Tag Archives: Graham Greene

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

“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

A book I love… Wind in the Willows

One of the reasons I love this book still is the actual edition: a green cloth-covered hardback with a green paper cover. wind in the willows1 I can remember the excitement at being given a hardback book which in 1969 was expensive. I was more used to devouring as many Famous Five and Secret Seven books as possible that we could pick up secondhand at the school fete: my reading at that age was voracious. wind in the willows3The book was a birthday gift from my parents for my ninth birthday, the birthday greeting inside is written in my elder sister’s neat italic script. wind in the willows2It never dawned on me that the language was old-fashioned – Oddsboddikins! – I just lapped it up. Today the book sits on my bookshelf between Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, and Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame