Tag Archives: first paragraphs

Great Opening Paragraph 142… ‘The Crow Road’ #amreading #FirstPara

Leave a reply

“It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.”
Iain BanksFrom ‘The Crow Road’ by Iain Banks

Here’s my review of THE QUARRY by Iain Banks.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Middlesex’ by Jeffery Eugenides 
‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard 
American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#FirstPara THE CROW ROAD by Iain Banks #books #amreading https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7gH via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 136… ‘High-Rise’ #amreading #FirstPara

Leave a reply

“Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months. Now that everything had returned to normal, he was surprised that there had been no obvious beginning, no point beyond which their lives had moved into a clearly more sinister dimension. With its forty floors and thousand apartments, its supermarket and swimming-pools, bank and junior school – all in effect abandoned in the sky – the high-rise offered more than enough opportunities for violence and confrontation.” JG BallardFrom ‘High-Rise’ by JG Ballard

And try the first paragraph of SUPER-CANNES, another novel by JG Ballard.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters 
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje 
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara HIGH-RISE by JG Ballard https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-79L via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 133… ‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ #amreading #FirstPara

1 Reply

“The first time I met Lillian Pentecost, I nearly caved her skull in with a piece of lead pipe.”
Stephen SpotswoodFrom ‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1Pentecost&Parker

Click the title to read my review of FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt 
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey 
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD by Stephen Spotswood @playwrightSteve https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-79u via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 130 ‘Gilead’ #amreading #FirstPara

4 Replies

“I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to life a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don’t laugh! Because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows singed after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.”
Marilynne RobinsonFrom ‘Gilead’ by Marilynne Robinson

Read my reviews of these novels by Marilynne Robinson:-
GILEAD
HOME
HOUSEKEEPING
JACK

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Agnes Grey’ by Anne Bronte
‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara GILEAD  by Marilynne Robinson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4eD via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 41… ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ #amreading #FirstPara

3 Replies

“In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The two friends were very different. The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless grey sweater. His face was round and oily, with half-closed eyelids and lips that curved in a gently, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and very soberly dressed.”
Carson McCullers From ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ by Anne Tyler
‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ by Clare Morrall
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4b9 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 40… ‘Norwegian Wood’ #amreading #FirstPara

5 Replies

“I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth, lending everything the gloomy air of a Flemish landscape: the ground crew in waterproofs, a flag atop a squat airport building, a BMW billboard. So – Germany again.”
Haruki Murakami From ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami 

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

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami #books https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4b8 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 39… ‘The God of Small Things’ #amreading #FirstPara

1 Reply

“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”
Arundhati RoyFrom ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n7 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 38… ‘A Severed Head’ #amreading #FirstPara

2 Replies

“’You’re sure she doesn’t know?’ said Georgie.
‘Antonia? About us? Certain.’
Georgie was silent for a moment and then said, ‘Good.’ That curt ‘Good’ was characteristic of her, typical of a toughness which had, to my mind, more to do with honesty than with ruthlessness. I liked the dry way in which she accepted our relationship. Only with a person so eminently sensible could I have deceived my wife.”
Iris Murdoch From ‘A Severed Head’ by Iris Murdoch 

Try these other #FirstParas by Iris Murdoch:-
‘The Sea The Sea’
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult
‘1984’ by George Orwell
‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Murdoch https://wp.me/p5gEM4-ml via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 36… ‘The Bell Jar’ #amreading #FirstPara

5 Replies

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers – goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-selling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.”
Sylvia PlathFrom ‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad
‘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 THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n1 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 35… ‘Room’ #amreading #FirstPara

6 Replies

“Today I’m five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I’m changed to five, abracadabra. Before that I was three, then two, then one, then zero. ‘Was I minus numbers?’”
Emma Donoghue From ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue 

Read my reviews of these other novels by Emma Donoghue:-
AKIN
FROG MUSIC
THE PULL OF THE STARS
THE WONDER

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
‘Family Album’ by Penelope Lively
‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ROOM by Emma Donoghue https://wp.me/p5gEM4-kw via @SandraDanby