Greatest Opening Lines...of Books

What are the best opening lines in lterature? Your Genre? Your all time favorites?

I personally struggle the most to create compelling opening and closing sentences.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped a girl off the bridge" John D. McDonald, Darker Than Amber

What is your favorites? In your genre?

Popular posts from this blog

Hardcover v. Soft

I asked two questions over the last few days and Mark Terry was gracious enough to answer them. My question: Mark; I don't understand the dynamics of Hardcovers for new authors - the economics don't seen right. How can the book buying public be expected to shell out $25+ for an unknown author. Does it have to do with library sales? Why not trade paperbacks. It seems like the new author at least then has a fightling chance for someone to spend $10-$15 and everyone should still be able to make some scratch this way. John D. MacDonald, an author I admire and respect, put out most of his in mass market paperback. I have read where he made more money this way. Some were eventually published in hardcover, but most came out originally in paperback. What do you think? An Excerpt of his answer : Always a worthwhile question, RJ, and I wish I understood it. I suspect it's part prestige. The rest is probably library sales, which can be considerable, in that there's about 10,000 li...
Read more

Blocked....The Mystery

Blocked. Not the type ruffage will clear. I haven't even been able to blog, write fiction, write anything for a while now. It woke me up at 4 a.m. today - I've written 2 paragraghs of fiction in the last couple of weeks. Why? Personal shit getting me down? Maybe. Story well run dry? Don't think so. Introspection? Yep. Soul searching? Yes. Fear? Na. Loathing? Yes. Yes. Yes. Fear? Maybe. Self doubt? Getting warm. Fear? Yep, you caught me. A writer I respect wrote me a long email after I whined to her. She said write 1000 words a day, even if it sucks the big hairy green one. Today I write. . .
Read more

Another Literary Hoax

Image
How much more can the publishing world be damaged? The Washington Post reports today that "the writer penning the novels of "JT LeRoy," a purported 25-year-old former male prostitute and drug addict, has been unmasked as a 40-year-old woman who allegedly undertook the ruse to get her work recognized." From the article posted today: "LeRoy never existed and Laura Albert authored the books, according to an attorney for her estranged partner, Geoffrey Knoop. Knoop, 39, who apologized for playing a role in the hoax, said the stress of keeping it secret had become too much to bear. The couple split in December after 16 years and were trying to work out custody of their young son. "He's wanted to come clean and let JT fade away," attorney Eric Feig said of Knoop late Monday. "He wanted to take the high road." He has also secured a movie deal to tell his side of the story, Feig said. The unveiling of LeRoy comes as the literary world is questio...
Read more