Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?

[Margaret Pilkington]

I can't remember any first lines from the book I am about to tell you about...only thing I can remember is it is very funny.......don't read it in a public place. Puckoon by Spike Milligan.....I read it years ago and it had me laughing out loud on the top deck of Blackburn Corporation bus.......I think they were about to bring in the fellers in white coats, until they saw me in the nurses uniform .

[mobertol]

A laugh out loud book for me is Kate Atkinson's "Behind the scenes at the Museum" - if you've never read it Margaret it's got everything -including an unexpected twist at the end.
Otherwise anything by Mavis Cheek -very cheeky and makes you laugh.

[mobertol]

First line of Behind the scenes at the Museum:
"I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall. The clock once belonged to my gt-grandmother (a woman called Alice) and its tired chime counts me into the world. I'm begun on the first stroke an finished on the last when my father rolls off my mother and is plunged into a dreamless sleep, thanks to the 5 pints of John Smith's Best Bitter he had drunk in the Punchbowl with his friends...."

(Ruby -the conceived one, tells the story of her family from when Alice abandons it for a french photographer through to her own growing up above a pet shop in York. Ruby is born, to mother Bunty, while her father is in the Hare and Hounds in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married!!)

For Mavis Cheek -just checked some of my titles and one is "Aunt Margaret's Lover" -could be a good one to try Mrs. P!

[mobertol]

"Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling. My mother liked to wrestle."

Oranges are not the only Fruit -Jeanette Winterson

Great start to a favourite book of mine -I really identify with this book as it's set when I was growing up in Accy. I have the video of the dramatisation which is really good too -watch it when I'm feeling homesick!

[Margaret Pilkington]

I have just been reading the reviews of the books you recommended ...and there are some definite possibilities there for me to try.

Didn't like Jeanette Winterson - Oranges are not the only fruit....it struck me a being a 'mardy' write. I think I only really read it because it was set in Accrington......I was not impressed and can't bring myself to read anything else written by this woman(you never get a second chance to make a first impression).....I know, I should be more forgiving!

[Eric]

Originally Posted by mobertol

Sounds a laugh a minute book!

And if that one doesn't have you giggling, try "Premature Burial" ... you will be rolling in the aisles.

Or how about: "Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported - hanging high above us .... ". Harlan Ellison, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" ... if this doesn't tickle your funny bone, nothing will

[annesingleton]

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, I've read it many times and never tire of it.

[kestrelx]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I have just been reading the reviews of the books you recommended ...and there are some definite possibilities there for me to try.

Didn't like Jeanette Winterson - Oranges are not the only fruit....it struck me a being a 'mardy' write. I think I only really read it because it was set in Accrington......I was not impressed and can't bring myself to read anything else written by this woman(you never get a second chance to make a first impression).....I know, I should be more forgiving!

I couldn't put "Oranges..." down it was really compelling, the writing was excellent - but I agree with you on the 2nd count - I can't read her later stuff.

"This happened in 1932, when the state penitentary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair was there, too, of course."

The Green Mile by Steven King.

[Margaret Pilkington]

isn't it starnge how one person finds something compelling while another finds it a bit mardy....it wouldn't do for us all to like the same things......variety being the spice of life.

[Boeing Guy]

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him."

1984 George Orwell.
Also

"Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but
was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light
from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard,
kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer
from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where
Mrs. Jones was already snoring."

Animal Farm, also George Orwell.
Neither as dark as Poe

[Bernard Dawson]

One of my favourite first lines of any novel.

One morning when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams,he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

Metamorphosis Franz Kafka

[susie123]

Deja vu, BG, Bernard - look at my Post 2. Bernard that must be a different translation. I prefer the word insect, it gives me a better picture.

[Bernard Dawson]

Originally Posted by susie123

Deja vu, BG, Bernard - look at my Post 2. Bernard that must be a different translation. I prefer the word insect, it gives me a better picture.

Sorry about that Susie, I hadn't noticed the early posts. I agree with you insect is a better word. As you say it gaves you a better picture.

[mobertol]

"The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon." William Golding Lord of the Flies. When we read this at school I remember being the only one out of the class who said she'd enjoyed it at the end -same with Animal Farm!

I have another of Golding's books "the Paper men" in my bookshelf and th opening lines make me think of Eric for some reason (no offence Eric -it's a bit autobiographical on his part i think)
"I knew at once it was one of those nights. The drink, such as it had been, was dying out of my brain and leaving a kind of sediment of irritation, vague discomfort and even remorse. It had not been - no, indeed-a bender or booze-up. By the excercise of special pleading I could have persuaded other people that my evening's consumption had been no more than reasonable with regard to the duties of a host: an English author entertaining a professor of English Literature from overseas."

[mobertol]

This is another one i was thinking might be up Margaret's street short-listed for Booker Prize 1995: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

"It was death that began it all and another death that led us on."

Late 14th century, war and plague, Nicholas Barber, a young wayward cleric joins a group of travelling players -murder and mystery -brilliant!

This is my 2000th post -fanfare?!!