Good idea for a thread!

I'm currently reading Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home by Jessica Fechtor.

First line: I am on the floor.

I've only just started the book for my next book group meeting, but so far it's fascinating. The author suffered a brain aneurysm at 28, and this is the story of how cooking helped in her recovery. I think it's a simple but striking way to start the story.

Kittens Can Kill by Clea Simon

"There's nothing cute about a death scene."

Then, in the second paragraph, "...But the kitten that sat beside the puddle, batting at a metal button that must have popped off the vest in that last desperate effort?...He was adorable."

I've only read the first chapter so far. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

Donna

"Of dust is man made, and to dust man returns. So I sat, watching for the dust of men returning." Two sentences, of course, but as Kathy said it creates more interest.

It is from The Elegant Solution by Paul Robertson, which I am back to reading and am about to finish. For a book set in the 18th century in Basel and about mathematics, it is surprisingly interesting. There was a murder that our hero is about to solve, I hope.

I remember being hooked by a couple of unusual opening lines but then being disappointed by the rest of the book. A strong start doesn't always mean a strong book, alas!

Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James

"It was Father Martin's idea that I should write an account of how I found the body."

I was so sure I had read this, but find myself getting hooked by James again!

Before I return this one to the library:

The Girl Who Slept with God
"On the last day of August in 1970, and a month shy of her fourteenth birthday, Jory's father drove his two daughters out to an abandoned house and left them there."

This opening line gave me a creepy and unsettled feeling. It made me cringe in the way that witnessing an accident almost makes you want to turn your face away.

As Ann says I don't think many opening lines can drag you into a great read and perhaps could put you off from reading what has become a classic. Take the opening sentence of Jane Eyre "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day " very mundane and boring but, had every one put their copy down at this point and the publishers been forced to pulp all the unsold editions we would be left the poorer . . . so maybe we should plough-on 'til at least the end of the first chapter.

This is something I've been doing recently with several 'no-hopers' which have now joined the pile of books to be donated at the local charity shop!

some well -known first lines

Ann - Regarding your statement:
"A strong start doesn't always mean a strong book, alas! "

The opening line I mentioned in Everything I Never Told You turned out to be an example of what you're talking about. "Alas" is right!

Too bad. The beginning is more effective, by breaking up the sentence into two parts.

One of my favorite openings..."The primroses were over." It winds around a bit, but you soon discover they're not the only thing that is over, in Watership Down. Their entire way of life is over and they'll have to find a way to move on.

Popped in to say that Watership Down was one of those books I had a great deal of difficulty getting into, though on my second attempt I got over the barrier and enjoyed it after all. The author's second book was my favorite of his by far, Shardik, a story of an early civilization and the disruptive effect the appearance of a giant bear who is seen as a messenger of God has on the people there His third (fourth?) novel Girl on a Swing was so profoundly disturbing to me that I stopped reading his books altogether.

Oh, I'm wandering off, am I not? Back to the topic, then. I was always fond of the opening line of A Wrinkle in Time, "It was a dark and stormy night". Forgive me, but I do. On the whole, though, I prefer novels with great last lines, the kind that are the absolutely perfect end to a novel that leads to no better destination.

I haven't read any of his other books....but I love A Wrinkle in Time! One of my favorites : )

Rosefolly - You make a good point about last lines. Although good books abound, in my experience a good book with a memorable last line is a bit rare.

And of course, A Tale of Two Cities is one with both a brilliant first line and brilliant last line. Is there another book with BOTH ends of it so very well known? Apart, perhaps from A Christmas Carol by the same author...

The first and last lines of Gone With the Wind are very well known, I think.

Respectively:

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. (Most readers probably remember the first clause best.)

After all, tomorrow is another day. (To put the last line in context, it's really the last paragraph that must be quoted: "I'll [Scarlett] think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

Martin (or anyone) - What is the last line of A Tale of Two Cities?

"It
is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a
far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

I read the book so long ago I'd forgotten that last line and had to Google it.

That IS nice. (I'm sure Charles Dickins would appreciate my saying so.)

I don't think Charles Dickens was actually a very nice man, probably damaged by his absolutely wretched childhood. And forgive me, but a lot of his books drag on to a fault. But when he was good, he really was very, very good.

There are some good ones here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/30-great-opening-lines-in-literature/

Certainly more than I could have come up with!

Astrokath - That's a wonderful list of books, and I like seeing the author pictures. The ones I've read from the list were all winners. Others I've wondered about, and a couple I've never heard of.

I'm thinking a thread based on this list of classics would be interesting - to learn our reading community's opinions of these 30 classic books. Do you agree?

A good idea Kathy. I'm sorry to say I have read less than half the selection.Just done a double-check and I have only read eight, so even worse than I thought ;-(

I must agree with Rosefolly to say I also think Dickens was not a 'nice' person. Certainly he treated his poor wife very badly. The unfortunate woman gave birth to a child for every one of the years they were together . . . until he put her 'aside' and forbade the children to communicate with her. I know large families were common in Victorian times but he used to complain that she had become fat and lost her figure and that the boys disturbed him with the sound of their heavy boots running up and down the stairs. He cherished his daughters and wanted them to stay at home; no doubt to hero-worship him; he had little time for them up and marrying. He also kept a mistress for several years, but kept it very hushed-up.

He seemed to have a 'thing' about silly little pretty women who never really grew up, like Dora in David Copperfield.

Re Astrokath's link to 30 great opening lines: I've read 21 of the books from beginning to end and started 6 or 7 others but never completed them (Metamorphosis, Moby-Dick, Middlemarch, Peter Pan -- pffft!, The Portrait of a Lady, Love in the Time of Cholera, and I'm not sure about A Confederacy of Dunces because I disliked it so much and found it so gross that I got fed up -- I don't remember the ending at any rate, if I read it).

Middlemarch is the one that I tried hardest to read, but Ms. Eliot's style of 'telling' the reader what to think has always irked me. She told me too many times that Dorothea Brooke was a paragon of virtue and that convinced me that Dorothea was not a character I wanted to know!! I only liked a couple of the minor denizens of Middlemarch; the main characters were mostly insufferable to me. That's too bad because when other readers describe Middlemarch, it has always sounded as if it would be a story that I would really like.

I've heard or seen in discussions the first lines of the books I haven't read or tried to read, but, frankly, I probably won't ever read them because they just don't appeal to me (The Crow Road and Murphy).

Another opening line (or lines) I've always liked is "I dreamed I was riding in a race. Nothing odd in that. I'd ridden in thousands."

Whip Hand by Dick Francis. It's only as you continue in the next few paragraphs that you realize it's only a dream because he's a jockey, who cannot ride anymore. That's what he calls the second awakening each morning. Sad beginning, but very good book!

"These are the stories that the dogs tell when the fires burn high and the wind is from the north."

City by Clifford D. Simak

I love that one, Rosefolly!

The first line(s) of my current read, I'm Off Then by Hape Kerkeling:

"'I'm off then!' I didn't tell my friends much more than that before I started out - just that I was going to hike through Spain. My friend Isabel had only this to say: 'Have you lost your mind?' I'd decided to go on a pilgrimage."

Okay, now I'm on a roll. Here are two more instantly recognizable first lines. Hear the line and you instantly know what book it begins.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." -- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." -- The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien

Classics indeed, Rosefolly!

First lines of the last book I read, Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner:

"My name is unimportant.

It all started in September 1989, at about seven in the morning."

Years ago I read a Ruth Rendel/Barbara Vine book that had an unusual opening line..... It went something like....Jane Smith was killed by her brother because he hated her hair color (not a quote,just an example).....the point is it gave you who,what,when,where, and how in the first sentence.....naturally I was hooked. I cannot recall the title, I just looked at all her titles on FF, it may be A JUDGEMNT IN STONE, but I am not sure.

Freida, I feel the same way about Middlemarch, tried it several times, never finished it.