# 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:** 31
**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 19, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/602 "2019-02-19T02:17:38Z")
“The music-room in the Governor’s House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major quartet.” _Master and Commander_ by Patrick O’Brian (1969) ---
**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:** [February 19, 2019, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/603 "2019-02-19T13:05:46Z")
“The sun clacked along an iron track among the gaslight stars high above the white city of Pelphia.” - _The Hod King_, by Josiah Bancroft ---
**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:** [February 20, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/604 "2019-02-20T00:01:16Z")
> [@](#): > > MARRIAGES > > WIMSEY-VANE. On the 8th October, at St. Cross Church, Oxford, Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, second son of the late Gerald Mortimer Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, to Harriet Deborah Vane, only daughter of the late Henry Vane, M.D. of Great Pagford, Herts. I note that in past times (the 1930s), only the father was worth mentioning in a wedding announcement. [del]I also take this opportunity to ask if anyone has ever made annotated editions of the Wimsey books, so as to provide references for all the illusions and translations of all the quotes.[/del] You know, you’d think I’d learn to LOOK FIRST before asking. Of course there are! But only _Whose Body?_. Damnit. ---
**Author:** ![StraightTalk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straighttalk/32/9982_2.png) [@StraightTalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StraightTalk)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/605 "2019-02-21T21:31:37Z")
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. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. ---
**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 22, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/606 "2019-02-22T21:38:31Z")
“Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?” _Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? And Other Questions From the Astronomers’ In-Box at the Vatican Observatory_, by Guy Consolmagno, SJ and Paul Mueller, SJ. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2019, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/607 "2019-02-27T04:45:07Z")
“The personnel carrier lurches through the ruins under a wounded sky. The night hangs overhead like a sadist’s boot, stretching out the moment of terror before it falls.” ---
**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 27, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/608 "2019-02-27T19:48:20Z")
“Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” _Middlemarch_, by George Eliot ---
**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 27, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/609 "2019-02-27T20:58:54Z")
> [@StraightTalk](#): > > 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. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. > [@Morgyn](#): > > “The personnel carrier lurches through the ruins under a wounded sky. The night hangs overhead like a sadist’s boot, stretching out the moment of terror before it falls.” Authors and titles, please? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/610 "2019-02-28T00:21:20Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Authors and titles, please? Sorry! Mine is _Passage at Arms_, by Glen Cook. I was talking about it in another thread and decided a reread was in order. Luckily, I’d just finished a different book. 🙂 ---
**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 28, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/611 "2019-02-28T05:13:36Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Sorry! Mine is _Passage at Arms_, by Glen Cook. I was talking about it in another thread and decided a reread was in order. Luckily, I’d just finished a different book. 🙂 Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/612 "2019-03-01T15:05:04Z")
‘A passerby on that gray morning in March 1897, crossing, at his own risk and peril, place Maubert, or the Maub, as it was known in criminal circles (formerly a center of university life in the Middle Ages, when students flocked there from the Faculty of Arts in Vicus Stramineus, or rue du Fouarre, and later a place execution for apostles of free thought such as Etienne Dolet), would have found himself in one of the few spots in Paris spared from Baron Haussmann’s devastations, amid a tangle of malodorous alleys, sliced in two by the course of the Bievre, which still emerged here, flowing out of the bowels of the metropolis, where it had long been confined, before emptying feverish, gasping, and verminous into the nearby Seine.” _The Prague Cemetary_, by Umberto Eco ---
**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 2, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/613 "2019-03-02T18:44:01Z")
“It is said that fifty-three years after his liberation he returned from the Golden Cloud, to take up once again the gauntlet of Heaven, to oppose the Order of Life and the gods who ordained it so.” — Roger Zelazny, _Lord of Light_ I seem to be on a reread binge. ---
**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:** [March 3, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/614 "2019-03-03T21:46:55Z")
“Dirk Moeller didn’t know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out.” _The Android’s Dream_ by John Scalzi (2006) ---
**Author:** ![More\_Barn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@More\_Barn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/More_Barn)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/615 "2019-03-06T02:36:47Z")
“It was to have been a quiet evening at home.” - well, now you didn’t ask for the book, now did ya? 🙂 ---
**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 6, 2019, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/616 "2019-03-06T13:16:04Z")
John D. MacDonald, _The Deep Blue Goodbye_😉 ---
**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:** [March 10, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/617 "2019-03-10T03:47:09Z")
“The level was at his top lip now. Even with his head pressed hard back against the stones of the cell wall his nose was only just above the surface. He wasn’t going to get his hands free in time; he was going to drown.” _Consider Phlebas_ by Iain M. Banks (1987) ---
**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 10, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/618 "2019-03-10T20:16:06Z")
“I shall simply copy, word for word, the proclamation that appeared today in the _One State Gazette_.” _We_, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Translated by Mirra Ginsburg) ---
**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 11, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/619 "2019-03-11T12:48:18Z")
“Most people believe the human brain is solid.” _The Saturday Night Ghost Club_, by Craig Davidson ---
**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:** [March 11, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/620 "2019-03-11T19:30:08Z")
“It’s like dancing sitting down. Squeeze - tap - release - twist. Left hand - right foot - left hand - right hand.” _The Beach House_ by Richard Patterson and Peter de Jonge (2014) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/621 "2019-03-11T20:03:15Z")
“A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.” - _Riders of the Purple Sage_, by Zane Grey. It’s a fun read so far, because it reminds me of the criticism of Shakespeare - that he just strung together a lot of well-known quotations. In ZG’s case, it is various cliches of the Western genre. They weren’t cliches when he wrote them. But I do get the same jar as when I read _A Study in Scarlet_ - I don’t associate Mormons with sinister plots, just those nice clean-cut lads who show up at my door periodically rather than plot to steal my women. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=32)