# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/81 "2017-04-25T10:49:59Z")
“If there was any doubt at the turn of the twentieth century, by the turn of the twenty-first, it was a foregone conclusion: when it comes to revealing the true nature of reality, common experience is deceptive.” Brian Greene,_The Hidden Reality_ ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/82 "2017-04-25T10:55:54Z")
BTW, I like Darren Garrison’s game – makes my entry (and those of many others) pretty funny. But not Max Torque’s. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/83 "2017-04-25T11:39:40Z")
“It did not seem a night for revolution.” _Duce!_ by Richard Collier, copyright 1971. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/84 "2017-04-25T13:34:48Z")
The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight - the air is thick and heavy - a strange, death like stillness pervades all nature. A fun if somewhat tortuous Dickens like novel, by James Malcom Rymer ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/85 "2017-04-25T14:50:40Z")
“You will develop a palate.” \*Sweetbitter \*by Stephanie Danler. The second sentence: “A palate is a spot on your tongue where you remember.” ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/86 "2017-04-25T14:58:24Z")
“The letter had said to meet in a bookstore.” _The Magician’s Land_ by Lev Grossman ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/87 "2017-04-25T15:13:36Z")
“This book is an official battle-by-battle history of the American Sex Revolution.” _Rape of the A. P. E. (American Puritan Ethic : The Official History of the Sex Revolution, 1945-1973 : The Obscening of America, an R. S. V. P.)_ by Allan Sherman. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/88 "2017-04-25T15:51:13Z")
“Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet.” _The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck_ - Mark Manson ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/89 "2017-04-25T16:02:52Z")
Look to the edge of the swollen Missouri in Montana Territory, where the longest river on the continent holds a blush of twilight, to see what becomes of an Irishman just before he disappears. - The Immortal Irishman (Biography of Thomas Francis Meagher) by Timothy Egan ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/90 "2017-04-25T16:32:30Z")
> [@](#): > > In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_. I absolutely love it. In 50-odd years of serious reading this is my third time round. ---
**Author:** ![luvrbcs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@luvrbcs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luvrbcs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/91 "2017-04-25T16:53:10Z")
“I wanted darkness.” _Lords of the North_ by Bernard Cornwell. Book 3 of the Saxon series, an excellent read. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/92 "2017-04-25T18:05:28Z")
“Dr. Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and every thing that happins to me from now on.” I’ve never read “Flowers for Algernon” but somehow I know everything that’s going to happen. Taking a break from re-reading Pratchett and King. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/93 "2017-07-03T12:40:31Z")
“On January 12, 1779, an eleven-year-old New England boy named John Quincy Adams started a diary that continued, rarely interrupted, for almost seventy tumultuous years.” -from _John Quincy Adams (A Public Life, A Private Life)_ by Paul C. Nagel. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/94 "2017-07-03T12:52:13Z")
“Snowflakes danced through the evening light.” _SIX FOUR_, Hideo Yokoyama. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/95 "2017-07-03T14:59:00Z")
“As Director of the Peace Corps, it has been my honor to have met Peace Corps Volunteers all over the world and to have seen firsthand the remarkable dedication, passion, and skill they bring to serving others.”–Ron Tschetter,\* A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service.\* ---
**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, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/96 "2017-07-03T17:52:22Z")
“When Patricia was six years old, she found a wounded bird.” **All the Birds in the Sky** , by Charlie Jane Anders ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/97 "2017-07-03T18:27:47Z")
“When Henry Robinson Luce looked down on the muddy Yangtze on October 6, 1945, he had reason to feel exultation in the consummation of one of the great dreams of his life.” – from _[Luce and His Empire](https://www.amazon.com/Luce-His-Empire-W-Swanberg/dp/0684125927/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499106398&sr=8-1&keywords=luce+and+his+empire)_, by W. A. Swanberg. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/98 "2017-07-03T18:42:19Z")
_“I was having lunch with Timothy Leary in the late 1980s at a little sidewalk cafe near Sunset and Gower in Hollywood, California.”_ –Infinite Tuesday - An Autobiographical Riff by Michael Nesmith ---
**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 3, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/99 "2017-07-03T19:20:29Z")
“The letter, several pages in length and signed by Secretary of the Navy George M. Robeson, was addressed to Commander Thomas O. Selfridge.” From _The Path Between the Seas_, David McCullough’s terrific history of the building of the Panama Canal ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2017, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/100 "2017-07-04T05:18:58Z")
“The children were playing while Holstrom climbed to his death.” —“Wool”, by Hugh Howey [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=6)