Great Beginnings ...

I like it when the opening paragraph of a book grabs my attention and makes me want to continue reading. I read alot, and there are some memorable beginnings to books that linger in my mind. Dickens was perhaps the master of potent opening lines in his fiction.

Who can forget the opening of "A Tale of Two Cities"? - It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...

Or the starting of "A Christmas Carol"? - Marley was dead ...

Yesterday I picked up at the library a book called "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss on the recommendation of a friend. The opening lines just hooked me: "When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF SHIT." - It caught my attention, it took my breath way ... it made me want to read more.

That's the kind of book beginning I like ... Then it got me thinking about other memorable book beginnings ... Some of them for me are:

The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink. - The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God ... - A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving.

I was never so amazed in my life as when the Sniffer drew his concealed weapong from its case and struck me to the ground, stone dead. How did I know that I was dead? As it seemed to me, I recovered consciousness in an instant after the blow, and heard the Sniffer saying, in a quavering voice: "He's dead! My God, I've killed him!" - Murther and Walking Spirits, by Robertson Davies.

AND MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE:

One winter's day, while a blizzard raged through the streets of Toronto, Lilah Kemp inadvertently set Kurtz free from page of 92 of Heart of Darkness. Horror-stricken, she tried to force him back between the covers. - Headhunter by Timothy Findley.