# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/141 "2017-07-15T07:39:42Z")
War between the Great Powers was much talked about in the first decade of the twentieth century, by politicians, writers, novelists and philosophers. - _The First World War: A Complete History_, Martin Gilbert ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/142 "2017-07-15T15:00:58Z")
The central organization hub for the Democratic Party is situated in a sand-colored modern building on Canal Street in Southeast Washington , DC, just a few blocks away from the Capitol. Malcolm Vance, _The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election_ ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/143 "2017-07-15T15:42:59Z")
The supremacy of the British Navy was stamped indelibly on the history of the nineteenth century during a single terrible afternoon in October, 1805. _Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War_ –Robert E. Massie ---
**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 15, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/144 "2017-07-15T15:55:47Z")
By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. **The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate** by Jacqueline Kelly ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/145 "2017-07-15T16:03:20Z")
The boat moved with a nauseous, relentless rhythm, like someone chewing on a rotten tooth. _The Lie Tree_, by Frances Hardinge ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/146 "2017-07-15T17:26:36Z")
“If Alastair Stone could get away with it, he would stay as far away from Edwina Mortenson’s office as he could.” - The Other Side (book 10 of the Alastair Stone Chronicles), by R.L. King (AKA our very own **Infovore** ). Nearly done with it. ---
**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:** [July 15, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/147 "2017-07-15T18:34:52Z")
“OK, let’s get this chauvinism thing on the table and settled before the first cards are dealt: I am an accomplished and experienced male chauvinist sexist pig.” _Love, Sex and Tractors_ - Roger Welsch ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/148 "2017-07-16T01:21:28Z")
I am between books right now. Just finished one this afternoon, haven’t cracked the next. The one I just finished: “My right hand neighbor thinks I’m crazy, so she brings me cheese.” _Two Nights_ by Kathy Reichs The one I will start at bedtime: “Hal and Bonnie Morgan wended their way through the crowded, overheated movie theater lobby into the cool air of a midwinter Phoenix night.” _Dead to Rights_ by J. A. Jance ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/149 "2017-07-16T02:44:47Z")
“My life as a traveler began in 1930, ten years before I was born.” _Journeys Into the Mind of the World_ by Richard Tillinghast ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/150 "2017-07-16T04:11:03Z")
“The note simply read: IMPORTANT.” As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of _The Princess Bride_ by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/151 "2017-07-16T05:12:02Z")
Midway in his alotted threescore years and ten, Dante comes to himself with a start and realizes that he has strayed from the True Way into the Dark Wood of Error (Worldliness). The Divine Comedy - Dante Aligheri (John Ciardi translation) I was saving this for the Dog Days, but the weather’s been unseasonably cool 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/152 "2017-07-16T16:10:48Z")
I’m on a new book now. Well, new in the sense that I am reading it now, even if it is for the forty-ellebunth time: > [@](#): > > The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the long canopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick post office to the drawbridge over Bayou Teche at the edge of town. James Lee Burke In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead ---
**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:** [July 16, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/153 "2017-07-16T16:46:23Z")
“The beginning of the sixteenth century was an exciting time to be alive.” _Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe_ by John Julius Norwich ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/154 "2017-07-16T17:07:31Z")
“There is an L-shaped scar on the left side of my chin.” Bruce Campbell, _If Chins Could Kill_. ---
**Author:** ![justmeetee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@justmeetee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justmeetee)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/155 "2017-07-16T18:09:21Z")
Scared of possible jail time, in constant pain and tired of battling for medical marijuana patients’ rights, Steven McWilliams committed suicide in San Diego on Monday July 11, 2005, on his 51st birthday. Marijuana Horticulture The indoor/outdoor MEDICAL grower’s Bible Jorge Cervantes ---
**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 18, 2017, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/156 "2017-07-18T23:36:03Z")
“The young woman’s heart was pounding.” **Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us from Missiles to the Moon to Mars** , by Nathalia Holt. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/157 "2017-07-19T00:15:23Z")
“I don’t think this is my bed.” _Denton Little’s Deathdate_, by Lance Rubin. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/158 "2017-07-19T00:46:57Z")
“Stevenson entertained many fantasies about his ancestors, most notably that he was descended from Rob Roy McGregor and that after the proscription of the clan some of the sept called themselves Stevenson.” Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, Frank McLynn and At the top of the key, I’m MOVING & GROOVING, POPping and _ROCKING_– Why you BUMPING? Crossover by Kwame Alexander (a young adult novel in verse) ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/159 "2017-07-19T05:34:10Z")
Paul Christopher had been loved by two women who could not understand why he had stopped writing poetry.\*\*–The Tears of Autumn \*\* by Charles McCarry, one of his excellent cold war spy novels, this one set at the time of Kennedy’s death. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/160 "2017-07-19T07:17:56Z")
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