“When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe. She and her younger sister used to go in and out a lot, often with young men, which of course I didn’t like. When I had a free moment from the files and ledgers I stood by the window and used to look down over the road over the frosting and sometimes I’d see her. In the evening I marked it in my observations diary, at first with X, and then when I knew her name with M. I saw her several times outside too. I stood right behind her once in a queue at the public library down Crossfield Street. She didn’t look once at me, but I watched the back of her head and her hair in a long pigtail. It was very pale, silky, like burnet cocoons. All in one pigtail coming down almost to her waist, sometimes in front, sometimes at the back. Sometimes she wore it up. Only once, before she came to be my guest here, did I have the privilege to see her with it loose, and it took my breath away it was so beautiful, like a mermaid.”
From ‘The Collector’ by John Fowles
Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide
‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ by Margaret Forster
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles https://wp.me/p5gEM4-8G via @SandraDanby
This copy was my father’s. It is from Collins’ ‘Laurel & Gold’ series, measures 16x11cm so fits easily into a pocket, and is bound in a pale green linen. 
In 1933 my father was nine. It is inscribed in pencil with his name and the date which makes it a second edition; the first was printed May 1931, the second January 1932. 
I especially like the poem ‘To the Hesitating Purchaser.’ Perhaps today’s books should feature a similar ode.
‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS 