# 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:** 63
**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:** [October 5, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1247 "2020-10-05T16:06:25Z")
“The King is dead!” cried Jackdaw, flopping his wings in fitful, tumultuous flight. _Lupus Rex_ by John Carter Cash ---
**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:** [October 6, 2020, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1248 "2020-10-06T21:29:44Z")
“More than a billion people in the world today claim intellectual inheritance from ancient Greece.” _The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently_, by Richard E. Nisbett. ---
**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:** [October 6, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1249 "2020-10-06T23:41:26Z")
“As the firestorm took his ships, as a monsoon rain of greasy incendiaries burnt his people like screaming human skewers, Abdumasi-Abd tried his very damnedest to die.” _The Monster Baru Cormorant,_ Seth Dickinson ---
**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:** [October 7, 2020, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1250 "2020-10-07T14:37:06Z")
“A young, ambitious Hugo Black thought he had to choose between the Ku Klux Klan and the Big Mules. He chose the Klan.” _Desk 88_ by Sherrod Brown ---
**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:** [October 8, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1251 "2020-10-08T23:18:12Z")
“On the day we moved to America, it snowed in Chapel Springs, Louisiana, for the first time in twenty years.” _Blackbird Fly_ by Erin Entrada Kelly ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1252 "2020-10-10T15:51:54Z")
“Your room had long ago plunged into near-complete darkness, leaving no distraction from the great rocking _thump–thump–thump_ of body after body flinging itself onto the hull.” _Harrow the Ninth_ by Tamsyn Muir ---
**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:** [October 10, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1253 "2020-10-10T18:47:37Z")
“When the French king Henri II wedded the Florentine Catherine de Medici in 1533, French and Italian culture came into close and formal alliance, and it is here that the history of ballet begins.” _Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet_, by Jennifer Homans ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1254 "2020-10-11T20:54:46Z")
It was getting hotter. The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson ---
**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:** [October 14, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1255 "2020-10-14T19:07:16Z")
“October in East Evansburg, and the last warm sun of the year slanted red through the sugar maples.” _Small Spaces_ by Katherine Arden ---
**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:** [October 15, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1256 "2020-10-15T23:18:31Z")
“The Draper Mansion, uptown on Madison Avenue at Fortieth Street, exuded the new glow of electric light on the festive night of November 15, 1882.” _The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars_, by Dava Sobel. ---
**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:** [October 16, 2020, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1257 "2020-10-16T00:30:56Z")
The prisoner raised himself on his elbow and picked up his pen. _The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom_ by H.W. Brands ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2020, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1258 "2020-10-17T11:55:02Z")
You ever seen a Klan march? _Ring Shout_ by P. Djeli Clark ---
**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:** [October 18, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1259 "2020-10-18T18:24:45Z")
She didn’t believe in any of it, not for a minute, thought Lucy Stone. _Wicked Witch Murder_, by Leslie Meier ---
**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:** [October 19, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1260 "2020-10-19T20:41:27Z")
Afterwit: 1. Later knowledge; the knowledge of riper years or later times. _Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers_, by Simon Hertnon ---
**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:** [October 21, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1261 "2020-10-21T19:35:47Z")
“The librarian and her mule spotted it at the same time.” _The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek_ by Kim Michelle Richardson ---
**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:** [October 24, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1262 "2020-10-24T15:22:45Z")
“Our house is old, and noisy, and full.” _Life Among the Savages_, by Shirley Jackson ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1263 "2020-10-24T17:25:47Z")
“Snitz and I were sitting in the backyard, waiting for time to start a fire for the steaks.” _Let’s Make A Deal_, Jerry Boyd Book 11 in the **Bob & Nikki** saga ---
**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:** [October 25, 2020, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1264 "2020-10-25T02:06:39Z")
“Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday of 2016, retired Marine General James Mattis saw a call from an unknown Indiana number flash on his cell phone screen.” – _Rage_, by Bob Woodward ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1265 "2020-10-25T16:37:27Z")
“West of Pearl Harbor, he drove along the Farrington Highway past fields of sugar cane, dark green in the moonlight.” _Micro_, by Michael Crichton ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1266 "2020-10-26T11:52:57Z")
“Stubbornly, Elijah Bailey fought panic” _The Naked Sun_ by Isaac Asimov (reread, of course - but very appropriate for these days of Zoom and distancing) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=62) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=64)