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Your current read: first line
When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. ‘Spread your lips, sweet Lil,’ they’d chuck, ‘and show us your choppers!’”Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.
Very strange, but good so far.
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In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Started this last night, and it's a lovely read so far.
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 by John Connolly
) OK...to get the gist, I have to give you more than the first sentence...here goes:"A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said:"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise"
"After I was resurrected, my first thought was, Brains. I want brains. Give me brains!"
Kahlan wrote: ""After I was resurrected, my first thought was, Brains. I want brains. Give me brains!""Hahahahahahaha!
There was a boy called Eustace Scrubb and he almost deserved it.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
and
In the pages that follow, there are certain interpolations written by me, Carabosse, the fairy of clocks, keeper of the secrets of time.
Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper
It was the persistent sense of impending doom, not the nor'easter, that made Natalie flee from Cape Cod back to New Jersey in the pre dawn hours of monday morning.Just Take My Heart
On its own the first line is not great, so will be a bit more selective:There was a wall. It did not look important... But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
From the foreword of Wistril Compleat by Frank Tuttle:All poor Wistril wants out of life is a quiet place to continue his research, a steady supply of his favorite Upland persimmon lambic beer, and four rather large meals a day. You won't find Wistril out wandering the countryside on heroic quests.
In 1921 in the Belgian Congo, a six-year old girl from Chicago with a pith helmet on her blond curls walks at the head of a line of native porters. Her mother walks next to her, holding a rifle and her daughter's hand.James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
The Skin Map by Stephen R. LawheadI don't know, this was one of those first lines that would have put me off a book completely if I'd bothered to read the preview.
Had he but known that before that day was over he would discover the hidden dimensions of the universe, Kit might have been better prepared. At least, he would have brought an umbrella.
I do want to know what happens though, so I kept reading.
Hehe, it's not too bad :)What puts you off - the melodrama in the first line or the poor humour in the second?
Melodrama and bad humour has it's place and don't bother me much, as long as it's use sparingly. I just don't like it when authors start a book with "had he but known", "little did he know", "if he only knew". Come to think of it, in most instances using it anywhere in a book has me pulling a face. It's a personal thing. I'm sure other readers has similar things (perhaps not this specific, though) that inspires an eye-roll or frown every now and then. ;)I am enjoying The Skin Map so far. It's quite light-hearted and humourous at times.
Oh ok. I have to agree with you on that one. It's almost pointless - if he'd known he would have prepared. But he couldn't know so he didn't. Which is how life goes, everyday.
My first instinct is to grab his hand, snap back his index finger, and floor the fucker.
Lol. Nice opening line. I've had that moment before, it was fun.
Lol, you had a moment where you felt that instinct or where you actually acted upon it?
Erm, both :) I was doing ninjitsu at the time and we were getting drilled on side on punches. A friend of a friend went with us for a movie one weekend and came from my side with a mock punch. I had him halfway to the floor before I realized what I was doing. In my defense it was all reflex. . . Admittedly though he really used to get on my nerves a lot.
Ooh, another first sentence and then some:The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder
Sir Richard Frances Burton was dead.
He was lying on his back in the lobby of The Royal Geographic Society, sprawled at the bottom of the grand staircase with a diminutive red-haired poet slumped across his chest.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, tears streaming down his cheeks, his senses befuddled with alcohol, quickly composed an elegy. It was, after all, best to strike while the iron was hot.
Lol, reminds me a bit of that scene with Jim Carrey in A Series of Unfortunate Events when he first meets the orphans and tries to re-enact his 'sorrow' at the death of their parents.
Miranda Silver is in Dover, in the ground under her mother's house.
Her throat is blocked with a slice of apple
(to stop her speaking words that may betray her)
her ears are filled with earth
(to keep her from hearing sounds that will confuse her)
her eyes are closed, but
her heart thrums hard like hummingbird wings.
This sounds so cool. =)
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. - The Voyage of the Dawntreader
Naz wrote: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. - The Voyage of the Dawntreader"That's a fantastic first line :)
I know, I had one of those moments when I just read it and started laughing and everyone in the room turned to roll their eyes at me. Did you ever notice how anti-social reading can make you?
Hahaha, do you ever have moments when you really don't want to go out because staying home to read seems so cozy?
All the time! My flat mate once got a bit peeved with me because she invited her friends over and I sat on the couch the whole afternoon reading. The most I said was "Hi" and "Aha" both times only because someone nudged me. It was a book I was really looking forward to ok. I also remember learning to walk and read in school, used to do it between classes... handy trick that one.
I envy you your ability to read when other people are talking around you! I can handle the buzz of noises in a coffee shop, but I can't read with the TV on or if I can make out someone's conversation. I had to buy earplugs so I could read while my boyfriend played Xbox.
That must be horrible, sorry. I can block out most noise. My mother gets annoyed with me sometimes because she'll be talking and about a minute after she's done I'll look up and ask "Did you say something?" It amazes me that she hasn't slapped me yet.
I think it's because I grew up in a relatively quiet house. If anyone was blaring music or the TV it would be me or my sister, but if one of us wanted to read we could just go to our rooms and close the door and we wouldn't be disturbed.My boyfriend is the opposite. He has a bigger family and had to get used to doing homework with music or TV in the background and with his siblings or parents disturbing him all the time, so he can read anywhere.
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Letters rarely got written in that mine. Work stopped and the whole clan had sat around in respectful silence as his pen scrittered across the parchment... His sister had been sent down to the village to ask Mistress Garlick the witch how you stopped spelling recommendation.
: "The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within and he knew that if they did not make landfall in three days they would all be dead."
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.Mine is more prosaic: "Something bumped lightly against her bed.."
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Carolien wrote: "This is actually the first line of my daughter's read, but I had to share it: "There is an uneasiness that remains after your best friend tries to kill you". [bookcover:A World Without Princes|1817..."Hehehehe...The bump caused by her best friend? ;,>)
"Rattisbon Anno Umberto Eco introducing Baudolino
"It was on 27 June 1930 that Chief Inspector Maigret had his first encounter with the dead man, who was destined to be a most intimate and disturbing feature of his life for weeks on end."And so
, the 3rd in the Maigret series starts in the middle of the French summer. For the record, the first,
started in the beginning of winter and the second,
opened at the beginning of spring.
Mod
Yip!
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And so ..."
That's a nice timeline. I will join for this one I hope. I found it while cataloguing my Simenon's.
"In the old Arab quarter at the foot of the mountain the whitewashed houses all look alike."The first line of
. A, deceptively deep opening sentence that hints at the 'oneness' or unity of the Algerian independence war, when the novel itself goes on to explore the diverse struggles underpinning it.
"I am in fourth grade and in trouble." -
I do not know Amy Poehler, so I did not pick this book because I was blown away after seeing her on tv or in a movie (quick google). It was one of those spur of the moment decisions that often happen (to me) whilst scrolling through GR. In this case her book either won or was shortlisted for GR book of the year (think it was 2020). I added it to the TBR, whence it won a random selection from ten other books, because it fits the Y in 'KUNYE'. Here goes.
Mod
Carolien wrote: "Well at least, you are at Y. It will be a minor miracle if I complete the challenge this month. Work very inconveniently got in the way..."One of the things I don't like about work. Well, here's to hoping you can pull it off. I have been looking at the number of books that has a January tagline, looked at the many challenges I want to complete, and I can only shake my head.
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.And so starts the tale of the world favourite bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, and his friends. Great illustrations
"Twee polisiemanne het vroeg die oggend van 17 Maart uit die dorp vertrek om die 43-jarige Jessie de Waardt bo in Grootberg-se-Kloof op die plaas Kliprug in hegtenis te neem."The start of hometown author Dalene Matthee's Susters van Eva.
SA Book & Challenge Lovers
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