# 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:** 91
**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:** [November 6, 2021, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1809 "2021-11-06T20:35:42Z")
“If Charlotte Cushman’s life were a play, it would begin like something out of Shakespeare, with nature’s rebellion and man’s disquiet.” _Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity_, by Tana Wojczuk. ---
**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:** [November 7, 2021, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1810 "2021-11-07T01:26:52Z")
“_EXPLOSION_ ! _CONCUSSION_ ! The _vault doors burst open_ . And _deep inside_ , the _money_ is _racked ready_ for _pillage_ , _rapine_ , _loot_ . Who’s that? Who’s _inside_ the vault?” _The Demolished Man_ by Alfred Bester ---
**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:** [November 7, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1811 "2021-11-07T21:59:26Z")
“Oh dear,” Linus Baker said, wiping the sweat from his brow. _The House in the Cerulean Sea_, by TJ Klune ---
**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:** [November 8, 2021, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1812 "2021-11-08T19:02:31Z")
“Vince Heller invited me to lunch at the Clarendon Club on Commonwealth Avenue with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Taft University, Haller’s alma mater.” _Playmates_ by Robert B. Parker ---
**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:** [November 10, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1813 "2021-11-10T17:32:02Z")
“I can measure my entire life in leaves and petals.” _The Brief Life of Flowers_ by Fiona Stafford ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1814 "2021-11-10T17:43:31Z")
> [@](#): > > It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. **Moby-Dick, or The Whale** by Herman Melville This is from a sort of Overture to Melville’s _magnum opus_, an introductory pair of paragraphs followed by 81 “Extracts”, quotations in roughly chronological order from various books about whales (and, ominously, about mutinies. Melville might have originally intended to include even darker stuff in his novel. The trajectory of the book changes unpredictably several times, and there are hints of what was to be that are never fulfilled, and grand introductions of characters who don’t end up being very important.) In any event, you have to wade through several pages of this stuff before you get to what most people think of as the opening line: “Call me Ishmael.” ---
**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:** [November 10, 2021, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1815 "2021-11-10T17:58:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Melville might have originally intended to include even darker stuff in his novel. The trajectory of the book changes unpredictably several times, and there are hints of what was to be that are never fulfilled, and grand introductions of characters who don’t end up being very important.) We easily forget the intensive _labour_ of being a writer before typewriters, and certainly before word-processors. It’s significant that the most frequently used term is “writer”, not “author” or “novelist”. The physical labour of dipping the quill in the ink, then writing for a bit, and re-dipping, by poor light in the evening that strained the eyes… it’s no wonder that 18th and 19th century novels sometimes had little digressions and side-ways that didn’t seem to go anywhere, and the finished volumes could be so thick. The writers may not have had the time or energy to go back and fix them or cut out extraneous bits. ---
**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:** [November 12, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1816 "2021-11-12T17:36:45Z")
“When the multiverse was confirmed, the spiritual and scientific communities both counted it as evidence of their validity.” _The Space Between Worlds_, by Micaiah Johnson ---
**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:** [November 13, 2021, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1817 "2021-11-13T21:00:09Z")
“On a muggy Florida night in March 2007, Pete and I walked out onto the stage at the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa.” -_Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite_, by Roger Daltrey ---
**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:** [November 15, 2021, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1818 "2021-11-15T00:14:14Z")
“In 1995 Pepsi ran a promotion where people could collect Pepsi Points and then trade them in for Pepsi Stuff.” _Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors_, by Matt Parker ---
**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:** [November 15, 2021, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1819 "2021-11-15T00:48:00Z")
“The Reach is wide and quiet this morning, the pale blue sky streaked with pink mackerel-belly clouds, the shallow sea barely rippling in the slight breeze, and so the sound of the dog barking breaks into the calm like gunshots, setting flocks of gulls crying and wheeling in the air.” _The Lying Game_, by Ruth Ware ---
**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:** [November 15, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1820 "2021-11-15T15:49:23Z")
“John F. Kennedy spent most of the morning of February 20, 1962, as the rest of America did: in front of a television.” _Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War_ by Jeff Shesol ---
**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:** [November 16, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1821 "2021-11-16T21:34:21Z")
“Sima pushed a large woman in a wheelchair to the A71 Nurses’ station to catch a bit of breeze.” _The Care of Strangers_, by Ellen Michaelson ---
**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:** [November 17, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1822 "2021-11-17T21:47:10Z")
“In 1958, when my father had his famous affair with Carroll Byrd, I knew it before anybody.” _Blue Marlin_, by Lee Smith ---
**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:** [November 18, 2021, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1823 "2021-11-18T01:58:29Z")
“Sliding headfirst down a vagina with no clothes on and landing in the freshly shaven crotch of a screaming woman did not seem to be part of God’s plan for me.” - _Last Words_, by **George Carlin** ---
**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:** [November 18, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1824 "2021-11-18T15:42:46Z")
“Woodridge Academy, a private school in Heath Cliff, Pennsylvania, had once been the home of William Heath, after whom the town had been named.” _Fuzzy Mud_, by Louis Sachar ---
**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:** [November 19, 2021, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1825 "2021-11-19T14:34:55Z")
“I like to walk early in the morning, before I begin my chores, even in this crisp November weather.” _Show Me a Sign_ by Ann Clare LeZotte ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1826 "2021-11-19T17:39:31Z")
In 1692 the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft. _The Witches: Salem, 1692_ by Stacy Shiff ---
**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:** [November 20, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1827 "2021-11-20T16:39:04Z")
“I’m not sure I’d like to be one of the people featured on the _New York Times_ weddings page, but I know I’d like to be the father of one of them.” _BOBOs in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There_, by David Brooks. ---
**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:** [November 20, 2021, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1828 "2021-11-20T17:25:00Z")
“It was supposed to rain for real and that would have put a damper on the annual rain of lead.” – _The Dark Hours_, by Michael Connelly [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=90) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=92)