# 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:** 46
**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:** [December 19, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/903 "2019-12-19T19:33:16Z")
“Her hair was matted, her face streaked and swollen.” _Logan’s Run_ by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (1967) ---
**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:** [December 19, 2019, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/904 "2019-12-19T22:55:34Z")
“Smile!” _Smile_, by Raina Telgemeier ---
**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:** [December 20, 2019, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/905 "2019-12-20T14:01:47Z")
“She was squinting at the thermometer in the white light coming through the window.” _The Running Man_ by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)(1982) ---
**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:** [December 20, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/906 "2019-12-20T19:29:39Z")
“The laboratory, in Cumbria, was home to four young scientists.” _The Psychology of Time Travel_, by Kate Mascarenhas ---
**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:** [December 20, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/907 "2019-12-20T19:32:09Z")
nm ---
**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:** [December 23, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/908 "2019-12-23T00:09:15Z")
“It was Ptah-Hotep, an Egyptian official of the 24th century BC, who first expressed the sentiment ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ and it has been used as an excuse for throwing a party ever since.” _A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction_, by Suzette Field ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/909 "2019-12-24T08:02:34Z")
“I don’t think anyone can truly comprehend just how vast the North Atlantic Ocean is without spending six or seven weeks sailing it in a small boat.” _Phantom Islands of the Atlantic_ by Donald S. Johnson (1994) ---
**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:** [December 24, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/910 "2019-12-24T20:11:03Z")
“Thin, pale sunbeams shone tentatively around the edges of curtains drawn tight against the winter cold in the windows of the master suite of Elm Creek Manor.” _A Christmas Boutique_, by Jennifer Chiaverini. ---
**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:** [December 26, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/911 "2019-12-26T20:22:34Z")
“I hope you have better luck with this parish than you’ve had in your first one.” _How Green Was My Curate_ by Fred Secombe. ---
**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:** [December 28, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/912 "2019-12-28T01:22:50Z")
“The city was covered in snow, thirty-one inches so far with more on the way.” _Monsters Among Us: A Bianca Jones Collection_, by John L. French. ---
**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:** [December 28, 2019, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/913 "2019-12-28T03:07:29Z")
“I have been here before,” I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian almost twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour, and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest. ---
**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:** [December 28, 2019, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/914 "2019-12-28T04:27:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “I have been here before,” I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian almost twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour, and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest. And the author and title…? ---
**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:** [December 28, 2019, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/915 "2019-12-28T04:29:02Z")
“There were at least three kinds of cops in Harvard Yard: a scattering of Cambridge cops, gray-haired mostly, with faces out of County Mayo; portly old men in brown uniforms and no sidearms who guarded the gates; and squadrons of Harvard University police who wore tailored blue uniforms and expensive black gun belts, and looked like graduates of the Los Angeles Police Academy.” _Valediction_ by Robert B. Parker (1984) ---
**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:** [December 28, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/916 "2019-12-28T19:44:31Z")
“Kamila Jan, I’m honored to present you with your certificate.” _The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe_, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/917 "2019-12-28T20:16:01Z")
At three-thirty a.m. on June 22, 1773, fifteen minutes before sunrise, a royal chaise pulled by four matched horses burst from the gates of Kew Palace, escorted by cavalry outriders in scarlet coats. The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 - Rick Atkinson, first book of a trilogy about the Revolutionary War. ---
**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:** [December 30, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/918 "2019-12-30T04:54:12Z")
“The Red Centre. We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The Aunts patrolled.” _The Handmaid’s Tale_ by Margaret Atwood, art by Renee Nault (graphic novel, 2019) ---
**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:** [December 30, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/919 "2019-12-30T22:18:00Z")
“I first saw the light of the city of Boston in the year 1857.” _Looking Backward_, by Edward Bellamy ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/920 "2019-12-31T15:58:37Z")
“This soup combines two separate recipes attributed to the agriculturalist and linguist Varro.” Skipping the rather long Preface and Introduction, this is the first sentence of the first recipe in “Cooking Apicius” by Sally Grainger. It is a translation with adaptations for the modern cook based upon the world’s oldest known cookbook. The soup, to my everlasting surprise, is a “Roman Bortsch”. ---
**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:** [January 1, 2020, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/921 "2020-01-01T07:37:48Z")
“Napoleone di Buonaparte, as he signed himself until manhood, was born in Ajaccio, one of the larger towns on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, just before noon on Tuesday, August 15, 1769.” _Napoleon: A Life_, by Andrew Roberts ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/922 "2020-01-01T07:47:59Z")
“The Story of a Hundred Operas is not intended in any way to be a serious literary production, but is an endeavor to present to the opera-loving public in clear and concise form, the plots of the operas, with mention of the principal arias as they appear.” -The Story of a Hundred Operas, Felix Mendelsohn [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=47)