Tag Archives: first paragraphs

Great opening paragraph 13… ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Sunday 1 January. 9st 3 [but post-Christmas], alcohol units 14 [but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year’s Day], cigarettes 22, calories 5424.”
Helen FieldingFrom ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Moon Tiger’ by Penelope Lively
‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘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 BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7S via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 12 ‘In Cold Blood’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’. Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveller reaches them.”
Truman Capote From ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a5 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 11… ‘Brighton Rock’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous, anybody could tell he didn’t belong – belong to the early summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the holiday crowd. They came in by train from Victoria every five minutes, rocked down Queen’s Road standing on the tops of the little local trams, stepped off in bewildered multitudes into fresh and glittering air: the new silver paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away into the west like a pale Victorian water-colour; a race in miniature motors, a band playing, flower gardens in bloom below the front, an aeroplane advertising something for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.”
Graham Greene From ‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene 

Try one of these First Paras & discover a new author:-
‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan
‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a6 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 10… ‘Sacred Hearts’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Before the screaming starts, the night silence of the convent is alive with its own particular sounds.”
Sarah DunantFrom ‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

Try one of these #FirstPara & discover a new author:-
‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell
‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara SACRED HEARTS by Sarah Dunant http://wp.me/p5gEM4-f0 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 9… ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I’ve changed all the names.”
Kurt Vonnegut JrFrom ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr http://wp.me/p5gEM4-eX via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 8… ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.”
Carol Birch From ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ by Carol Birch 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind
‘The Ghost’ by Robert Harris

Read my review of ORPHANS OF THE CARNIVAL, also by Carol Birch.

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara JAMRACH’S MENAGERIE by Carol Birch http://wp.me/p5gEM4-ea via @SandraDanby 

Great opening paragraph 7… ‘The Big Sleep’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
Raymond Chandler From ‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler 

Try one of these  #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey
‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler https://wp.me/p5gEM4-8B via @SandraDanby 

Great opening paragraph 6… ‘Goldfinger’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.”
Ian FlemingFrom ‘Goldfinger’ by Ian Fleming

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Murder Room’ by PD James
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara GOLDFINGER by Ian Fleming http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7F via @SandraDanby 

Great opening paragraph 5… ‘Moon Tiger’ #amreading #FirstPara

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” ‘I’m writing a history of the world,’ she says. And the hands of the nurse are arrested for a moment; she looks down at this old woman, this old ill woman. ‘Well, my goodness,’ the nurse says. ‘That’s quite a thing to be doing, isn’t it?’ And then she becomes busy again, she heaves and tucks and smooths – ‘Upsy a bit, dear, that’s a good girl – then we’ll get you a cup of tea.’ ”
Penelope Lively From ‘Moon Tiger’ by Penelope Lively 

Read the #FirstPara of FAMILY ALBUM, another novel by Penelope Lively.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue
‘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 MOON TIGER by Penelope Lively via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7w

Great opening paragraph… 4 ‘Sophie’s World’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots. Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. Sophie was not certain she agreed. Surely a person was more than a piece of hardware?”
Jostein GaarderFrom ‘Sophie’s World’ by Jostein Gaarder

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes
‘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 SOPHIE’S WORLD by Jostein Gaarder http://wp.me/p5gEM4-4S via @SandraDanby