Tag Archives: first paragraph

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

Great opening paragraph 52… ‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“At 3.15 every weekday afternoon, I become anonymous in a crowd of parents and child-minders congregating outside the school gates. To me, waiting for children to come out of school is a quintessential act of motherhood. I see the mums – and the occasional dads – as yellow people. Yellow as the sun, a daffodil, the submarine. But why do we teach children to paint the sun yellow? It’s a deception. The sun is white-hot, brilliant, impossible to see with the naked eye, so why do we confuse brightness with yellow?” Clare MorrallFrom ‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ by Clare Morrall

Read my reviews of these other novels by Clare Morrall:-
AFTER THE BOMBING
NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS
THE LAST OF THE GREENWOODS
THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
THE ROUNDABOUT MAN

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt
‘Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR by Clare Morrall http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mc via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 51… ‘The Sea, The Sea’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The sea which lies before me as I write glows rather than sparkles in the bland May sunshine. With the tide turning, it leans quietly against the land, almost unflecked by ripples or by foam. Near to the horizon it is a luxurious purple, spotted with regular lines of emerald green. AT the horizon it is indigo. Near to the shore, where my view is framed by rising heaps of humpy yellow rock, there is a band of lighter green, icy and pure, less radiant, opaque however, not transparent. We are in the north, and the bright sunshine cannot penetrate the sea. Where the gentle water taps the rocks there is still a surface skin of colour. The cloudless sky is very pale at the indigo horizon which it lightly pencils in with silver. Its blue gains towards the zenith and vibrates there. But the sky looks cold, even the sun looks cold.”
Iris Murdoch From ‘The Sea, The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch 

Read these other #FirstParas by Iris Murdoch:-
A SEVERED HEAD
THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUPIL

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru
‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach
‘Sophie’s World’ by Jostein Gaarder

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

Great opening paragraph 50… ‘These Foolish Things’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Muriel Donnelly, an old girl in her seventies, was left in a hospital cubicle for forty-eight hours. She had taken a tumble in Peckham High Street and was admitted with cuts, bruises and suspected concussion. Two days she lay in A&E, untended, the blood stiffening on her clothes.” Deborah Moggach From ‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach  [now published as ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’]

Read my review of these other novels by Deborah Moggach:-
SOMETHING TO HIDE
THE BLACK DRESS
THE CARER
TULIP FEVER

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Back When We Were Grown Ups’ by Anne Tyler
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THESE FOOLISH THINGS by Deborah Moggach http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mA via @SandraDanby