# 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:** 37
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/722 "2019-07-01T15:11:39Z")
Now, touching this business of old Jeeves - my man, you know - how do we stand? Carry on Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse. ---
**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 3, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/723 "2019-07-03T14:02:03Z")
“The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it.” _Ancillary Justice_, by Ann Leckie ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2019, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/724 "2019-07-03T14:34:56Z")
“They say – and God knows better and is more glorious and nobler – that amongst the stories of ancient times and past peoples is one that is suited to the intelligence of men of understanding who both ask and give.” _“Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange”_, a medieval collection of Arabian fantasies, contemporary with the _1001 Nights_, but much less well known, and only recently translated into English by Malcolm C. Lyons. Actually, no one knows what the title is, or the real first line – the initial pages are missing. But this is where it starts, and the current title is taken from a line in the book. ---
**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 6, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/725 "2019-07-06T19:02:27Z")
“Surveying literary approaches to all things natural has proved an even more endless quest than gathering together their ideas about gardens and about food, the subjects of my first two anthologies in this series.” _Pleasures of Nature: A Literary Anthology_, edited by Christina Hardyment ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/726 "2019-07-06T22:11:01Z")
" I fling open my bedroom curtains, and there’s the thirsty sky and the wide river full of ships and boats and stuff, but I’m already thinking of Vinny’s chocolatey eyes, shampoo down Vinny’s back, beads of sweat on Vinny’s shoulders, and Vinny’s sly laugh, and by now my heart’s going mental and, God, I wish I was waking up at Vinny’s place in Peacock Street and not in my own stupid bedroom." The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/727 "2019-07-06T23:02:45Z")
“_There is so much blood_” - Middlegame, Seanan McGuire ---
**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:** [July 7, 2019, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/728 "2019-07-07T01:52:18Z")
“Halla of Rutger’s Howe had just inherited a great deal of money and was therefore spending her evening trying to figure out how to kill herself.” — _Swordheart_, Ursula Vernon And yes, it makes perfect sense before the chapter ends. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2019, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/729 "2019-07-07T02:04:56Z")
History is portrayed as a science. _Empires Apart: A History of American and Russian Imperialism_ by Brian Landers ---
**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:** [July 8, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/730 "2019-07-08T14:13:06Z")
“The long harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia on a long, long summer’s day, and two frigates gliding in on the tide of flood under their topsails alone: the first, since she had belonged to the United States navy until a few days before, wore the Stars and Stripes under a white ensign; the second showed no more than her own shabby colours, for she was HMS _Shannon_, the winner in that short and bloody action with the _Chesapeake_.” _The Surgeon’s Mate_ by Patrick O’Brian (1980) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/731 "2019-07-08T16:17:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Never before, as he knew, had any of his countrymen set off to accomplish anything like what he had agreed to undertake – a mission that, should he succeed, could change the course of history in innumerable ways and to the long-lasting benefit of countless Americans. –David McCullough **The Pioneers** ---
**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 8, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/732 "2019-07-08T18:42:32Z")
“The plains of Idaho seemed to stretch from here to Heaven in the moonlight, if such a place existed, and the Blackstone Family Circus rolled over them as silently as a wagon train can roll, which was to say, not silently in the least.” _Deadlands: Boneyard_, by Seanan McGuire ---
**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:** [July 11, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/733 "2019-07-11T15:32:55Z")
“In the opening hours of a mission to wartime Europe in July 1918, Franklin Roosevelt, then thirty-six and working for the Navy Department, looked over a typewritten “Memorandum for Assistant Secretary” to discover what was in store for him in London.” _Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship_ by Jon Meacham (2004) ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/734 "2019-07-11T16:29:00Z")
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. …” - Tolstoy, W&P (Yes, I am reading this now) ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/735 "2019-07-11T16:30:42Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > “The long harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia on a long, long summer’s day, and two frigates gliding in on the tide of flood under their topsails alone: the first, since she had belonged to the United States navy until a few days before, wore the Stars and Stripes under a white ensign; the second showed no more than her own shabby colours, for she was HMS _Shannon_, the winner in that short and bloody action with the _Chesapeake_.” > > _The Surgeon’s Mate_ by Patrick O’Brian (1980) I love this series. Once I start, I need to keep reading all the novels. Been through them all at least three times… ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/736 "2019-07-11T16:38:51Z")
I’m sure this one has been listed already here, but I’m not reading the whole thread to find out. “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.” _The War Of The Worlds_ by H. G. Wells. This sentence is even more awesome if someone like Cedric Hardwicke or Morgan Freeman says it. ---
**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:** [July 11, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/737 "2019-07-11T18:42:36Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > I love this series. Once I start, I need to keep reading all the novels. Been through them all at least three times… This is my first time through the series. I enjoyed the movie _Master and Commander_, and off and on have been listening to audiobooks of all the books in order. ---
**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 11, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/738 "2019-07-11T19:31:15Z")
“As kitchen tables go, it wasn’t memorable, fashionable, or even pleasing to the eye.” _A Grand Success! The Aardman Journey, One Frame at a Time_, by Peter Lord and David Sproxton ---
**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 12, 2019, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/739 "2019-07-12T05:22:28Z")
“I never knew her in life.” – _The Black Dahlia_, by James Ellroy ---
**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 13, 2019, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/740 "2019-07-13T13:32:29Z")
“Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill.” \* The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency\*, by Alexander McCall Smith ---
**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 14, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/741 "2019-07-14T21:42:47Z")
“Three hundred miles up the Mississippi River from its mouth–many parishes above New Orleans and well north of Baton Rouge–a navigation lock in the Mississippi’s right bank allows ships to drop out of the river.” _The Control of Nature_, by John McPhee [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=38)