“The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after guest of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love seat.”
‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue
‘The Crying of Lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon

Also by Jonathan Franzen:-
Read the opening paragraph to Freedom and my review of Purity.

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2xx