# 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:** 97
**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 17, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1930 "2022-02-17T21:18:04Z")
“Architecture is many things to many people.” _30-Second Architecture: The 50 Most Significant Principles and Styles in Architecture, Each Explained in Half a Minute_, edited by Edward Denison (who wrote the above sentence). ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1931 "2022-02-18T02:42:12Z")
“Critics are no more clairvoyant than their fellow mortals.” _On Architecture - Collected Reflections on a Century of Change_ by Ada Louis Huxtable ---
**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:** [February 18, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1932 "2022-02-18T20:46:56Z")
“Just outside the expanding light cone of the present a star died, iron-bombed.” _Iron Sunrise_ , by Charles Stross ---
**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 18, 2022, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1933 "2022-02-18T20:51:10Z")
“Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding.” _His Only Wife_ by Peace Adzo Medie ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1934 "2022-02-18T21:17:50Z")
“Abandoned in a barren corner of nowhere, the old man’s body was found on a blacktop road next to his oxygen bottle.” _The Brickeaters_, by the Residents ---
**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:** [February 18, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1935 "2022-02-18T21:22:54Z")
“I remember exactly where I was when I read that the Makah were going whaling, when I suddenly felt compelled to go to my map and point to Cape Flattery, when I felt the place calling me.” _A Whale Hunt_ by Robert Sullivan ---
**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 20, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1936 "2022-02-20T15:31:03Z")
“There are only a few weeks each year when the tides and sea temperature allow an attempt at swimming the Channel.” _The Book of Seconds: The Incredible Stories of the Ones that Didn’t (Quite) Win_, by Mark Mason. ---
**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 21, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1937 "2022-02-21T22:01:54Z")
“The night sky was sodden with low-hanging clouds.” _The Case of the One-Eyed Witness_, by Erle Stanley Gardner ---
**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 23, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1938 "2022-02-23T20:27:39Z")
“For the dedicated prospector, the main source of book-length, quality-challenged, bang-bang Westerns is the lending library publishers of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.” _Six-Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the “Worst” in Western Fiction_, by Bill Pronzini. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1939 "2022-02-25T16:17:52Z")
“The village was silent in the damp June morning.” _The Longest Day_ by Cornelius Ryan “If monsters had descended upon Japan the effect could not have been more terrifying.” _Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun_ by Rhoda Blumberg ---
**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 25, 2022, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1940 "2022-02-25T20:33:38Z")
“Damn! He’s actually doing it.” _Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963)_ (Note that this is an anthology, and the first sentence comes from “Unhuman Sacrifice” by Katherine MacLean.) ---
**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:** [February 25, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1941 "2022-02-25T22:00:58Z")
“There was a dead girl in my aunt’s bakery.” The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by 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:** [February 27, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1942 "2022-02-27T15:13:31Z")
“In a sense, surgeon Jonathan Letterman’s Civil War began when the enemy’s guns fell silent.” _Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care_, by Scott McGaugh ---
**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 27, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1943 "2022-02-27T15:23:05Z")
Seen from a plane, the car would have looked like a slow beetle creeping across an endless beach, the sun glinting off its polished black armor. _Never_ - Ken Follett ---
**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:** [February 27, 2022, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1944 "2022-02-27T15:40:07Z")
Gilvaethwy the son of Dôn was in a bad way. -_The Island of the Mighty,_ Evangeline Walton ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1945 "2022-02-28T13:43:45Z")
One winter shortly before the Six Weeks War, my tomcat, Petronius the Arbiter, and I lived in an old farmhouse in Connecticut. _The Door into Summer_, Robert A Heinlein Picked it up again for some light reading in troubled times, had forgotten it starts with a reference to a nuclear exchange 😬 ---
**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:** [March 2, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1946 "2022-03-02T16:09:19Z")
“I pray you all give your audience, And hear this matter with reverence, By figure a moral play, The Summoning of Everyman called it is, That of our lives and ending shows How transitory we be all day.” _Everyman_, translated by E. Talbot Donaldson. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1947 "2022-03-03T00:42:25Z")
Not the first sentence, but an oddly appropriate passage from Bill Pronzini’s _Betrayers_: "Melikian screwed up his face until it resembled a mournful hound’s. “A doper,” he said. “You can’t trust dopers, they’re the dregs, they’re gene-pool scum.” ---
**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:** [March 3, 2022, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1948 "2022-03-03T20:01:35Z")
“In the ghostly subatomic world, an electron flickers in its orbit around an atomic nucleus.” _Electrified Sheep: Glass-eating Scientists, Nuking the Moon, and More Bizarre Experiments_, by Alex Boese. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/1949 "2022-03-03T23:12:39Z")
“‘Dad, I want to learn how to play the drums.’” _The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music_ by Dave Grohl. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=96) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=98)