Category Archives: #FirstParas

Great opening paragraph 62… ‘The Impressionist’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“One afternoon, three years after the beginning of the new century, red dust which was once rich mountain soil quivers in the air. It falls on a rider who is making slow progress through the ravines which score the plains south of the mountains, drying his throat, filming his clothes, clogging the pores of his pink perspiring English face.”
Hari KunzruFrom ‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant
‘Possession’ by AS Byatt
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE IMPRESSIONIST by @harikunzru http://wp.me/p5gEM4-eQ via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 61… ‘Dance Dance Dance’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I often dream about the Dolphin Hotel.
In these dreams, I’m there, implicated in some kind of ongoing circumstance. All indications are that I belong to this dream continuity.
The Dolphin Hotel is distorted, much too narrow. It seems more like a long, covered bridge. A bridge stretching endlessly through time. And there I am, in the middle of it. Someone else is there too, crying.
The hotel envelops me. I can feel its pulse, its heat. In dreams, I am part of the hotel.”
Haruki MurakamiFrom ‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami

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

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Armadillo’ by William Boyd
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara DANCE DANCE DANCE by Haruki Murakami http://wp.me/p5gEM4-m3 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 60… ‘Lord Jim’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where he got his living as ship-chandler’s water-clerk he was very popular.”
Joseph ConradFrom ‘Lord Jim’ by Joseph Conrad

Here’s the #FirstPara of THE SECRET AGENT, also by Joseph Conrad.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ by Margaret Forster
‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler
‘Before I Go To Sleep’ by SJ Watson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad http://wp.me/p5gEM4-f3 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 59… ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday. It was an ordinary morning in mid-April that smelt of clean washing and grass cuttings. Harold Fry sat at the breakfast table, freshly shaved, in a clean shirt and tie, with  slice of toast that he wasn’t eating. He gazed beyond the kitchen window at the clipped lawn, which was spiked in the middle by Maureen’s telescopic washing line, and trapped on all three sides by the neighbours’ closeboard fencing.”
Rachel JoyceFrom ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ by Rachel Joyce

Read my reviews of these novels by Rachel Joyce:-
MAUREEN FRY AND THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH
MISS BENSON’S BEETLE
PERFECT
THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind
‘Original Sin’ by PD James
‘Illywhacker’ by Peter Carey

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY by Rachel Joyce http://wp.me/p5gEM4-kt via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 58… ‘Possession’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The book was thick and black and covered with dust. Its boards were bowed and creaking; it had been maltreated in its own time. Its spine was missing, or rather protruded from amongst the leaves like a bulky marker. It was bandaged about and about with dirty white tape, tied in a neat bow. The librarian handed it to Roland Michell, who was sitting waiting for it in the Reading Room of the London Library. It had been exhumed from Locked Safe no.5 where it usually stood between Pranks of Priapus and The Grecian Way of Love. It was ten in the morning, one day in September 1986. Roland had the small single table he liked best, behind a square pillar, with the clock over the fireplace nevertheless in full view. To his right, was a high sunny window, through which you could see the high green leaves of St James’s Square.”
From ‘Possession’ by AS ByattAS Byatt

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ by Iris Murdoch
‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ by Clare Morrall
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara POSSESSION by AS Byatt https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4cs via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 57… ‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“A few minutes before his brainstorm, or whatever it was, took place, George McCaffrey was having a quarrel with his wife. It was eleven o’clock on a rainy March evening. They had been visiting George’s mother. Now George was driving along the quayside, taking the short-cut along the canal past the iron foot-bridge. It was raining hard. The malignant rain rattled on the car like shot. Propelled in oblique flurries, it assaulted the windscreen, obliterating in a second the frenetic strivings of the windscreen wipers. Little demonic faces composed of racing raindrops appeared and vanished. The intermittent yellow light of the street lamps, illuminating the grey atoms of the storm, fractured in sudden stars upon the rain-swarmed glass. Bumping on cobbles the car hummed and drummed.”
Iris MurdochFrom ‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ by Iris Murdoch

Read these other #FirstParas by Iris Murdoch:-
‘A Severed Head’ 
‘The Sea The Sea’ 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Couples’ by John Updike
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUPIL by Iris Murdoch http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mf via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 56… ‘Lord of the Flies’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and the broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry; and this cry was echoed by another.”
William GoldingFrom ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor
‘Fair Exchange’ by Michele Forbes
‘Herzog’ by Saul Bellow

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7Z via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 55… ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.”
Thomas HardyFrom ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Lord Jim’ by Joseph Conrad
‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller
‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD by Thomas Hardy http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7J via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 54… ‘The Great Fortune’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Somewhere near Venice, Guy began talking with a heavy, elderly man, a refugee from Germany on his way to Trieste. Guy asked questions. The refugee eagerly replied. Neither seemed aware when the train stopped. In the confusion of a newly created war, the train was stopping every twenty minutes or so. Harriet looked out and saw girders, darker than the twilit darkness, holding an upper rail. Between the girders a couple fumbled and struggled, every now and then thrusting a foot or an elbow out into the light that fell from the carriage windows. Beyond the girders water glinted, reflecting the phosphorescent globes lighting the high rail.”
Oliva ManningFrom ‘The Great Fortune’ by Olivia Manning #1BalkanTrilogy

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘I’ll Take You There’ by Joyce Carol Oates
‘A Severed Head’ by Iris Murdoch
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE GREAT FORTUNE by Olivia Manning http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mx via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 53… ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was so slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn’t moving at all. But let’s assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I’d gone up twelve stories, then down three. Maybe I’d circled the globe. How would I know?”
Haruki MurakamiFrom ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami

Read these #FirstParas from other books by Haruki Murakami:-
DANCE DANCE DANCE
NORWEGIAN WOOD
THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Mara and Dann’ by Doris Lessing
‘The Ghost Road’ by Pat Barker
‘The L-Shaped Room’ by Lynn Reid Banks

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD by Haruki Murakami http://wp.me/p5gEM4-m9 via @SandraDanby