Tag Archives: first sentence

Great Opening Paragraph 82… ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ #amreading #FirstPara

“While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her. It twitched her lips and rustled her breath, and she felt her son lean forward from where he kept watch by her bed. “Get…” she told him. “You should have got…”
Anne TylerFrom ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ by Anne Tyler

Here’s the #FirstPara of BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWN UPS, also by Anne Tyler.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Anne Tyler:-
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD 
CLOCK DANCE
FRENCH BRAID
LADDER OF YEARS
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
THREE DAYS IN JUNE
VINEGAR GIRL

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Philosopher’s Pupil’ by Iris Murdoch 
‘Mara and Dann’ by Doris Lessing 
‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT by Anne Tyler http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Tb via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 80… ‘Original Sin’ #amreading #FirstPara

“For a temporary shorthand-typist to be present at the discovery of a corpse on the first day of a new assignment, if not unique, is sufficiently rare to prevent its being regarded as an occupational hazard.”
PD JamesFrom ‘Original Sin’ by PD James

Here’s my review of ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH

… and my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries by PD James:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAM DALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
DEVICES AND DESIRES #8ADAMDALGLIESH
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the #FirstPara HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14ADAMDALGLIESH

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And another PD James novel:-
INNOCENT BLOOD

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Rainmaker’ by John Grisham 
‘To Have and Have Not’ by Ernest Hemingway 
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman 

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara ORIGINAL SIN by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1C3 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 59… ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ #amreading #FirstPara

“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 … and here’s the #FIRSTPARA
PERFECT
THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY

Try a #FirstPara & 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 51… ‘The Sea, The Sea’ #amreading #FirstPara

“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 share a link:
#Books #FirstPara THE SEA THE SEA by Iris Murdoch https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4bR via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 50… ‘These Foolish Things’ #amreading #FirstPara

“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

Great Opening Paragraph 47… ‘Enduring Love’ #amreading #FirstPara

“The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle – a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map: I was stretching out my hand, and as the cool neck and the black foil touched my palm, we heard a man’s shout. We turned to look across the field and saw the danger. Next thing, I was running towards it. The transformation was absolute: I don’t recall dropping the corkscrew, or getting to my feet, or making a decision, or hearing the caution Clarissa called after me. What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak. There was the shout again, and a child’s cry, enfeebled by the wind that roared in the tall trees along the hedgerows. I ran faster. And there, suddenly, from different points around the field, four other men were converging on the scene, running like me.”
Ian McEwanFrom ‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan

Read my reviews of these other novels by McEwan:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
NUTSHELL
THE CHILDREN ACT
WHAT WE CAN KNOW

And try two more McEwan #FirstParas:-
THE CEMENT GARDEN
THE CHILDREN ACT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘Possession’ by AS Byatt
‘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 ENDURING LOVE by Ian McEwan http://wp.me/p5gEM4-mr via @SandraDanby

#Books Great Opening paragraph 44… ‘The Hunger Games’ #amreading #FirstPara

“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course she did. This is the day of the reaping.” Suzanne CollinsFrom ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins

Read my reviews of the five books of the Underland Chronicles, also by Suzanne Collins:-
GREGOR THE OVERLANDER #1UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE PROPHECY OF BANE #2UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE CURSE OF THE WARMBLOODS #3UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE MARKS OF SECRET #4UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
GREGOR AND THE CODE OF CLAW #5UNDERLANDCHRONICLES

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene
‘The Last Tycoon’ by F Scott Fitzgerald
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4bk via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 43… ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ #amreading #FirstPara

“One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed, executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. Oedipa stood in the living-room, stared at by the greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God, tried to feel as drunk as possible. But this did not work. She thought of a hotel room in Mazatlán whose door had just been slammed, it seemed forever, waking up two hundred birds down in the lobby, a sunrise over the library slope at Cornell University that nobody out on it had seen because the slope faces west; a dry, disconsolate tune from the fourth movement of the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra; a whitewashed bust of Jay Gould that Pierce kept over the bed on a shelf so narrow for it she’d always had the hovering fear it would someday topple on them. Was that how he’d died, she wondered, among dreams, crushed by the only icon in the house? That only made her laugh, out loud and helpless: You’re so sick, Oedipa, she told herself, or the room, which knew.”
Thomas PynchonFrom ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The English Patient’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by Thomas Pynchon https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4bl via @SandraDanby