# 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:** 34
**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:** [May 3, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/662 "2019-05-03T18:26:30Z")
“The warm monsoon blew gently from the east, wafting HMS _Leopard_ into the bay of Pulo Batang.” _The Fortune of War_ by Patrick O’Brian (1979) ---
**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:** [May 7, 2019, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/663 "2019-05-07T23:39:16Z")
“…Survivability has increased during hibernation since the introduction of Dormitoria, efficient weight-gain regimes, and Morphenox, but superstition and fear remain.” _Early Riser_, by Jasper Fforde ---
**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:** [May 8, 2019, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/664 "2019-05-08T03:24:55Z")
“So what did \*you \*do, Mary Jo?” called Ben in his crisp British accent. — _Storm Cursed_, Patricia Briggs ---
**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:** [May 8, 2019, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/665 "2019-05-08T12:08:29Z")
“From above, from a distance, the marks in the dust formed a tight circle.” - The Lost Man, by Jane Harper ---
**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:** [May 11, 2019, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/666 "2019-05-11T07:22:41Z")
“September 2005: Despite the velvet-flocked, gold-leaf splendor of the Metropol Hotel, the enduring fetor of Moscow clung to the drapes and lay thick on the carpet, an incense of fusel oil, boiled cabbage, and ruined pussy.” – _The Kremlin’s Candidate_, by Jason Matthews ---
**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:** [May 12, 2019, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/667 "2019-05-12T18:11:38Z")
“As she woke up in the pod, she remembered three things.” _The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet_ by Becky Chambers ---
**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:** [May 12, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/668 "2019-05-12T22:17:28Z")
The composer Giuseppe Verdi was not a man with particularly strong or sophisticated political views, but he was almost unerringly alert to the mood of his audiences; and when, at the beginning of 1861, just a few months after the extraordinary chain of events that had led, in what many observers felt had been a providential fashion, to the unification of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia and his prime minister, Count Camillo Cavour, he was approached by the Imperial Theater of St. Petersburg to write a new opera, he quickly alighted for his subject on a play that had been written nearly thirty years earlier by a well-known Spanish writer and politician, the Duke of Rivas, _Don Alvaro o la fuerza del sino - Don Alvaro or the Force of Fate_. _The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796_ by Christopher Duggan I’m pretty sure this is the longest sentence I’ve posted in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2019, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/669 "2019-05-13T05:04:03Z")
“I had reached the age of six hundred and fifty miles.” (_The Inverted World_, Christopher Priest, 1974.) I’m re-reading it now. Great line to make the reader think. ---
**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:** [May 13, 2019, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/670 "2019-05-13T12:58:23Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > “September 2005: Despite the velvet-flocked, gold-leaf splendor of the Metropol Hotel, the enduring fetor of Moscow clung to the drapes and lay thick on the carpet, an incense of fusel oil, boiled cabbage, and ruined pussy.” > > – _The Kremlin’s Candidate_, by Jason Matthews Nice. 😃 “It had started when Hattie was a little girl.” -_The Invited_, Jennifer McMahon ---
**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:** [May 16, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/671 "2019-05-16T21:08:38Z")
“Thalia Ng felt her weight increasing as the elevated sped down the spoke from the habitat’s docking hub.” _The Prefect_, by Alastair Reynolds ---
**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:** [May 17, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/672 "2019-05-17T03:22:38Z")
I woke in crisp white cotton sheets to the sound of skylarks, with the sun beaming through a window somewhere nearby. – _Dark Intelligence_, Neal Asher ---
**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:** [May 17, 2019, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/673 "2019-05-17T04:19:25Z")
“His real name was John Paul, inherited, along with a chip on the shoulder, from his father.” _John Paul Jones_ by Evan Thomas (2003) ---
**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:** [May 23, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/674 "2019-05-23T00:38:09Z")
“The three of us entered this universe two days ago, blue planet time, and parked the Mother Ship XKE behind the dirt-ball satellite they refer to as their Moon.” _Tranquility and Other Myths: Seventeen Stories of Light, Night, and the Writhing Shadows_, edited by Donna Royston ---
**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:** [May 23, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/675 "2019-05-23T12:56:30Z")
“Nineteen minutes before her brain and her body parted ways, Tara Beckley’s concern was the cold.” _If She Wakes_, by Michael Koryta ---
**Author:** ![uncle\_squeegee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b5e925/32.png) [@uncle\_squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uncle_squeegee)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/676 "2019-05-24T14:54:26Z")
This is a beautiful library, timed perfectly, lush and American. -The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 by Richard Brautigan Marianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell. -Normal People by Sally Rooney Dr. Katya Vidović stands outside the hospital courtyard gate, watching the Reptile Man exercise his pets. -What We Do with the Wreckage, stories by Kirsten Sundberg Lundstrum ---
**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:** [May 24, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/677 "2019-05-24T14:58:52Z")
“I fled, or at least, backed awkwardly away from journalism because I wanted the freedom to make things up.” _The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction_, by Neil Gaiman ---
**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:** [May 27, 2019, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/678 "2019-05-27T03:27:00Z")
“Science demands collaboration. There are no lone geniuses, never evil geniuses, and very rarely any heretical geniuses.” _A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived_ by Adam Rutherford (2016) ---
**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:** [May 27, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/679 "2019-05-27T14:41:16Z")
Travel Time between Miami, Florida and Tokyo, Japan, is about seventeen and a half hours - plenty of time to contemplate what I was getting myself into. \*Walking the Kiso Road. A modern -day exploration of old Japan. \* William Scott Wilson. ---
**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:** [May 28, 2019, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/680 "2019-05-28T13:36:46Z")
“_Were_ they truly intelligent? By themselves, that is? I don’t know and I don’t know how we can ever find out. I’m not a lab man; I’m an operator.” _The Puppet Masters_ by Robert A. Heinlein (1951) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/681 "2019-05-28T13:54:33Z")
“I did not scream when I came in the back door of Sal’s Saloon, where I work, to find Sal himself lying there on the floor of the stockroom, the color of blue ruin, fluids leaking from his various holes and puddling on the ground, including a little spot of blood by his head” — “Noir” by Christopher Moore Moore is one of my favorite writers and he is doing this one in the style of a Hammett or Chandler. Honestly I don’t like the opening line all that much, but he said “lying” instead of “laying,” so I’m happy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=33) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=35)