Tag Archives: first paragraph

Great Opening Paragraph 26

Leave a reply

salman rushdie - midnight's children 10-6-13“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it’s important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate – at the best of times a dangerous sort of involvement. And I couldn’t even wipe my own nose at the time.”
‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie

Great Opening Paragraph 26… ‘Midnight’s Children’ #amreading #FirstPara

Leave a reply

“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it’s important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate – at the best of times a dangerous sort of involvement. And I couldn’t even wipe my own nose at the time.”
Salman RushdieFrom ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend
‘Original Sin’ by PD James
‘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 MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie http://wp.me/p5gEM4-n4 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph…25

Leave a reply

Super-Cannes“The first person I met at Eden-Olympia was a psychiatrist, and in many ways it seems only too apt that my guide to this ‘intelligent’ city in the hills above Cannes should have been a specialist in mental disorders. I realize now that a kind of waiting madness, like a state of undeclared war, haunted the office buildings of the business park. For most of us, Dr Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight. I remember his eager smile when we greeted each other, and the evasive eyes that warned me away from his outstretched hand. Only when I learned to admire this flawed and dangerous man was I able to think of killing him.”

‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard

Great opening paragraph 25… ‘Super-Cannes’ #amreading #FirstPara

5 Replies

“The first person I met at Eden-Olympia was a psychiatrist, and in many ways it seems only too apt that my guide to this ‘intelligent’ city in the hills above Cannes should have been a specialist in mental disorders. I realize now that a kind of waiting madness, like a state of undeclared war, haunted the office buildings of the business park. For most of us, Dr Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight. I remember his eager smile when we greeted each other, and the evasive eyes that warned me away from his outstretched hand. Only when I learned to admire this flawed and dangerous man was I able to think of killing him.”
JG BallardFrom ‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Illywhacker’ by Peter Carey
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara SUPER-CANNES by JG Ballard https://wp.me/p5gEM4-8x via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 24… ‘Family Album’ #amreading #FirstPara

3 Replies

“Gina turned the car off the road and into the driveway of Allersmead. At this point she seemed to see her entire life flash by. As the drowning are said to do. She thought of this, and that the genuinely drowning can never have been recorded on the matter.”
Penelope LivelyFrom ‘Family Album’ by Penelope Lively

Read the #FirstPara of MOON TIGER, another novel by Penelope Lively.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Ghost’ by Robert Harris
‘Armadillo’ by William Boyd
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FAMILY ALBUM by Penelope Lively https://wp.me/p5gEM4-7P via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph… 24

1 Reply

Family Album“Gina turned the car off the road and into the driveway of Allersmead. At this point she seemed to see her entire life flash by. As the drowning are said to do. She thought of this, and that the genuinely drowning can never have been recorded on the matter.”

‘Family Album’ by Penelope Lively

Great opening paragraph…23

Leave a reply

The Last Tycoon - OP
“Though I haven’t ever been on the screen I was brought up in pictures. Rudolph Valentino came to my fifth birthday party – or so I was told. I put this down only to indicate that even before the age of reason I was in a position to watch the wheels go round.”
‘The Last Tycoon’ by F Scott Fitzgerald

Great opening paragraph…22

Leave a reply

The Collector
“When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe. She and her younger sister used to go in and out a lot, often with young men, which of course I didn’t like. When I had a free moment from the files and ledgers I stood by the window and used to look down over the road over the frosting and sometimes I’d see her. In the evening I marked it in my observations diary, at first with X, and then when I knew her name with M. I saw her several times outside too. I stood right behind her once in a queue at the public library down Crossfield Street. She didn’t look once at me, but I watched the back of her head and her hair in a long pigtail. It was very pale, silky, like burnet cocoons. All in one pigtail coming down almost to her waist, sometimes in front, sometimes at the back. Sometimes she wore it up. Only once, before she came to be my guest here, did I have the privilege to see her with it loose, and it took my breath away it was so beautiful, like a mermaid.”
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles

Great opening paragraph 22… ‘The Collector’ #amreading #FirstPara

2 Replies

“When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe. She and her younger sister used to go in and out a lot, often with young men, which of course I didn’t like. When I had a free moment from the files and ledgers I stood by the window and used to look down over the road over the frosting and sometimes I’d see her. In the evening I marked it in my observations diary, at first with X, and then when I knew her name with M. I saw her several times outside too. I stood right behind her once in a queue at the public library down Crossfield Street. She didn’t look once at me, but I watched the back of her head and her hair in a long pigtail. It was very pale, silky, like burnet cocoons. All in one pigtail coming down almost to her waist, sometimes in front, sometimes at the back. Sometimes she wore it up. Only once, before she came to be my guest here, did I have the privilege to see her with it loose, and it took my breath away it was so beautiful, like a mermaid.”
John Fowles From ‘The Collector’ by John Fowles 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide
‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ by Margaret Forster 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles https://wp.me/p5gEM4-8G via @SandraDanby

 

Great opening paragraph 21 ‘Freedom’ #amreading #FirstPara

2 Replies

“The news about Walter Berglund wasn’t picked up locally – he and Patty had moved away to Washington two years earlier and meant nothing to St Paul now – but the urban gentry of Ramsey Hill were not so loyal to their city as not to read The New York Times. According to a long and very unflattering story in the Times, Walter had made quite a mess of his professional life out there in the nation’s capital. His old neighbours had some difficulty reconciling the quotes about him in the Times [“arrogant,” “high-handed,” “ethically compromised”] with the generous, smiling, red-faced 3M employee they remembered pedalling his commuter bicycle up Summit Avenue in February snow; it seemed strange that Walter, who was greener than Greenpeace and whose own roots were rural, should be in trouble now for conniving with the coal industry and mistreating country people. Then again, there had always been something not quite right about the Berglunds.”
Jonathan FranzenFrom ‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen

Read my review of PURITY, also by Jonathan Franzen.
And here’s the #FirstPara of THE CORRECTIONS.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman
‘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 FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen https://wp.me/p5gEM4-7s via @SandraDanby