IN THE BEGINNING: Great Opening Lines From Your Favorite Books

Dear Reader,

IN THE BEGINNING presents the all-important first sentence of 1,000 famous and not-so-famous novels (plus a handful of short stories). A smorgasbord of popular fiction from around the world, ideally, these opening lines will have a tremendous attraction for lovers of literature everywhere.

IN THE BEGINNING is more than just a novelty book. Anyone who loves books not only enjoys being reminded of their favorites, but also delights in finding a good one they've missed. Those who relish reading and writing will savor a collection that brings back memories of beloved books, and often, the times in which they were read.

From Virginia Woolf to Tom Wolfe, from Edith Wharton to Stephen King, from Ernest Hemingway to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, masterpieces of world literature are juxtaposed with trendy best-sellers, romances with westerns, classics with cult favorites. Some lines are well-remembered, others rarely recalled; still others are brilliant beginnings from relatively obscure books. But in every case, IN THE BEGINNING confirms how powerful a sentence can be.

Bumping into a familiar line from a beloved novel fills the reader's mind with imagery. ("The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tale." (Jaws, by Peter Benchley). While dazzling openers don't guarantee a worthwhile novel, expectations run high when we're introduced with: "Paint me a railroad station then, ten minutes before dark." (John Cheever's Bullet Park) or "There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan-Am flight to Vienna and I'd been psychoanalyzed by at least six of them." (Fear of Flying by Erica Jong).

Some books reach their zenith with wonderful first lines that are never matched: "I had this story from one that had no business to tell it to me, or to any other." That's our initial meeting with the Tarzan series. Conversely, some rather mundane opening lines are made better because we know the marvelous story that follows, like B. Traven's Treasure of the Sierra Madre: "The bench on which Dobbs was sitting was not so good." Perhaps not truly memorable, but a truly unforgettable character, and Bogie didn't do badly by him either.

Enjoy.

Hans Bauer

Dettagli