# 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:** 53
**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:** [April 22, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1043 "2020-04-22T20:49:01Z")
“Like Holden, I don’t feel like going into all that David Copperfield crap, although in my case, a little about my parents you may find more interesting than reading about me.” – _Apropos of Nothing._, by Woody Allen EDIT: That is not a typo. The period after “Nothing” is part of the title. ---
**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 22, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1044 "2020-04-22T23:19:24Z")
“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” _Circe_, by Madeline Miller ---
**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:** [April 24, 2020, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1045 "2020-04-24T03:50:12Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > “Like Holden, I don’t feel like going into all that David Copperfield crap, although in my case, a little about my parents you may find more interesting than reading about me.” > > – _Apropos of Nothing._, by Woody Allen > > EDIT: That is not a typo. The period after “Nothing” is part of the title. D’oh! :smack: I left out a couple of words. Let me try that again: “Like Holden, I don’t feel like going into all that David Copperfield kind of crap, although in my case, a little about my parents you may find more interesting than reading about me.” – _Apropos of Nothing._, by Woody Allen ---
**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 25, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1046 "2020-04-25T16:59:04Z")
“Ocala Police picked up Dale Crowe Junior for weaving, two o’clock in the morning, crossing the center line and having a busted taillight.” _Riding the Rap_ by Elmore Leonard ---
**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 26, 2020, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1047 "2020-04-26T17:44:13Z")
“My puppy, a beagle/Labrador mix, is one year old and does everything puppies do.” _Ask Me Anything: A Year of Advice from Dear Annie_, by Annie Lang with Courtney Davison ---
**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 27, 2020, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1048 "2020-04-27T13:37:42Z")
“People are screaming.” _Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions_, by Joe Berkowitz. ---
**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 29, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1049 "2020-04-29T21:01:54Z")
“The news was everywhere on the River Bank and had been heard as far as the Wild Wood: Sunflower Cottage just above the weir had been taken by two female animals, and it was being set up for quite an extended stay.” _The River Bank: A Sequel to The Wind in the Willows_, by Kij Johnson ---
**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 1, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1050 "2020-05-01T14:26:10Z")
“My planet fetish began, as best I can recall, in third grade, at age eight–right around the time I learned that Earth had siblings in space, just as I had older brothers in high school and college.” _The Planets_, by Dava Sobel ---
**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 2, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1051 "2020-05-02T15:57:31Z")
“With a sigh, Father Mikhail dropped onto the rudimentary bench set along the partially-built wall.” _City by the Bay: Stories of Novaya Rossiya_, by Walter H. Hunt ---
**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 4, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1052 "2020-05-04T02:07:02Z")
“I met Jodi Taylor and her manager for lunch on the Coast Highway in Malibu, not far from Paradise Cove and the Malibu Colony.” – _Voodoo River_, by Robert Crais ---
**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 4, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1053 "2020-05-04T15:58:14Z")
“It is astonishing how little attention critics have paid to Story considered in itself.” _On Stories and Other Essays on Literature_, by C. S. Lewis ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1054 "2020-05-04T16:14:18Z")
“Brother Cadfael was working in the small kitchen garden by the abbot’s fish-ponds when the boy was first brought to him.” One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters (Brother Cadfael series) ---
**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 6, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1055 "2020-05-06T15:29:48Z")
“I could not see the street or much of the estate.” _The City & the City_, by China Mieville ---
**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 6, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1056 "2020-05-06T16:28:05Z")
“America, said Horace, the office temp, was a run-down and demented pimp.” _The Ask_ by Sam Lipsyte ---
**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 6, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1057 "2020-05-06T21:59:12Z")
“Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while.” – _This Side of Paradise_, by F Scott Fitzgerald ---
**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:** [May 7, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1058 "2020-05-07T01:53:32Z")
For about half a league after we came out of the little harbor on Newark Bay at Elizabeth, New Jersey - with its strewn alleys and broken buildings, its pervading aura of collapse, where the mayor himself had met us at the dock and stood before a podium his staff fetched up for him to set his speech on, words to launch us on that Earth Day across the continent as he reminded us of history here, of George Washington on nearly the same date being rowed across to New York City on the last leg of his inaugural journey - and for the half league down the Kill Van Kull (there Henry Hudson lost a sailor to an arrow through the neck), we had to lay in behind a rusting Norwegian freighter heading out to sea with so little cargo that her massive props were no more than half in the water and slapping up a thunderous wake and thrashing such a roil it sent our little teakettle of a boat rolling fore and aft. –_River Horse, by William Least Heat-Moon_ ---
**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:** [May 7, 2020, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1059 "2020-05-07T02:08:45Z")
“The Purple Sage opened his mouth and moved his tongue and so spake to them and he said: 'The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart; volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts; and then on other days it just rains.” -Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, _The Eye In The Pyramid_ ---
**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 7, 2020, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1060 "2020-05-07T04:03:40Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > For about half a league after we came out of the little harbor on Newark Bay at Elizabeth, New Jersey - with its strewn alleys and broken buildings, its pervading aura of collapse, where the mayor himself had met us at the dock and stood before a podium his staff fetched up for him to set his speech on, words to launch us on that Earth Day across the continent as he reminded us of history here, of George Washington on nearly the same date being rowed across to New York City on the last leg of his inaugural journey - and for the half league down the Kill Van Kull (there Henry Hudson lost a sailor to an arrow through the neck), we had to lay in behind a rusting Norwegian freighter heading out to sea with so little cargo that her massive props were no more than half in the water and slapping up a thunderous wake and thrashing such a roil it sent our little teakettle of a boat rolling fore and aft. > > –_River Horse, by William Least Heat-Moon_ Wow! Bet he can’t say that in one breath at public readings. ---
**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 8, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1061 "2020-05-08T20:59:59Z")
“The debutante ritual flourished roughly from 1780 to 1914–beginning with the first debutante ball in London and ending with the outbreak of World War I.” _The Season: A Social History of the Debutante_, by Kristen Richardson ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1062 "2020-05-08T21:38:55Z")
Imagine that a small group of people had invented a fully functioning jet airplane capable of flying long distances at hundreds of miles an hour, decades before the Wright brothers cast their fragile craft into the wind for twelve seconds over North Carolina sand dunes in 1903. The Friendly Orange Glow by Brian Dear. The jet in this case being the PLATO system on which we had many of the cyberculture features we’re familiar with today in the early 1970s. My Star Trek preview column from the first online newspaper gets a few lines. And I found that undergrads at the University of Illinois set their class schedules around the Star Trek schedule I put in it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=52) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=54)