# 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:** 84
**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 13, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1669 "2021-07-13T21:25:39Z")
“It was after midnight on my eleventh birthday when I snuck out of Mom’s house and hit the road on the search for my daddy.” _The Rambling_, by Jimmy Cajoleas. ---
**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 14, 2021, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1670 "2021-07-14T14:08:47Z")
“The elevator resembles a birdcage. The tall, ornate kind - all thin bars and gilded exterior. I even think of birds as I step inside. Exotic and bright and lush. Everything I’m not.” _Lock Every Door_ by Riley Sager ---
**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, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1671 "2021-07-15T16:06:52Z")
“Aardvarks are the last survivors of a primitive group of mammals that have lived in Africa since the dinosaurs.” _The Book of Animal Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong_, by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. ---
**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, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1672 "2021-07-15T23:16:22Z")
“My death won’t bring out the banner headlines.” _Vectors_, by Charles Sheffield. (Note: This is an anthology, and that sentence is from “What Song the Sirens Sang”.) ---
**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, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1673 "2021-07-18T18:07:17Z")
“Whenever, however this ends, I want you to know that right now, I love you forever.” _Take Me With You_, by Andrea Gibson ---
**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 19, 2021, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1674 "2021-07-19T03:39:28Z")
The nineteenth century’s most celebrated black American first tasted freedom on September 4, 1838, when he arrived in New York City as a nineteen-year-old fugitive slave. _Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad_ by Eric Foner ---
**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 19, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1675 "2021-07-19T17:20:57Z")
“When Uncle Sam sent me to Alaska in 1904, the land where I was to spend the next fourteen years was still in many ways almost as much Russian as American, although we had owned it since 1867.” _A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece_, by Hannah Breece, edited by Jane Jacobs. ---
**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:** [July 20, 2021, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1676 "2021-07-20T07:14:07Z")
“The woman stood in the far corner of the dimly lit room, hiding in shadows like a fish in gray water.” – _The Promise_, by Robert Crais ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1677 "2021-07-20T12:59:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad_ by Eric Foner Great book. Foner’s an outstanding historian and a good writer. ---
**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 21, 2021, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1678 "2021-07-21T15:52:58Z")
“I’ve always wondered if exercise could kill you, and now I’m about to find out.” _Never Nosh a Matzo Ball_, by Sharon Kahn ---
**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 22, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1679 "2021-07-22T20:52:48Z")
“Raye Means needed someone to give her a chance.” _Overnight Code: The Life of Raye Montague, the Woman Who Revolutionized Naval Engineering_, by Paige Bowers and David R. Montague. ---
**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:** [July 22, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1680 "2021-07-22T22:30:15Z")
“In April, when Samuel Sooleymon was invited to try out for the national team, he was seventeen years old, stood six feet two inches tall, and was considered to be a promising point guard, known for his quickness and vertical leap, but also for his erratic passing and mediocre shooting.” _Sooley_, by John Grisham ---
**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 24, 2021, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1681 "2021-07-24T23:53:53Z")
“Eliot James sat at a metal desk inside the space ship which had conveyed a few score human beings from the doomed earth to safety on the sun’s new planet Bronson Beta.” _After Worlds Collide_, by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer. ---
**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 25, 2021, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1682 "2021-07-25T00:59:07Z")
“People who know me often talk as though I was from Texas.” _We Pointed Them North_ by E.C. Abbot (“Teddy Blue”) and Helena Huntington Smith ---
**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:** [July 25, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1683 "2021-07-25T20:20:58Z")
“Who were the Plantagenets?” – _The Plantagenets_, by Dan Jones ---
**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:** [July 25, 2021, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1684 "2021-07-25T22:43:39Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > “Who were the Plantagenets?” > > – _The Plantagenets_ , by Dan Jones Oops! Omitted the subtitle. The full title of the book is _The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England_, by Dan Jones. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1685 "2021-07-25T23:10:13Z")
Doesn’t the full title of the book answer the question in the first line? What’s the point of reading the book, then? 😉 ---
**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:** [July 26, 2021, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1686 "2021-07-26T03:09:52Z")
Asked and answered. Moving on to the next book. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2021, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1687 "2021-07-26T03:11:16Z")
I’m glad we had this little chat. ---
**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 26, 2021, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1688 "2021-07-26T14:35:34Z")
“There was a man and he had eight sons.” _Sourcery_, by Terry Pratchett [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=83) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=85)