# 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:** 71
**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:** [January 29, 2021, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1407 "2021-01-29T19:14:18Z")
Book and author? ---
**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:** [January 29, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1408 "2021-01-29T22:01:49Z")
“My childhood came to a virtual halt when I was around five years old.” _Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression_, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2021, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1409 "2021-01-29T22:14:34Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Book and author? _Absalom, Absalom!_ - William Faulkner ---
**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:** [January 30, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1410 "2021-01-30T17:32:29Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits The cover art on this book, by the way > **[Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Heathens-Spirits-During-Depression-ebook/dp/B000QTD65Q)** > > Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression eBook : Kalish, Mildred Armstrong: Amazon.co.uk: Books is reminiscent of a Straight Dope book. ---
**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:** [January 31, 2021, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1411 "2021-01-31T04:40:29Z")
Yes, it is! And thanks, **silenus**. ---
**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 31, 2021, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1412 "2021-01-31T05:33:43Z")
“Two middle-aged spies are sitting in an apartment in the Christian Quarter, sipping tea and lying courteously to each other, as evening approaches.” – _A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal_, by Ben MacIntyre ---
**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:** [January 31, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1413 "2021-01-31T16:42:57Z")
“On an early morning in mid-August, EPA Special Agents Tim Singewald and Lenox Baker left the Region 8 Environmental Protection Agency building at 1595 Wynkoop Street in downtown Denver in a Chevrolet Malibu SA hybrid sedan they’d checked out from the motor pool.” _Breaking Point_, by C.J. Box, Joe Pickett series book #13. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1414 "2021-02-01T15:44:52Z")
“Take care to chop the onion fine.” _Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies_, by Laura Esquivel, translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2021, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1415 "2021-02-01T15:57:47Z")
“The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.” Ray Bradbury, _Something Wicked this Way Comes_ ---
**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:** [February 1, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1416 "2021-02-01T15:58:27Z")
“Nate Romanowski pushed the drift boat onto the Bighorn River at three-thirty in the morning on a Sunday in early October and let the silent muscle of the current pull him away from the grassy bank.” _Stone Cold_, by C.J. Box. Book #14 in the Joe Pickett 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:** [February 2, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1417 "2021-02-02T18:05:58Z")
“His name was Major Cadmann Jacob Weyland, and this was his last stand.” _Starborn & Godsons_, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1418 "2021-02-03T16:30:19Z")
“Everyone had had it with James Buchanan, his endless equivocations, his bureaucratic mind, his melodrama, his lack of vision, the way he let things get so out of control, the way in which it seemed impossible for him to, in fact, regain control, his plodding, doddering, aimless oldness in a nation obsessed with direction and youth.” -_The Worst President: The Story of James Buchanan_, by Garry Boulard ---
**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:** [February 3, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1419 "2021-02-03T17:55:49Z")
When, from 2014 to 2016, riots in places like Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee, or Charlotte captured our attention, most of us thought we knew how those segregated neighborhoods, with their crime, violence, anger, and poverty came to be. _The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America_ by Richard Rothstein As somebody who overuses commas, even I am impressed by seeing ten of them in a single sentence. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1420 "2021-02-03T18:28:19Z")
And there should be 11. They missed one after “poverty”. “I first encountered Frances Glessner Lee’s dioramas as a young doctor in 2003, when I traveled to Baltimore to interview for a position at the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.” _18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics_ — by by Bruce Goldfarb (Author), Judy Melinek (Introduction) It’s been interesting seeing how this book, _The Poisoner’s Handbook_, which I read last year, and _The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History_, which I read at the end of last year, all cover the same period in history and detail different aspects of the growth of medical science. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1421 "2021-02-04T03:34:30Z")
I found her thirty miles north of Oakland at Sears Point – the international raceway, to be exact, where headstrong car freaks of all sexes liked to hang out before the war. _Pulling Through_, by Dean Ing A nuke war story with a few related essays – sort of a combination of Pat Frank’s two books, _Alas, Babylon_ and _How to Survive the H-Bomb – and Why_. ---
**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:** [February 4, 2021, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1422 "2021-02-04T19:51:40Z")
“This is how the birth of the eel comes about: it takes place in a region of the northwest Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea, a place that is in every respect suitable for the creation of eels.” _The Book of Eels_, by Patrik Svensson ---
**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:** [February 4, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1423 "2021-02-04T20:20:50Z")
“When Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett received the call every parent dreads, he was standing knee-deep in thick sagebrush, counting the carcasses of sage grouse.” _Endangered_, by C.J. Box ---
**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:** [February 6, 2021, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1424 "2021-02-06T16:18:37Z")
“A murder case is like a tree.” _The Law of Innocence_, by Michael Connelly ---
**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:** [February 6, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1425 "2021-02-06T16:54:29Z")
“The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o’clock.” _Song of Solomon_ by Toni Morrison ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1426 "2021-02-06T17:23:19Z")
“I will die on this world.” _Helsreach_ by Aaron Dembski-Bowden [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=70) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=72)