Booking Through Thursday: Beginnings

Suggested by: Nithin:

What are your favorite 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?

When I come across a book I am unfamiliar with but which sounds like something I would like to read, I sometimes will peruse the first paragraph or two to get a feel for the writing. Call it a taste test, if you will. I like to know what I am getting myself into. In that way, the first several sentences may be the determining factor in whether I decide to purchase a particular book.

I have a terrible memory when it comes to remembering quotes, much less the first sentence of books I read. That isn't to say I haven't been instantly grabbed by a first line: a particularly juicy morsel, a shocking moment, or a witty introduction. However, my brain has a tendency to remember the gist of a story, the essence of the characters, and the whole of the idea rather than in bits and pieces--quote by quote, word for word. I do find beauty in language and the intricacies of how a story is put together, don't get me wrong. Why some details stick and others do not, I cannot really say. This is why I will never good at a game like Trivial Pursuit.

I thought that keeping a reading journal would help me remember quotes and passages that especially touch me, but I often get so caught up in the story that I often forget to jot the page number down. And by the time I remember there was a passage I meant to make note of, I am too far along in the story to want to go back in search of it. Although, I have been known to scour a book looking for said passage when I just cannot shake it. There are always exceptions.

Looking through my reading journal over the past several months, I came across a few first sentences which still grab me, reading them again today:

Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. [The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes]

If Norman Lyons had known he was going to die that morning, he would have worn different clothes. [Say Goodbye by E J Rand]

As Omar Yussef came along the passage, the flies left the flooded toilets to examine him. [A Grave in Gaza by Matt Beynon Rees]

When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. [The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold]

He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it. [Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriđason]

And of the ones sitting on my immediate TBR shelf that have me wanting to pick them up and read them right now:

Accidents ambush the unexpecting, often violently, just like love. [The Gargoyle by Andrew Davison]

In the beginning, I believed in second chances. [Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult]

It's not that I don't like people. [Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan]

I was a private investigator once. But then we've all been things we aren't anymore. [Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas.]

My husband actually bought the Richard Aleas' book because of the first two sentences, and I thought it would be fun to mention his recent favorite, but then after reading the first lines myself, I want to read the book too. Go figure.

When it gets right down to it, however, I have no favorites. First lines can reel me in immediately or, on the rare occasion, they can be off-putting. Regardless, it takes a lot more than a compelling first sentence to hold my interest in a book.