Tag Archives: am reading

Great opening paragraph 20… ‘Notes on a Scandal’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“1 March 1998. The other night at dinner, Sheba talked about the first time that she and the Connolly boy kissed. I had heard most of it before, of course, there being few aspects of the Connolly business that Sheba has not described to me several times over. But this time round, something new came up. I happened to ask her if anything about the first embrace had surprised her. She laughed. Yes, the smell of the whole thing had been surprising, she said. She hadn’t anticipated his personal odour and if she had, she would probably have guessed at something teenagey: bubble gum, cola, feet.”
Zoe Heller From ‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
‘I’ll Take You There’ by Joyce Carol Oates
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor

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#Books #FirstPara NOTES ON A SCANDAL by Zoe Heller http://wp.me/p5gEM4-84 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 19… ‘Catch-22’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“It was love at first sight.
The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”
Joseph Heller From ‘Catch-22’ by Joseph Heller 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ by Iris Murdoch
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

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#Books #FirstPara CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller http://wp.me/p5gEM4-fc via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 18… ‘The Ghost Road’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In deck-chairs all along the front the bald pink knees of Bradford businessmen nuzzled the sun.”
Pat BarkerFrom ‘The Ghost Road’ by Pat Barker #1RegenerationTrilogy

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier
‘The Murder Room’ by PD James
‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ by John McGahern

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#Books #FirstPara THE GHOST ROAD by Pat Barker http://wp.me/p5gEM4-ev via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 17… ‘The Hobbit’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.”
JRR Tolkien From ‘The Hobbit’ by JRR Tolkien 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide
‘Before I Go to Sleep’ by SJ Watson

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#Books #FirstPara THE HOBBIT by JRR Tolkien http://wp.me/p5gEM4-gZ via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 16… ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Spring 1521. I could hear a roll of muffled drums. But I could see nothing but the lacing on the bodice of the lady standing in front of me, blocking my view of the scaffold. I had been at this court for more than a year and attended hundreds of festivities; but never before one like this.”
Philippa GregoryFrom ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ by Philippa Gregory

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan
‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie
‘Herzog’ by Saul Bellow

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#Books #FirstPara THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL by @PhilippaGBooks http://wp.me/p5gEM4-eI via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 15 ‘Spies’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The third week of June, and there it is again: the same almost embarrassingly familiar breath of sweetness that comes every year about this time. I catch it on the warm evening air as I walk past the well-ordered gardens in my quiet street, and for a moment I’m a child again and everything’s before me – all the frightening, half-understood promise of life.”
Michael FraynFrom ‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote
‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ by Haruki Murakami

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#Books #FirstPara SPIES by Michael Frayn https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a4 via @SandraDanby

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

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#Books #FirstPara REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier http://wp.me/p5gEM4-8c 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

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#Books #FirstPara BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7S via @SandraDanby

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