“In deck-chairs all along the front the bald pink knees of Bradford businessmen nuzzled the sun.”
‘The Ghost Road’, Pat Barker
Great opening paragraph…18
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Tag Archives: Sandra Danby
Great opening paragraph… 17
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.”
‘The Hobbit’ by JRR Tolkein
Great opening paragraph…16
“Spring 1521. I could hear a roll of muffled drums. But I could see nothing but the lacing on the bodice of the lady standing in front of me, blocking my view of the scaffold. I had been at this court for more than a year and attended hundreds of festivities; but never before one like this.”
‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ by Philippa Gregory
Great opening paragraph…14
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.”
‘Rebecca’ Daphne du Maurier
Great opening paragraph…13
“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.”
‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding
Great opening paragraph…10
“Before the screaming starts, the night silence of the convent is alive with its own particular sounds.”
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant
A book I love… The Wind in the Willows
One of the reasons I still love my copy of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, is the actual edition: a green cloth-covered hardback with a green paper cover. 
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. 
The 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. 
It 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.
‘The Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame [UK: Wordsworth Editions]
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame http://wp.me/p5gEM4-cZ #bookreview 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. 
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. 
The 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. 
It 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
My Top 5… the Booker winners I re-read, and why
All lists are completely subjective, and I am not claiming to have read every Booker winner. So this list is a little like a celebrity’s ‘Desert Island Discs’, it has changed in recent years and will no doubt change again. There are more recent Booker winners which I love, Hilary Mantel for example, but have yet to re-read and so strictly they do not belong here. In no particular order, my current Top 5 are:-
AS Byatt Possession 
The plaiting together of storylines and points of view in two centuries, it showed me how to plot
Yann Martel Life of Pi 
The sheer magical ambition of it, a tiger in a boat
Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children 
The scope, the exotic setting, what a way of recounting the birth of a new country
Penelope Lively Moon Tiger 
Perhaps my all-time favourite, for its gentle romance, its clever manipulation of point of view, the handling of death and grief. And she gets the dialogue spot-on too
Peter Carey Oscar and Lucinda 
The first Peter Carey I read, the first of many, and picked up on impulse because it had won the Booker. It introduced me to Australian writers
Which 5 Booker winners do you re-read?
Great opening paragraph…9
“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.”
‘Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS 