Fabulous Firsts

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Okay I’m home from work so here we go…

Becca of Just One More Page recently she gave me a page about first lines photocopied from a book she’d been reading, Book Lust by Nancy Pearle, a book which combines two of Becca’s fav. things – books and lists. Pearle captures the way I feel about first lines. I love that…when someone else puts into words exactly what’s on your own mind.

Sometimes, Pearle says, great first lines ‘promise much but deliver little’. She makes a promise, when she lists eight books with enticing first lines that they are also ‘perfectly wonderful all the way to the last line.’

And, of course, I haven’t read any of them (in fact much to my chagrin I have only even heard of two), I just have to add them to my TBR, I think #2 is my favourite…or maybe #8.

here’s her list and their fabulous firsts

1. The Paperboy Pete Dexter “My brother Ward was once a famous man.’
2. After Life Rhian Ellis “First I had to get his body into the boat”
3. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (I know of this one but haven’t read it) “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
4. A Primate’s Memoir: A Neurscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons Robert Sapolsky “I joined the baboon troop during my twenty-first year.”
5. Endless Love Scott Spencer (everyone my age knows this book through the movie) – look it up it’s a long one
6. The Man in the Window Jon Cohen “Atlas Malone saw the angel again, this time down by the horse chestnut tree.”
7. No One Thinks of Greenland John Griesemer “ ‘You’ll want to scratch,’ said the nurse
8. The Towers of Trebizond Rose Macauly “ ‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed sown from this animal on her return from High Mass.”

So what about you…which is your favourite from this list? do any of them warrant going on your TBR? have you read/recommend any? 

puzzle: five point up for grabs!

• What book famously begins with what the narrator is not going to do...bang on with ‘all that David Copperfield kind of crap.’
• What is the iconic narrator’s name?
• Who wrote it?
• Who wrote the book referred to in the opening sentence?
• Which American punk band has a song about the book?

last month’s puzzle winners: Holly feels grief (Vicki 1 pt) for Gerry (Vicki 1 pt) because he has died (Becca i1pt)