# 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:** 32
**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:** [March 12, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/622 "2019-03-12T02:20:43Z")
Je me rappelle fort bien comment je cessai de peindre. - Alberto Moravia, _L’ennui_ (I remember quite well how I stopped painting.) ---
**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 12, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/623 "2019-03-12T13:48:57Z")
“‘Miss Armstrong? Miss Armstrong, can you hear me?’” _Transcription_ by Kate Atkinson (2018) ---
**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, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/624 "2019-03-12T20:17:36Z")
“My name is Val Caruso and I’m a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” \*A Long Time Coming \*by Aaron Elkins ---
**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 16, 2019, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/625 "2019-03-16T15:21:29Z")
“Gopher tortoises sunned on islands in the stream.” _No Sunscreen for the Dead_, by Tim Dorsey. ---
**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:** [March 17, 2019, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/626 "2019-03-17T07:10:17Z")
“You’ve been here before.” – _Needful Things_, by Stephen King. ---
**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 18, 2019, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/627 "2019-03-18T01:08:32Z")
“For five years, two armies had clashed along the edge of a vast continent.” _In the Hurricane’s Eye_ by Nathaniel Philbrick (2018) ---
**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 18, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/628 "2019-03-18T21:17:44Z")
“The ad said: Wanted, experienced continuity writer. Female. Apply Station KUKU, between 9 and 11 a.m.” _Of Mikes and Men_ by Jane Woodfin. ---
**Author:** ![NiceGuyJack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/niceguyjack/32/3069_2.png) [@NiceGuyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NiceGuyJack)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/629 "2019-03-23T14:06:32Z")
“There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe.” – **She** _A History of Adventure_ by H. Rider Haggard (1887) ---
**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 24, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/630 "2019-03-24T05:05:50Z")
“‘This is a slightly unusual request,’ said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint.” _The Other Side of the Sky_ by Arthur C. Clarke (1958)(first line of “The Nine Billion Names of God,” the first short story in the collection) ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2019, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/631 "2019-03-24T06:42:42Z")
“I can get you a cheaper ticket if you let me amputate your legs: I can even take your thighs as a deposit,” said the travel agent. He was clearly trying hard to be helpful: “It’s not as if you’ll need them where you’re going, is it?” _Neptune’s Brood_, Charles Stross Another that comes to mind, though it’s been forever since I last read it, is this passage from Tim Powers’s, _Declare_: > [@](#): > > The young captain’s hands were sticky with blood on the steering wheel as he cautiously backed the jeep in a tight turn off the rutted mud track onto a patch of level snow that shone in the intermittent moonlight on the edge of the gorge, and then his left hand seemed to freeze on to the gear-shift knob after he reached down to clank the lever up into first gear. The prose doesn’t get much easier to read after that, but it’s still a great read. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2019, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/632 "2019-03-24T13:47:33Z")
“Bel Riose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a fleet stationed on the Marches of the Galactic Empire.” Isaac Asimov, _Foundation and Empire_ ---
**Author:** ![mako88sb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@mako88sb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mako88sb)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/633 "2019-03-24T16:10:13Z")
“On the day he would first meet Thomas Edison, Paul watched a man burn alive in the sky above Broadway.” The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. ---
**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 25, 2019, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/634 "2019-03-25T21:28:50Z")
“The first time I visited Radio Flyer I was five years old.” _Radio Flyer: 100 Years of America’s Little Red Wagon_, by Robert Pasin and Carlye Adler ---
**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 26, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/635 "2019-03-26T20:09:50Z")
“To think, only yesterday I was in chancletas, sipping lemonade and watching my twin cousins run through the sprinkler in the yard.” _Merci Suarez Changes Gear_s, by Meg Medina ---
**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 28, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/636 "2019-03-28T23:50:03Z")
“That our family’s home was a school for the deaf did not seem in any way extraordinary to Reba, Andy, and me.” _Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World_, by Leah Hager Cohen. ---
**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 31, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/637 "2019-03-31T22:50:03Z")
“A grandfather and his granddaughter walked under the leaf-bare trees of late autumn.” _Empire Games_, by Charles Stross. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/638 "2019-04-01T01:17:57Z")
“Ariadne stared at the face in the polished oval of brass and could not believe it was hers.” _Bull God_, Roberta Gellis ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/639 "2019-04-01T11:53:58Z")
“Nearly three thousand years ago there was a long and savage war between the warriors of Greece and the city of Troy.” _The Legend of Ulysses_ by Paul Hamlyn (1965, illustr. by Mario Logli and Gabriele Santini) ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/640 "2019-04-01T13:38:05Z")
“From the doorway of the short corridor between the only two rooms in the travel-head of the spaceship, Mario Esteban Rioz watched sourly as Ted Long adjusted the video dials painstakingly.” - The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2-B, edited by Ben Bova ---
**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:** [April 4, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/641 "2019-04-04T20:27:46Z")
“He was out there somewhere.” _The Butler: A Witness to History_, by Wil Haygood [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=33)