# 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:** 22
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/421 "2018-06-20T11:09:49Z")
An unassuming young man was travelling, in midsummer, from his native city of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton of the Grisons, on a three week’s vist. The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann (translated from the German by H.T. Lowe-Porter, and which I’m reading,as the author suggested, for the second time.) ---
**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:** [June 20, 2018, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/422 "2018-06-20T12:33:13Z")
“Tonight, I have a story to tell, one that for years I’ve kept buried, one that I’d hoped could have remained so forever.” - The Dead House, by Billy O’Callaghan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/423 "2018-06-21T03:54:39Z")
Mr. Yancey could usually be found at the Charleston Hotel, where the anti-Douglas forces were gathering, and a Northerner who went around to have a look at him reported that he was unexpectedly quiet and mild-mannered: as bland and as smooth as Fernando Wood, the silky Democratic boss from New York City, but radiating a general air of sincerity that Wood never had. The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton ---
**Author:** ![kaiwik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaiwik/32/3978_2.png) [@kaiwik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaiwik)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/424 "2018-06-21T04:46:33Z")
It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was. _The Outsider_ by Stephen King ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/425 "2018-06-24T18:19:44Z")
“There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wondersmitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world.” Pierre: or, The Ambiguities by Herman Melville ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/426 "2018-06-24T19:09:21Z")
" Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it. " Rabbit, Run by John Updike. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk ---
**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:** [June 24, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/427 "2018-06-24T20:50:18Z")
“Secunits don’t care about the news.” _Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries_, by Martha Wells. ---
**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:** [June 24, 2018, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/428 "2018-06-24T22:59:58Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > " Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it. " > > Rabbit, Run by John Updike. > > Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk That’s a very good series. You are in for an enjoyable ride. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/429 "2018-06-25T12:38:59Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > That’s a very good series. You are in for an enjoyable ride. I’m excited- I have been aware of this book and of all of his books my entire life. Somehow I did not pick them up in high school even though they were in some of my English classes. The beauty and density of his language is startling. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/430 "2018-06-25T12:44:34Z")
“Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names, couldn’t remember where they had come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost.” Luis Alberto Urrea, _The Devil’s Highway_ (When I began reading this 2004 book off and on about six months ago, I had no idea that migrants crossing the US-Mexico border would be such a hot topic just as I was finishing it.) ETA: eunoia, that’s beautiful. ---
**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:** [June 25, 2018, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/431 "2018-06-25T13:39:43Z")
“I’d never seen him before the day we killed him.” - How It Happened, by Michael Koryta ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/432 "2018-06-25T13:47:42Z")
There is a feeling in many quarters that altogether too much fuss is bring made about J.D. Salinger - Salinger, A critical and personal portrait introduced and edited by Henry Anatole Grumwald (copyright 1962). ---
**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:** [June 28, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/433 "2018-06-28T20:37:30Z")
“When I took this athletic director’s job fifteen years ago, I knew the toughest part would be trying to keep our football scholars eligible so they could make the Big U. prouder and richer with their touchdown scampers.” _Stick a Fork in Me_, by Dan Jenkins ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/434 "2018-06-29T12:54:36Z")
> [@](#): > > PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. _Common Sense_, by Thomas Paine. It was published in February 1776, so maybe he was wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/435 "2018-06-29T21:02:09Z")
“The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man’s brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them.” _The Exorcist_, William Peter Blatty ---
**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:** [July 3, 2018, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/436 "2018-07-03T05:32:24Z")
“My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.” – _Great Expectations_, by Charles Dickens ---
**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:** [July 4, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/437 "2018-07-04T15:23:54Z")
“Minerva is the fourth planet out from the sun in the solar system, the first planet past Earth’s orbit.” _A World of Difference_, by Harry Turtledove ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/438 "2018-07-04T18:41:40Z")
_Ryan was nearly killed twice in half an hour._ Patriot Games, by Tom Clancy ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/439 "2018-07-08T15:58:24Z")
“Theodore is in the ground.” _The Alienist_, by Caleb Carr ---
**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:** [July 9, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/440 "2018-07-09T13:13:27Z")
“The black man is dying, but neither he nor any of the other men in the barn suspects it.” - Black Ajax, by George MacDonald Fraser [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=23)