Author Archives: sandradan1

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About sandradan1

Novelist. I blog about writing, reading and everything to do with books and writing them at http://www.sandradanby.com/. Come and visit me!

Great opening paragraph 14… ‘Rebecca’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.”
Daphne du Maurier From ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant
‘The Sea The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch
‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier http://wp.me/p5gEM4-8c via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph…14

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Rebecca

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.”

‘Rebecca’ Daphne du Maurier

#BookReview ‘Any Human Heart’ by William Boyd #historical

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I go back a long way with William Boyd to A Good Man in Africa and An Ice-Cream War. He is a consummate storyteller. But it was Brazzaville Beach that shocked me and made me a fan. I came late to Any Human Heart, I don’t know why. William BoydLogan Mountstuart is a fragile everyman who lives through a momentous century who gets involved in history but in off-key ways. I was locked into the story from the beginning with the three boys at school and their challenges to each other: a nifty device of differentiating the three characters.

Read my reviews of these other books by William Boyd:-
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE

… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO

If you like this, try these:-
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DaysWithoutEnd
‘Disobedient’ by Elizabeth Freemantle
‘The Women’ by Kristin Hannah

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ANY HUMAN HEART by William Boyd https://wp.me/p5gEM4-gf via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 13… ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Sunday 1 January. 9st 3 [but post-Christmas], alcohol units 14 [but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year’s Day], cigarettes 22, calories 5424.”
Helen FieldingFrom ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Moon Tiger’ by Penelope Lively
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7S via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph…13

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Bridget Jones's Diary

“Sunday 1 January. 9st 3 [but post-Christmas], alcohol units 14 [but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year’s Day], cigarettes 22, calories 5424.”

‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding

Great opening paragraph 12 ‘In Cold Blood’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’. Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveller reaches them.”
Truman Capote From ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a5 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 11… ‘Brighton Rock’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous, anybody could tell he didn’t belong – belong to the early summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the holiday crowd. They came in by train from Victoria every five minutes, rocked down Queen’s Road standing on the tops of the little local trams, stepped off in bewildered multitudes into fresh and glittering air: the new silver paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away into the west like a pale Victorian water-colour; a race in miniature motors, a band playing, flower gardens in bloom below the front, an aeroplane advertising something for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.”
Graham Greene From ‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene 

Try one of these First Paras & discover a new author:-
‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan
‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a6 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 10… ‘Sacred Hearts’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Before the screaming starts, the night silence of the convent is alive with its own particular sounds.”
Sarah DunantFrom ‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

Try one of these #FirstPara & discover a new author:-
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara SACRED HEARTS by Sarah Dunant http://wp.me/p5gEM4-f0 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph…10

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Sacred Hearts - OP
“Before the screaming starts, the night silence of the convent is alive with its own particular sounds.”
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

A book I love… The Wind in the Willows

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One of the reasons I still love my copy of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, is the actual edition: a green cloth-covered hardback with a green paper cover. Kenneth Grahame I can remember the excitement at being given a hardback book which in 1969 was expensive. I was more used to devouring as many Famous Five and Secret Seven books as possible that we could pick up secondhand at the school fete: my reading at that age was voracious. Kenneth GrahameThe book was a birthday gift from my parents for my ninth birthday, the birthday greeting inside is written in my elder sister’s neat italic script. Kenneth GrahameIt never dawned on me that the language was old-fashioned – Oddsboddikins! – I just lapped it up. Today the book sits on my bookshelf between Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, and Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
Kenneth Grahame

 

‘The Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame [UK: Wordsworth Editions]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame http://wp.me/p5gEM4-cZ #bookreview via @SandraDanby