My Year of Books: Best First Lines of 2013

If, as Ursula K. LeGuin has said, "First sentences are doors to worlds," then I turned a lot of great doorknobs this year.  My favorite lines are those which pack a lot of information and pack a hefty linguistic punch, but don't send me packing.  The best first sentences keep me in the book, demand I read the next sentence and the next one after that, and so on until--five hours later, I look up from the page and realize the house is burning down around my ears.

Here, in no particula...