first impressions
Simultaneously achieving the heights of both anal retention and procrastination, I bring you:
A List* of the First Sentence of Every Book on my Bookshelf, in Alphabetical Order**
"This is the most beautiful place on earth."
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
"Although it was winter, the nearest ocean four hundred miles away, and the Tribal weatherman asleep because of boredom, a hurricane dropped from the sky in 1976 and fell so hard on the Spokane Indian Reservation that it knocked Victor from bed and his latest nightmare."
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
"My name is Rachel."
The Beginning, K.A. Applegate
"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
"We slept in what had once been the gymnasium."
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be born a heroine."
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
"I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible moment of my life."
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
"Throughout the long summer before my mother's trial began, and then during those crisp days in the fall when her life was paraded publicly before the county--her character lynched, her wisdom impugned--I overheard much more than my parents realized, and I understood more than they would have liked."
Midwives, Chris Bohjalian
"The girl-a young woman, really, eighteen, hair the color of corn silk-had been hearing the murmur of artillery fire for two days now."
Skeletons at the Feast, Chris Bohjalian
"I was eight when my parents separated, and nine when they actually divorced."
Trans-Sister Radio, Chris Bohjalian
"It was a pleasure to burn."
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
"Once upon a time there were four girls."
Forever In Blue, Ann Brashares
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
"Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their prime minister is."
In A Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
"There are certain idiosyncratic notions that you quietly come to accept when you live for a long time in Britain."
Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson
"My mother is standing in front of the bathroom mirror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Nate, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick."
Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
"Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shame shrine of intelligence."
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
"Today one of the brothers asked me: Is it a terrible prison, not to be able to move from the place where you're standing?"
Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
"'Mother. Father. Did I do it right?'"
Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
"Nothing looked right in Armenia when Petra Arkanian returned home."
Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
"The moving was over and done."
The Professor's House, Willa Cather
"In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini."
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
"Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke
"On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had -- at last! -- arrived."
Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho
"Once upon a time--for that is how all stories should begin--there was a boy who lost his mother."
The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly
"Jeremy Thatcher crumpled his paper in disgust."
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville
"'The best bit about being a pirate,' said the pirate with gout, 'is the looting.'"
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Gideon Defoe
"They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles."
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
"This story begins within the walls of a
castle, with the birth of a mouse."
The Tale of Desperaux, Kate DiCamillo
"A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard."
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
"The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began."
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards
"Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the trees calligraphic."
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
"I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door."
What is the What, Dave Eggers
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petroskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
"We were fractious and overpaid."
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
"129 lbs. (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 5244."
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
"Hurrah! The wilderness years are over!"
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding
"The first murders were committed nineteen years before the second, on a dry and unremarkable day along the Sutlej Frontier in Punjab."
The September Society, Charles Finch
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
"My legal name is Alexander Perchov."
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
"The small boys came early to the hanging."
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
"No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: 'Aim at either Microsoft or IBM.'"
The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman
"Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain."
Inkheart, Cornelia Funke
"Twilight was gathering, and Orpheus still wasn't here."
Inkspell, Cornelia Funke
"Moonlight fell on Elinor's bathrobe, her nightdress, her bare feet, and the dog lying in front of them."
Inkdeath, Cornelia Funke
"Shadow had done three years in prison."
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
"There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire."
Stardust, Neil Gaiman
"One evening in the spring of 1936, when I was a boy of fourteen, my father took me to a dance performance in Kyoto."
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
"The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack of slim cordless phones."
The Runaway Jury, John Grisham
"The call came on a school night in the autumn of 2002."
The Longest Trip Home, John Grogan
"It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I should find myself taking up a pen to try and write a history."
King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard
"Excuse me, Sir, but may I be of assistance?"
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains."
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
"He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the palm trees."
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
"Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton."
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
"He stands at the glass looking out."
This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M. Homes
"The Pilgrims didn't think much of Cape Cod."
A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
"Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater."
The World According to Garp, John Irving
"My name is Kathy H."
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
"It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days."
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
"It was the summer of 1923, the summer I came down from Cambridge."
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro
"She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him."
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
"The event that came to be known as The Pulse began at 3:03 p.m., eastern standard time, on the afternoon of October 1."
Cell, Stephen King
"To the public eye, the spouses of well-known writers are all but invisible, and no one knew it better than Lisey Landon."
Lisey's Story, Stephen King
"Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened."
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
"The war had made him famous."
The Good German, Joseph Kanon
"When they write my obituary."
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
"We just don't see how this could have happened."
Schooled, Anisha Lakhani
"On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable."
I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
"When I was thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
"The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards."
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin
"Come home, Tenar! Come home!"
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. LeGuin
"It was a dark and stormy night."
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
"'There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden.'"
A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L'Engle
"The big kitchen of the Murry's house was bright and warm, curtains drawn against the dark outside, against the rain driving past the house from the northeast."
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L'Engle
"A sudden snow shower put an end to hockey practice."
Many Waters, Madeleine L'Engle
"She walked through an orchard, fallen apples red and cidery on the ground, crossed a stone wall, and wandered on into a small wood."
An Acceptable Time, Madeleine L'Engle
"Novalee Nation, seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens--shifted uncomfortably in the seat of the old Plymouth and ran her hands down the curve of her belly."
Where the Heart Is, Billie Letts
"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child."
The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis
"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy."
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
"This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and in the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were King and Queens under him."
The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy and it has been told in another book called The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe how they had a remarkable adventure."
Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
"It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym."
The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
"In the last days of Narnia, far up beyond Lantern Waste and close beside the great waterfall, there lived an Ape."
The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis
"You may call me D.T."
The Castle in the Forest, Norman Mailer
"The day broke grey and dull."
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
"When they came south out of Grant County Boyd was not much more than a baby and the newly formed country they'd named Hidalgo was itself little older than the child."
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy
"Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel with their backs to the February chill."
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
"The play--for which Briony had designed the posters, programs, and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper--was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch."
Atonement, Ian McEwan
"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible."
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
"Some hours before dawn Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, wakes to find himself already in motion, pushing back the covers from a sitting position, and then rising to his feet."
Saturday, Ian McEwan
"When Calvin Harper was eleven, his petite four-foot-eleven-inch mom ripped the pillow from his bed at 3 a.m. and told him that dust mites were feeding off his skin."
The Book of Lies, Brad Meltzer
"I'd never given much thought to how I would die -- though I'd had reason enough in the last few months -- but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
"I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure I was dreaming."
New Moon, Stephenie Meyer
"In that place where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood."
Sula, Toni Morrison
"On most days, I enter the Capitol through the basement."
The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
"If you're going to read this, don't bother."
Choke, Chuck Palahnuik
"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die."
Fight Club, Chuck Palahnuik
"Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world."
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
"The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living."
Eldest, Christopher Paolini
"Eragon stared at the dark towers of stone wherein hid the monsters who had murdered his uncle, Garrow."
Brisingr, Christopher Paolini
"When the lights went out the accompanist kissed her."
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
"Two o'clock in the morning, a Thursday morning, the first bit of water broke through the ground of George Clatterbuck's back pasture in Habit, Kentucky, and not a living soul saw it."
The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
"The young mothers were telling each other how tired they were."
Little Children, Tom Perrotta
"Nothing but stars, scattered across the blackness as though the Creator had smashed the windscreen of his car and hadn't bothered to stop to pick up the pieces."
Pyramids!, Terry Pratchett
"It began on a train, heading north through England, although I was soon to discover that the story had really begun more than a hundred years earlier."
The Prestige, Christopher Priest
"Nolan pulls into the parking garage, braced for the Rican attendant with the cojones big enough to make a point of wondering what this rusted hunk of Chevy pickup junk in doing in Jag-u-ar City."
A Changed Man, Francine Prose
"Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen."
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
"Will tugged at his mother's hand and said, 'Come on, come on...'"
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
"Ama climbed the path to the cave, as she'd done for many days now, bread and milk in the bag on her back, a heavy puzzlement in her heart."
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
"I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old."
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
"Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four Privet Drive."
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
"Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways."
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
"The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it 'the Riddle House,' even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there."
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
"The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive."
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
"It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind."
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
"The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane."
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
"Compared to the Whiting Mansion in town, the house Charles Beaumont Whiting built a decade after his return to Maine was modest."
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
"There is no lake at Camp Green Lake."
Holes, Louis Sachar
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don' t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
"Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather as it had been all week and as everyone hoped it would stay for the big game weekend--the weekend of the Yale game."
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
"There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon til almost two-thirty to get her call through."
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."
The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie."
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
"In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered."
Lucky, Alice Sebold
"When my family first moved to North Carolina, we lived in a rented house three blocks from the school where I would begin the third grade."
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
"I am trying to look on the bright side."
Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris
"It was November."
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
"He didn't take the snowmobile as the elders advised; like most boys, he enjoyed the roar of a noisy engine, but lately he had started to appreciate the sound of his own thoughts."
Ice Trap, Kitty Sewell
"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!"
"King Henry the Sixth", The Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
"It is July 20, 1989, early afternoon, monsoon season in the Sonoran desert, and I am going back to Bisbee."
Going Back to Bisbee, Richard Shelton
"Tayo didn't sleep well that night."
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
"Certain people have said that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action."
The Penultimate Peril, Lemony Snicket
"If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable."
The End, Lemony Snicket
"A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
"Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty, and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
"These are the things I know are true."
The Bonesetter's Daughter, Amy Tan
"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
"Aragorn sped on up the hill."
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
"Pippin looked out from the shelter of Gandalf's cloak."
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
"There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor not very far away for those with long legs."
Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham, J.R.R. Tolkien
"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
"Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn't know their own names, couldn't remember where they'd come from, had forgotten how long they'd been lost."
The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea
"When Leigh's doorbell rang unexpectedly on a Monday night, she did not think, Gee, I wonder who that could be."
Chasing Harry Winston, Lauren Weisberger
"The light hadn't even officially turned green at the intersection of the 17th and Broadway before an army of overconfident yellow cabs roared past the tiny deathtrap I was attempting to navigate around the city streets."
The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger
"Selden paused in surprise."
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
"Everything about Great Salk Lake is exaggerated--the heat, the cold, the salt, and the brine."
Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
*Inspired by today's visit to the UA bookstore, where I saw a copy of the Best American Non-required Reading 2007, which included a list of the best first sentences of American novels.
**For a more exhaustive list of my bibliophilia, go here.
And you're gonna read every single one...right?
A List* of the First Sentence of Every Book on my Bookshelf, in Alphabetical Order**
"This is the most beautiful place on earth."
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
"Although it was winter, the nearest ocean four hundred miles away, and the Tribal weatherman asleep because of boredom, a hurricane dropped from the sky in 1976 and fell so hard on the Spokane Indian Reservation that it knocked Victor from bed and his latest nightmare."
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
"My name is Rachel."
The Beginning, K.A. Applegate
"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
"We slept in what had once been the gymnasium."
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be born a heroine."
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
"I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible moment of my life."
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
"Throughout the long summer before my mother's trial began, and then during those crisp days in the fall when her life was paraded publicly before the county--her character lynched, her wisdom impugned--I overheard much more than my parents realized, and I understood more than they would have liked."
Midwives, Chris Bohjalian
"The girl-a young woman, really, eighteen, hair the color of corn silk-had been hearing the murmur of artillery fire for two days now."
Skeletons at the Feast, Chris Bohjalian
"I was eight when my parents separated, and nine when they actually divorced."
Trans-Sister Radio, Chris Bohjalian
"It was a pleasure to burn."
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
"Once upon a time there were four girls."
Forever In Blue, Ann Brashares
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
"Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their prime minister is."
In A Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
"There are certain idiosyncratic notions that you quietly come to accept when you live for a long time in Britain."
Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson
"My mother is standing in front of the bathroom mirror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Nate, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick."
Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
"Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shame shrine of intelligence."
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
"Today one of the brothers asked me: Is it a terrible prison, not to be able to move from the place where you're standing?"
Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
"'Mother. Father. Did I do it right?'"
Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
"Nothing looked right in Armenia when Petra Arkanian returned home."
Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
"The moving was over and done."
The Professor's House, Willa Cather
"In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini."
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
"Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke
"On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had -- at last! -- arrived."
Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho
"Once upon a time--for that is how all stories should begin--there was a boy who lost his mother."
The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly
"Jeremy Thatcher crumpled his paper in disgust."
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville
"'The best bit about being a pirate,' said the pirate with gout, 'is the looting.'"
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Gideon Defoe
"They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles."
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
"This story begins within the walls of a
castle, with the birth of a mouse."
The Tale of Desperaux, Kate DiCamillo
"A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard."
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
"The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began."
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards
"Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the trees calligraphic."
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
"I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door."
What is the What, Dave Eggers
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petroskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
"We were fractious and overpaid."
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
"129 lbs. (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 5244."
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
"Hurrah! The wilderness years are over!"
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding
"The first murders were committed nineteen years before the second, on a dry and unremarkable day along the Sutlej Frontier in Punjab."
The September Society, Charles Finch
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
"My legal name is Alexander Perchov."
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
"The small boys came early to the hanging."
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
"No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: 'Aim at either Microsoft or IBM.'"
The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman
"Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain."
Inkheart, Cornelia Funke
"Twilight was gathering, and Orpheus still wasn't here."
Inkspell, Cornelia Funke
"Moonlight fell on Elinor's bathrobe, her nightdress, her bare feet, and the dog lying in front of them."
Inkdeath, Cornelia Funke
"Shadow had done three years in prison."
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
"There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire."
Stardust, Neil Gaiman
"One evening in the spring of 1936, when I was a boy of fourteen, my father took me to a dance performance in Kyoto."
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
"The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack of slim cordless phones."
The Runaway Jury, John Grisham
"The call came on a school night in the autumn of 2002."
The Longest Trip Home, John Grogan
"It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I should find myself taking up a pen to try and write a history."
King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard
"Excuse me, Sir, but may I be of assistance?"
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains."
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
"He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the palm trees."
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
"Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton."
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
"He stands at the glass looking out."
This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M. Homes
"The Pilgrims didn't think much of Cape Cod."
A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
"Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater."
The World According to Garp, John Irving
"My name is Kathy H."
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
"It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days."
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
"It was the summer of 1923, the summer I came down from Cambridge."
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro
"She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him."
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
"The event that came to be known as The Pulse began at 3:03 p.m., eastern standard time, on the afternoon of October 1."
Cell, Stephen King
"To the public eye, the spouses of well-known writers are all but invisible, and no one knew it better than Lisey Landon."
Lisey's Story, Stephen King
"Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened."
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
"The war had made him famous."
The Good German, Joseph Kanon
"When they write my obituary."
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
"We just don't see how this could have happened."
Schooled, Anisha Lakhani
"On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable."
I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
"When I was thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
"The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards."
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin
"Come home, Tenar! Come home!"
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. LeGuin
"It was a dark and stormy night."
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
"'There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden.'"
A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L'Engle
"The big kitchen of the Murry's house was bright and warm, curtains drawn against the dark outside, against the rain driving past the house from the northeast."
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L'Engle
"A sudden snow shower put an end to hockey practice."
Many Waters, Madeleine L'Engle
"She walked through an orchard, fallen apples red and cidery on the ground, crossed a stone wall, and wandered on into a small wood."
An Acceptable Time, Madeleine L'Engle
"Novalee Nation, seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens--shifted uncomfortably in the seat of the old Plymouth and ran her hands down the curve of her belly."
Where the Heart Is, Billie Letts
"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child."
The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis
"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy."
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
"This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and in the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were King and Queens under him."
The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy and it has been told in another book called The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe how they had a remarkable adventure."
Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
"It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym."
The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
"In the last days of Narnia, far up beyond Lantern Waste and close beside the great waterfall, there lived an Ape."
The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis
"You may call me D.T."
The Castle in the Forest, Norman Mailer
"The day broke grey and dull."
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
"When they came south out of Grant County Boyd was not much more than a baby and the newly formed country they'd named Hidalgo was itself little older than the child."
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy
"Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel with their backs to the February chill."
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
"The play--for which Briony had designed the posters, programs, and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper--was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch."
Atonement, Ian McEwan
"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible."
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
"Some hours before dawn Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, wakes to find himself already in motion, pushing back the covers from a sitting position, and then rising to his feet."
Saturday, Ian McEwan
"When Calvin Harper was eleven, his petite four-foot-eleven-inch mom ripped the pillow from his bed at 3 a.m. and told him that dust mites were feeding off his skin."
The Book of Lies, Brad Meltzer
"I'd never given much thought to how I would die -- though I'd had reason enough in the last few months -- but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
"I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure I was dreaming."
New Moon, Stephenie Meyer
"In that place where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood."
Sula, Toni Morrison
"On most days, I enter the Capitol through the basement."
The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
"If you're going to read this, don't bother."
Choke, Chuck Palahnuik
"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die."
Fight Club, Chuck Palahnuik
"Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world."
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
"The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living."
Eldest, Christopher Paolini
"Eragon stared at the dark towers of stone wherein hid the monsters who had murdered his uncle, Garrow."
Brisingr, Christopher Paolini
"When the lights went out the accompanist kissed her."
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
"Two o'clock in the morning, a Thursday morning, the first bit of water broke through the ground of George Clatterbuck's back pasture in Habit, Kentucky, and not a living soul saw it."
The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
"The young mothers were telling each other how tired they were."
Little Children, Tom Perrotta
"Nothing but stars, scattered across the blackness as though the Creator had smashed the windscreen of his car and hadn't bothered to stop to pick up the pieces."
Pyramids!, Terry Pratchett
"It began on a train, heading north through England, although I was soon to discover that the story had really begun more than a hundred years earlier."
The Prestige, Christopher Priest
"Nolan pulls into the parking garage, braced for the Rican attendant with the cojones big enough to make a point of wondering what this rusted hunk of Chevy pickup junk in doing in Jag-u-ar City."
A Changed Man, Francine Prose
"Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen."
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
"Will tugged at his mother's hand and said, 'Come on, come on...'"
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
"Ama climbed the path to the cave, as she'd done for many days now, bread and milk in the bag on her back, a heavy puzzlement in her heart."
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
"I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old."
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
"Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four Privet Drive."
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
"Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways."
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
"The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it 'the Riddle House,' even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there."
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
"The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive."
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
"It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind."
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
"The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane."
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
"Compared to the Whiting Mansion in town, the house Charles Beaumont Whiting built a decade after his return to Maine was modest."
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
"There is no lake at Camp Green Lake."
Holes, Louis Sachar
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don' t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
"Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather as it had been all week and as everyone hoped it would stay for the big game weekend--the weekend of the Yale game."
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
"There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon til almost two-thirty to get her call through."
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."
The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie."
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
"In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered."
Lucky, Alice Sebold
"When my family first moved to North Carolina, we lived in a rented house three blocks from the school where I would begin the third grade."
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
"I am trying to look on the bright side."
Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris
"It was November."
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
"He didn't take the snowmobile as the elders advised; like most boys, he enjoyed the roar of a noisy engine, but lately he had started to appreciate the sound of his own thoughts."
Ice Trap, Kitty Sewell
"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!"
"King Henry the Sixth", The Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
"It is July 20, 1989, early afternoon, monsoon season in the Sonoran desert, and I am going back to Bisbee."
Going Back to Bisbee, Richard Shelton
"Tayo didn't sleep well that night."
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
"Certain people have said that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action."
The Penultimate Peril, Lemony Snicket
"If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable."
The End, Lemony Snicket
"A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
"Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty, and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
"These are the things I know are true."
The Bonesetter's Daughter, Amy Tan
"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
"Aragorn sped on up the hill."
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
"Pippin looked out from the shelter of Gandalf's cloak."
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
"There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor not very far away for those with long legs."
Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham, J.R.R. Tolkien
"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
"Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn't know their own names, couldn't remember where they'd come from, had forgotten how long they'd been lost."
The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea
"When Leigh's doorbell rang unexpectedly on a Monday night, she did not think, Gee, I wonder who that could be."
Chasing Harry Winston, Lauren Weisberger
"The light hadn't even officially turned green at the intersection of the 17th and Broadway before an army of overconfident yellow cabs roared past the tiny deathtrap I was attempting to navigate around the city streets."
The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger
"Selden paused in surprise."
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
"Everything about Great Salk Lake is exaggerated--the heat, the cold, the salt, and the brine."
Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
*Inspired by today's visit to the UA bookstore, where I saw a copy of the Best American Non-required Reading 2007, which included a list of the best first sentences of American novels.
**For a more exhaustive list of my bibliophilia, go here.
And you're gonna read every single one...right?