Category Archives: #FirstParas

Great Opening Paragraph 130 ‘Gilead’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to life a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don’t laugh! Because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows singed after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.”
Marilynne RobinsonFrom ‘Gilead’ by Marilynne Robinson

Read my reviews of these novels by Marilynne Robinson:-
GILEAD
HOME
HOUSEKEEPING
JACK

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Agnes Grey’ by Anne Bronte
‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara GILEAD  by Marilynne Robinson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4eD via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 129 ‘The Paying Guests’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The Barbers had said they would arrive by three. It was like waiting to begin a journey, Frances thought. She and her mother had spent the morning watching the clock, unable to relax. At half past two she had gone wistfully over the rooms for what she’d supposed was the final time; after that there had been a nerving-up, giving way to a steady deflation, and now, at almost five, here she was again, listening to the echo of her own footsteps, feeling so sort of fondness for the sparsely furnished spaces, impatient simply for the couple to arrive, move in, get it over with.”
Sarah WatersFrom ‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters

Read my review of THE PAYING GUESTS

Here are two more #FirstParas by Sarah Waters:-
AFFINITY
TIPPING THE VELVET

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte
’Personal’ by Lee Child
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE PAYING GUESTS  by Sarah Waters https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4eA via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 128 ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”JD Salinger From ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ by Sebastian Barry
‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton
‘The Rainmaker’ by John Grisham 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE CATCHER IN THE RYE  by JD Salinger https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ev via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 127… ‘The Road’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none.”
Cormac McCarthyFrom ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt
‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4er via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 126… ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles DickensFrom ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne 
‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison 
‘1984’ by George Orwell 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ej via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 125… ‘Beloved’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had runaway by the time they were thirteen years old – as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard). Neither boy waited to see more; another kettleful of chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the doorsill.”
Toni MorrisonFrom ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Ashes of London’ by Andrew Taylor 
‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ by Tan Twan Eng 
‘Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara BELOVED by Toni Morrison https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ec via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 124… ‘The Camomile Lawn’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Helena Cuthbertson picked up the crumpled Times by her sleeping husband and went to the flower room to iron it.”
Mary WesleyFrom ‘The Camomile Lawn’ by Mary Wesley

Read my reviews of these novels by Mary Wesley:-
JUMPING THE QUEUE
THE CAMOMILE LAWN

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ by Ernest Hemingway 
‘A Month in the Country’ by JL Carr
‘Back When We Were Grown-Ups’ by Anne Tyler 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE CAMOMILE LAWN by Mary Wesley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-48b via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 123… ‘The Ashes of London’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The noise was the worst. Not the crackling of the flames, not the explosions and the clatter of falling buildings, not the shouting and the endless beating of drums and the groans and cries of the crowd: it was the howling of the fire. It roared its rage. It was the voice of the Great Beast itself.”
Andrew TaylorFrom ‘The Ashes of London’ by Andrew Taylor #1FIREOFLONDON

Read my reviews of the books in this series:
THE ASHES OF LONDON #1FIREOFLONDON
THE FIRE COURT #2FIREOFLONDON
THE KING’S EVIL #3FIREOFLONDON
THE LAST PROTECTOR #4FIREOFLONDON
THE ROYAL SECRET #5FIREOFLONDON
THE SHADOWS OF LONDON #6FIREOFLONDON

And a World War Two novel by the same author:-
THE SECOND MIDNIGHT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Personal’ by Lee Child
‘Back When We Were Grown Ups’ by Anne Tyler 
‘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 ASHES OF LONDON by @AndrewJRTaylor https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Jn via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 122… ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ #amreading #FirstPara

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‘Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.’ John BoyneFrom ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne

Here’s my review of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES…
… and read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE & THEN LEAVE
THE WEIGHT OF ANGELS
WATER #1ELEMENTS
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ by Tan Twan Eng 
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Jk via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 121… ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight.”
Ernest HemingwayFrom ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ by Ernest Hemingway

And here are the #FirstParas from other novels by Hemingway:-
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3JG  via @SandraDanby