“I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. And but for the fact that it coincided with a landmark in my own physical growth, his death seemed insignificant compared with what followed. My sisters and I talked about him the week after he died, and Sue certainly cried when the ambulance men tucked him up in a bright-red blanket and carried him away. He was a frail, irascible, obsessive man with yellowish hands and face. I am only including the little story of his death to explain how my sisters and I came to have such a large quantity of cement at our disposal.”
From ‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan 

Read my reviews of these other novels by McEwan:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
NUTSHELL
THE CHILDREN ACT
WHAT WE CAN KNOW

And try two more McEwan #FirstParas:-
ENDURING LOVE
THE CHILDREN ACT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier
‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ by Philippa Gregory
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE CEMENT GARDEN by Ian McEwan http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2se via @SandraDanby

“London. Trinity term one week old. Implacable June weather. Fiona Maye, a High Court judge, at home on Sunday evening, supine on a chaise longue, staring past her stockinged feet towards the end of the room, towards a partial view of recessed bookshelves by the fireplace and, to one side, by a tall window, a tiny Renoir lithograph of a bather, bought by her thirty years ago for fifty pounds. Probably a fake. Below it, centred on a round walnut table, a blue vase. No memory of how she came by it. Nor when she last put flowers in it. The fireplace not lit in a year. Blackened raindrops falling irregularly into the grate with a ticking sound against balled-up yellowing newsprint. A Bokhara rug spread on wide polished floorboards. Looming at the edge of vision, a baby grand piano bearing silver-framed family photos on its deep black whine. On the floor by the chaise lounge, within her reach, the draft of a judgment. And Fiona was on her back, wishing all this stuff at the bottom of the sea.”
From ‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan 

Here’s my review of THE CHILDREN ACT 

…and these other McEwan novels:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
NUTSHELL
WHAT WE CAN KNOW

And try two more McEwan #FirstParas:-
ENDURING LOVE
THE CEMENT GARDEN

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Sea, The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch 
‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins 
‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE CHILDREN ACT by Ian McEwan http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Vp via @SandraDanby

“The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle – a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map: I was stretching out my hand, and as the cool neck and the black foil touched my palm, we heard a man’s shout. We turned to look across the field and saw the danger. Next thing, I was running towards it. The transformation was absolute: I don’t recall dropping the corkscrew, or getting to my feet, or making a decision, or hearing the caution Clarissa called after me. What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak. There was the shout again, and a child’s cry, enfeebled by the wind that roared in the tall trees along the hedgerows. I ran faster. And there, suddenly, from different points around the field, four other men were converging on the scene, running like me.”
From ‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan

Read my reviews of these other novels by McEwan:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
NUTSHELL
THE CHILDREN ACT
WHAT WE CAN KNOW

And try two more McEwan #FirstParas:-
THE CEMENT GARDEN
THE CHILDREN ACT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘Possession’ by AS Byatt
‘That They May Face The Rising Sun’ by John McGahern

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ENDURING LOVE by Ian McEwan http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mr via @SandraDanby