What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?
I don’t know that I have a favourite first sentence, but I have a couple good stories.
The first anecdote is about Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. When my boyfriend first wanted me the read the books, he gave me the second one and I started with that, stopping every few pages to ask him questions. He said he didn’t think I should start with the first one because it was a bit boring and he hated one of the first sentences: “It was an odd-looking vine.”
The second anecdote is about a book I recently finished called Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. She’s a great writer and this is a terrific book for a psychological viewpoint into a mother-daughter relationship gone wrong. The first line of the book is: “When it came down to it, killing my mother wasn’t that hard.”
July 24, 2008 at 4:30 pm
There’s always the classic, “Jacob Marley was dead, to begin with.”
Then one of my favorite short stories is called “Death by Scrabble, or Tile M For Murder” by Charlie Fish. It begins, “It’s a hot day and I hate my wife.” What a great start to a story!
July 24, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Oh my… what a great first liner!!! I may need to put that book on my list of to-reads.
July 25, 2008 at 9:03 am
i canot think of a fav first liner…but there are some good ones out there!
July 26, 2008 at 9:12 am
The Alice Sebold first line is an eye catcher, isn’t it? I listed that one too. I’m so terrible at remembering first lines but that isn’t for lack of good ones.
July 28, 2008 at 6:31 am
Jodi Picoult’s Vanishing Acts “The first time I disappeared I was 10 years old.”