First lines of 10 of my fave nonfiction books

First lines of 10 of my fave Nonfiction books

by JTV


So I guess, we all know about stuff, like:
100 Best First Lines from Novels
and
53 Of The Best Opening Sentences In Literature
and
The Best 100 Opening Lines from Books
and, suchlike...
(If not, then maybe ask Uncle Google about "Best opening lines novels".)

Anyway; so I'm trying to write a nonfiction book right now, and so - for the sake of studying success, here are the opening paras of 10 nonfiction books I like. (That also happen to be: bestsellers.)
This is all meant to inspire (and: educate) me.
(Maybe it will you, too...)

--------------------
#1
`Chapter 1. Why are people?
Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.'
The Selfish Gene (Dawkins 01976, p. 1)

#2
`Chapter 1 - Welcome to the most important conversation of our age

Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before - or to self-destruct.

-Future of Life Institute 
Thirteen point eight billion years after its birth, our universe has awoken and become aware of itself.'
Life 3.0 (Tegmark 02018)


#3
`1. An Animal of No Significance
About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as The Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called Physics.'
Sapiens (Harari 02015, p. 1)


#4
`1. The New Human Agenda
At the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up, stretching its limbs and rubbing its eyes.'
Homo Deus (Harari 02017, p. 1)


#5
`Chapter 1: Tell Me Why
1. Is Nothing Sacred?
We used to sing a lot when I was a child, around the campfire at summer camp, at school and Sunday school, or gathered around the piano at home. One of my favorite songs was "Tell Me Why".'
Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Dennett 01995, p. 1)


#6
`Chapter 1: The Ionian Enchantment
I remember very well the time I was captured by the dream of unified learning,'
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Wilson 01998, p. 1)


#7
`Introduction: Animal, Human, Art, Story
Some people eat with chopsticks, some with knives and forks, and some with neither. Are these discrete cultural inventions, or do they have common roots?'
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Boyd 02009, p. 1)


#8
`1. Disillusionment
The End of History Has Been Postponed
Humans think in stories rather than facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story the better.'
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Harari 02019)


#9
`Part 1 - Enlightenment

`The common sense of the eighteenth century, its grasp of the obvious facts of human suffering, and of the obvious demands of human nature, acted on the world like a bath of moral cleansing.'

-Alfred North Whitehead

In the course of several decades giving public lectures on language, mind, and human nature, I have been asked some mighty strange questions. Which is the best language? Are clams and oysters conscious? When will I be able to upload my mind to the internet? Is obesity a form of violence?'
Enlightenment Now (Pinker 02018, p. 1)


#10
`1. Setting the Stage
This book is about creativity, based on histories of contemporary people who know about it firsthand.'
Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 01996, p. 1)


#11
`Introduction
When on board H,M,S, `Beagle', as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and of the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.'
On the Origin of Species (Darwin 01859)

#12
`Book One - The Art of Discovery and the Discoveries of Art
1. The Logic of Laughter
The Triptych

The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for this seemingly perverse order of arrangement - the Sage flanked by the Jester and the Artist on opposite sides - will become apparent as the argument unfolds.' 
The Act of Creation (Koestler 1964, p. 1)




----------------------
Anyway; I could also add many more books that inspire me, but - that's a good start.

Q: What do they all have in common? 
A: Not sure; they range from statements of fact to personal anecdotes, to both.
If we start with their body text, and not with the chapter headings/subheadings/section headings - none of them begin with: A question.
But for one thing (in common): they all still engage (`hook') me, and compel me to read on.
(See: Classic Writing for more...)


...Hmmmm...

How to write a great opening line for my specific nonfiction book...?

...Hmmmm...!


---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
or JoeTV
or JTV
or that random guy
who knows
it's flexible
depends on the context----------------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.