# 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:** 89
**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 1, 2021, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1769 "2021-10-01T12:07:33Z")
“Elizabeth Hanover scuttled along the grimy sidewalk, her shoulders hunched and eyes downcast, running away from the sour fear-stink of a rendezvous gone wrong.” _Invisible Sun_ by Charles Stross ---
**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 4, 2021, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1770 "2021-10-04T13:29:42Z")
“It is no accident that Ken Lay’s career in the energy business began - and, most likely, ended - in the city of Houston, Texas.” _The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron_ by Bethany McLean ---
**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 4, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1771 "2021-10-04T20:50:46Z")
“On the morning Perveen saw the stranger, they’d almost collided.” _The Widows of Malabar Hill_, by Sujata Massey ---
**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, 2021, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1772 "2021-10-06T23:25:42Z")
“Lucian Freud’s 1952 portrait of his friend, the artist Francis Bacon, is the size of a pocket paperback.” _The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art_, by Sebastian Smee. ---
**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 7, 2021, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1773 "2021-10-07T04:36:50Z")
“Late on the afternoon of Tuesday the ninth of April in the Year of Our Risen Lord 1468, a solitary traveller was to be observed picking his way on horseback across the wild moorland of that ancient region of southwestern England known since Saxon times as Wessex.” – _The Second Sleep_, by Robert Harris ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2021, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1774 "2021-10-08T17:31:06Z")
Catherine Montaigne was appalled. - _To End in Fire_ by David Weber and Eric Flint ---
**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 8, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1775 "2021-10-08T19:30:16Z")
“It was a nice day.” _Good Omens_ - Pratchett & Gaiman (for maybe the billionth time) ---
**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, 2021, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1776 "2021-10-08T22:44:46Z")
“The driveway wound at least a mile through the dark woods, off the paved road.” _The Dragon House_, by Darrell Schweitzer ---
**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:** [October 9, 2021, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1777 "2021-10-09T02:57:23Z")
It was early morning on the banks of the Elkinslough River. Mist hung heavily over the brown water, turning it briefly pale and disguising the muddiness of the flow. Five men stood on the city-side bank, looking at a corpse. — _Paladin’s Hope_, Ursula Vernon (writing as T. Kingfisher) ---
**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 9, 2021, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1778 "2021-10-09T19:13:21Z")
“On June 26, 1659, a representative from five towns in a province of northern Italy initiated legal proceedings against caterpillars.” _Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law_, by Mary Roach ---
**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 11, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1779 "2021-10-11T23:17:19Z")
“Tell me, Mr. Maverick, is this your first time on the riverboat?” _The Odd Couple_, by Neil Simon (Note that the speaker, a poker buddy of Oscar Madison’s, is presumably himself quoting from the TV series _Maverick_.) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2021, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1780 "2021-10-12T06:22:42Z")
‘Of all the myriad races of thinking creatures in the world, the two that most delight in telling stories are the flesh-and-blood humans and the long-lived, fiery jinn.’ prologue, **The Hidden Palace** ; a novel of _The Golem and the Jinni_, by Helene Wecker. ---
**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 12, 2021, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1781 "2021-10-12T18:39:43Z")
“In some years, more than 40 percent of all local laws passed by the New York City Council have been street name changes.” _The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power_, by Deirdre Mask. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1782 "2021-10-12T19:03:54Z")
**I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old.** **It was the summer after the war, and the Ayreses still had most of their money then, were still big people in the district.** _The Little Stranger_ by Sarah Waters. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1783 "2021-10-13T18:05:32Z")
_I was born in 1961, so I would have been seven or eight years old when the events detailed in this compelling book took place._ –Peter Jackson’s forward to **The Beatles: Get Back** ---
**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 15, 2021, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1784 "2021-10-15T07:13:24Z")
“On a Saturday morning in late November 1944, in a railway shed in the Dutch seaside resort of Scheveningen, three ballistic missiles, each nearly fifteen meters long, lay in their steel cradles like cosseted patients in a private clinic, their inspection covers open, hooked up to monitors and tended by technicians in the shapeless grey denim overalls of the German army.” – _V2_, by Robert Harris ---
**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 15, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1785 "2021-10-15T16:25:44Z")
They called him Old Man Eloquent, but he was more than that, more than eloquent; he was resolute, canny, cantankerous. _Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877_ by Brenda Wineapple The reference is to John Quincy Adams and the book opens with his death in 1848. ---
**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, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1786 "2021-10-15T18:32:18Z")
“See Moll Frith, nineteen years young and dressed like a boy, cap squared and head lowered, doing the cutpurse dance along the cobbles behind the half-cheering crowd and pulling in coins every minute.” _Tales from Alternate Earths III_. (Note that this is an anthology, and this sentence is from the first story, “Gunpowder Treason”, by Alan Smale.) ---
**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 16, 2021, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1787 "2021-10-16T23:20:28Z")
“I should have given up, I suppose, after the goat.” _Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South_, by Rick Bragg. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1788 "2021-10-17T13:21:13Z")
“There was a time when people were in the habit of addressing themselves frequently and felt no shame at making a record of their inward transactions.” — _Dangling Man_, by Saul Bellow [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=88) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=90)