First lines

Over on A Tale Unfolds, Arkenaten listed opening lines of books he found on his shelves.

I thought I’d do the same, but with only the first line from some of my favorite books.

Which would you read or not?

Ramón Espejo awoke floating in a sea of darkness.

~ Hunter’s Run by George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, and Daniel Abraham

Idle reader, you need no oath of mine to convince you that I wish this book, the child of my brain, were the handsomest, the liveliest, and the wisest that would be conceived.

~ Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death; be could hear them squealing as only happy children do.

~ Wool – Part 1 by Hugh Howey

 I was twelve when it all happened – when Jasper Leatherstone escaped Death Row and everything changed.

~ Leatherstone by David Patrick Pabian

The morning express bloated with passengers slowed to a crawl, then lurched forward suddenly, as though to resume full speed.

~ A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

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: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

A flattened and drying daffodil was dangling off the little card that I had made my aunt Atie for Mother’s Day.

~ Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

It was a death that began it all and another death that led us on.

~ Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.

~ The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Old maps lead you to strange and unexpected places, and none does so more ineluctably than the subject of this book: the giant, beguiling Waldseemuller world map of 1507.

~ The Fourth Part of the World (nonfiction) by Toby Lester

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

~ A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.

~ The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.

~ The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office.

~ Me Talk Pretty One Day (nonfiction) by David Sedaris

There are many other books’ first lines that I could list, but those are a smattering of some of my favorite books.

Your turn!