by far, and that is the Oxford comma. Ellen Jovin, _Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian_ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3641 "2026-02-20T17:30:56Z")
“At an age when I was old enough to know better I enrolled in law school.” _Habeas Circus: Illegal Humor_ by Alan Gerson “Captain’s log, stardate 5537.1. The _Enterprise_ is embarked, for a change, on a routine followup mission…” _Star Trek: Log Eight_ by Alan Dean Foster ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3642 "2026-02-20T21:04:16Z")
February, 1918 When the telephone rang in the middle of the night, Harvey Marmion was immediately awake. _Danger of Defeat_, by Edward Marston ---
**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 21, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3643 "2026-02-21T00:00:35Z")
“I write this little book to present a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to an issue so laden with emotion and the burden of history that a clear path usually becomes overgrown by a tangle of contention and confusion.” _Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life_, by Stephen Jay Gould (Rosencrantz is flipping a coin.) “Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads.” “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, by Tom Stoppard. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3644 "2026-02-23T03:36:13Z")
“The modern image of the sailing-era frigate is of a 44-gun frigate with a main battery of 24-pound guns. In nautical fiction authors love pitting the hero against a 44-gun French or American frigate.” _American Heavy Frigates 1794-1826_ by Mark Lardas ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3645 "2026-02-23T04:28:26Z")
March, 1918 Summoned to the commissioner’s office, Superintendent Claude Chatfield knew that something serious had happened. _Spring Offensive_, by Edward Marston _March 3, 1942 On board the SS_ Beaverhill The passage across the North Atlantic had just begun, and already Dorothy Furey was breaking the rules. _Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II_, by Becky Aikman ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3646 "2026-02-23T11:51:47Z")
“Shafts of golden light pierced the green twilight, penetrating the waving fronds of the forest to leave pools of light on the ground.” —_Fortune’s Fool_ by Mercedes Lackey. * * * “This year the Ribeiro’s daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches.” —_Mirabile_ by Janet Kagan ---
**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 23, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3647 "2026-02-23T15:57:35Z")
Minor correction to stage direction from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”: Guildenstern is spinning the coin, although Rosencrantz is speaking the words. “It was a shame about the weather.” _Devil’s Workshop_, by Kate Gallison “To the people of the ancient world, the sun in the sky overhead, the changing seasons, the idea of north and south, were all much more substantial and concrete concepts than they are to us today.” _Latitude Zero: Tales of the Equator_, by Gianni Guadalupi. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3648 "2026-02-23T18:24:10Z")
“Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up.” _The Violent Bear It Away_ by Flannery O’Connor ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3649 "2026-02-23T20:31:19Z")
“Lilly knew the cancer was going to kill her when the car wouldn’t start.” _For Whom The Belle Tolls_ by Jaysea Lynn. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/3650 "2026-02-25T21:07:17Z")
“Put down that wrench!” _The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology_ edited by John W. Campbell. The line is from the first story, “Blowups Happen” by Robert A. Heinlein. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=181) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=183)