Category Archives: #FirstParas

Great Opening Paragraph 42… ‘The English Patient’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. She has sensed a shift in the weather. There is another gust of wind, a buckle of noise in the air, and the tall cypresses sway. She turns and moves uphill towards the house, climbing over a low wall, feeling the first drops of rain on her bare arms. She crosses the loggia and quickly enters the house.
In the kitchen she doesn’t pause but goes through it and climbs the stairs which are in darkness and then continues along the long hall, at the end of which is a wedge of light from an open door.
She turns into the room which is another garden – this one made up of trees and bowers painted over its walls and ceiling. The man lies on the bed, his body exposed to the breeze, and he turns his head slowly towards her as she enters.”
Michael Ondaatje From ‘The English Patient’ by Michael Ondaatje 

Read the #FirstPara of DIVISADERO, also by Michael Ondaatje.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Change of Climate’ by Hilary Mantel
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘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 THE ENGLISH PATIENT by Michael Ondaatje http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mS via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 41… ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The two friends were very different. The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless grey sweater. His face was round and oily, with half-closed eyelids and lips that curved in a gently, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and very soberly dressed.”
Carson McCullers From ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ by Anne Tyler
‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ by Clare Morrall
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4b9 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 40… ‘Norwegian Wood’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth, lending everything the gloomy air of a Flemish landscape: the ground crew in waterproofs, a flag atop a squat airport building, a BMW billboard. So – Germany again.”
Haruki Murakami From ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami 

Read these #FirstParas from other books by Haruki Murakami:-
DANCE DANCE DANCE
HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD
THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami #books https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4b8 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 39… ‘The God of Small Things’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”
Arundhati RoyFrom ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n7 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 38… ‘A Severed Head’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“’You’re sure she doesn’t know?’ said Georgie.
‘Antonia? About us? Certain.’
Georgie was silent for a moment and then said, ‘Good.’ That curt ‘Good’ was characteristic of her, typical of a toughness which had, to my mind, more to do with honesty than with ruthlessness. I liked the dry way in which she accepted our relationship. Only with a person so eminently sensible could I have deceived my wife.”
Iris Murdoch From ‘A Severed Head’ by Iris Murdoch 

Try these other #FirstParas by Iris Murdoch:-
‘The Sea The Sea’
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult
‘1984’ by George Orwell
‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Murdoch https://wp.me/p5gEM4-ml via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 37… ‘I’ll Take You There’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In those days in the early Sixties we were not women yet but girls. This was, without irony, perceived as our advantage.”
Joyce Carol OatesFrom ‘I’ll Take You There’ by Joyce Carol Oates

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway 
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters 
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara I’LL TAKE YOU THERE by Joyce Carol Oates https://wp.me/p5gEM4-mM via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 36… ‘The Bell Jar’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers – goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-selling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.”
Sylvia PlathFrom ‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad
‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n1 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 35… ‘Room’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Today I’m five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I’m changed to five, abracadabra. Before that I was three, then two, then one, then zero. ‘Was I minus numbers?’”
Emma Donoghue From ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue 

Read my reviews of these other novels by Emma Donoghue:-
AKIN
FROG MUSIC
THE PULL OF THE STARS
THE WONDER

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
‘Family Album’ by Penelope Lively
‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ROOM by Emma Donoghue https://wp.me/p5gEM4-kw via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 34… ‘Lolita’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
Vladimir NabokovFrom ‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Inheritance of Loss’ by Kiran Desai
‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller
‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov https://wp.me/p5gEM4-kO via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 33… ‘The Sense of an Ending’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I remember, in no particular order:
– a shiny inner wrist;
– steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
– gouts of sperm circling a plughole before being sluiced own the full length of a tall house;
– a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
– another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
– bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.”
Julian BarnesFrom ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes

Read my reviews of these other novels by Julian Barnes:-
THE NOISE OF TIME
THE ONLY STORY

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard
‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ by Helen Fielding
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes https://wp.me/p5gEM4-nE via @SandraDanby