Tag Archives: first paragraphs

Great Opening Paragraph 125… ‘Beloved’ #amwriting #FirstPara

“124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had runaway by the time they were thirteen years old – as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard). Neither boy waited to see more; another kettleful of chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the doorsill.” Toni Morrison
‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison
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Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
The Ashes of London’ by Andrew Taylor 
The Garden of Evening Mists’ by Tan Twan Eng 
Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend

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#FirstPara BELOVED by Toni Morrison #amwriting https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ec via @SandraDanby

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

Carson McCullers“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.”
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ by Anne Tyler
‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ by Clare Morrall
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-mu via @SandraDanby

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

Haruki Murakami“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.”
‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-lW via @SandraDanby

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

Arundhati Roy“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.”
‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n7 via @SandraDanby

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

Iris Murdoch“’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.”
‘A Severed Head’ by Iris Murdoch 
Amazon

Try these other 1st paras by Iris Murdoch:-
‘The Sea The Sea’
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’

And read about the first edition of The Sea The Sea, first published by Chatto & Windus in 1978.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult
‘1984’ by George Orwell
‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Murdoch #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-ml via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 37… ‘I’ll Take You There’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Joyce Carol Oates“In those days in the early Sixties we were not women yet but girls. This was, without irony, perceived as our advantage.”
‘I’ll Take You There’ by Joyce Carol Oates 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters
‘The Collector’ by John Fowles

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: I’LL TAKE YOU THERE by Joyce Carol Oates #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-mM via @SandraDanby

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

Sylvia Plath“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.”
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad
‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-n1 via @SandraDanby

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

room - GOP 5-6-13“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?’”
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue 
Amazon

Read my review of Frog Music by Emma Donoghue.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
‘Family Album’ by Penelope Lively
‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: ROOM by @EDonoghueWriter #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-kw via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 34… ‘Lolita’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Vladimir Nabokov“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘The Inheritance of Loss’ by Kiran Desai
‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller
‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett

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An iconic 1st para which makes me want to read more: LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-kO via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 33… ‘The Sense of an Ending’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Julian Barnes“I remember, in no particular order:
– a shiny inner wrist;
– steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
– gouts of sperm circling a plughole before being sluiced own the full length of a tall house;
– a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
– another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
– bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.”
‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes
Amazon

Read my review of The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard
‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ by Helen Fielding
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-nE via @SandraDanby