Call me Ishmael
It is all over. My fourteen weeks of freedom, all of that glorious book reading time has come to an end. My classes begin Tuesday. I would be greatly saddened by this if not for the fact that my two classes are both writing classes: Creative Writing and Creative Writing Nonfiction. So while I will no longer be able to spend my evenings reading (things that I chose, that is) I will get to work on all kinds of writing projects, some of which might actually turn into larger professional pieces. Who knows.
Because it's the beginning of my school semester, I naturally have beginnings on my mind. I decided it would be fun to share a list of beginning lines from some of my favorite reads. Here is a collecetion of beginning lines from books that I own and go back to again and again. These first lines are excluding Introductions, unless the Introduction was written by the author. If these beginning lines catch your interest, give the book a chance, and let me know what you think!
1: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. ~Jane Eyre
2: Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last. ~Ahab's Wife
3: We came like doves across the desert. ~The Dovekeepers
4: The elm tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. ~Under the Lilacs
5: Long and long ago, when Oberon was king of the fairies, there reigned over the fair country of Phantasmorania a monarch who had six beautiful daughters. ~The Ordinary Princess
6: Once there was a child whose face was like the new moon shining on cypress trees and the feathers of waterbirds. ~In the Night Garden (book one of The Orphan's Tales duology)
7: Once a year there was a knock at the door. ~The Story Sisters
8: The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. ~The Wind in the Willows
9: Chains snarled the courtyard behind the derelict cannon foundry in Applecross: spears of chain radiating at every angle, secured into walls with rusted hooks and pins, and knitted together like a madwoman's puzzle. ~Scar Night (book one of The Deepgate Codex trilogy)
10: The circus arrives without warning. ~The Night Circus
11: At the dawn of time, long before the ancestors of Styricum slouched, fur-clad and club-wielding, out of the mountains and forests of Zemoch onto the plains of central Eosia, there dwelt in a deep cavern lying beneath the perpetual snows of northern Thalesia a dwarfed and misshapen Troll named Ghwerig. ~The Diamond Throne (book one of The Elenium trilogy)
12: The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. ~The Last Unicorn
13: A strawberry changed my life. ~Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write
14: Who cooked the Last Supper? ~Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World
15: The garden market positively thronged with people, clustered around the wagons just in from the countryside. ~The Outstretched Shadow (book one of the Obsidian Trilogy)
16: I saw the Devil at age three and he gave me chocolate. ~Confections of a Closet Master Baker
17: My heart failed a few times again today, but each time it came back to life. ~Letters from Westerbork
18: Dearest Mummy, Don't cry, I am well, in good spirits, and doing fine. ~I am First a Human Being
19: I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, --and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write, --whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. ~The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (Volume I)
20: Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened: "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL. ~Persuasion (Actually, this line goes on through a list of his family, but I thought I'd spare you that.)
I now have a bunch of books that I love piled up all around me at the table here, but I will be semi-responsible and put them away, as I have today and tomorrow to try and finish the library books I have waiting for me. I need to finish Fanny Burney: A Biography by Claire Harman, and sitting on my headboard are The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, and Civilization by Martin Puchner and Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager. I have until Tuesday. Let's see how I do.
Happy reading!
Because it's the beginning of my school semester, I naturally have beginnings on my mind. I decided it would be fun to share a list of beginning lines from some of my favorite reads. Here is a collecetion of beginning lines from books that I own and go back to again and again. These first lines are excluding Introductions, unless the Introduction was written by the author. If these beginning lines catch your interest, give the book a chance, and let me know what you think!
1: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. ~Jane Eyre
2: Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last. ~Ahab's Wife
3: We came like doves across the desert. ~The Dovekeepers
4: The elm tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. ~Under the Lilacs
5: Long and long ago, when Oberon was king of the fairies, there reigned over the fair country of Phantasmorania a monarch who had six beautiful daughters. ~The Ordinary Princess
6: Once there was a child whose face was like the new moon shining on cypress trees and the feathers of waterbirds. ~In the Night Garden (book one of The Orphan's Tales duology)
7: Once a year there was a knock at the door. ~The Story Sisters
8: The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. ~The Wind in the Willows
9: Chains snarled the courtyard behind the derelict cannon foundry in Applecross: spears of chain radiating at every angle, secured into walls with rusted hooks and pins, and knitted together like a madwoman's puzzle. ~Scar Night (book one of The Deepgate Codex trilogy)
10: The circus arrives without warning. ~The Night Circus
11: At the dawn of time, long before the ancestors of Styricum slouched, fur-clad and club-wielding, out of the mountains and forests of Zemoch onto the plains of central Eosia, there dwelt in a deep cavern lying beneath the perpetual snows of northern Thalesia a dwarfed and misshapen Troll named Ghwerig. ~The Diamond Throne (book one of The Elenium trilogy)
12: The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. ~The Last Unicorn
13: A strawberry changed my life. ~Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write
14: Who cooked the Last Supper? ~Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World
15: The garden market positively thronged with people, clustered around the wagons just in from the countryside. ~The Outstretched Shadow (book one of the Obsidian Trilogy)
16: I saw the Devil at age three and he gave me chocolate. ~Confections of a Closet Master Baker
17: My heart failed a few times again today, but each time it came back to life. ~Letters from Westerbork
18: Dearest Mummy, Don't cry, I am well, in good spirits, and doing fine. ~I am First a Human Being
19: I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, --and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write, --whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. ~The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (Volume I)
20: Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened: "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL. ~Persuasion (Actually, this line goes on through a list of his family, but I thought I'd spare you that.)
I now have a bunch of books that I love piled up all around me at the table here, but I will be semi-responsible and put them away, as I have today and tomorrow to try and finish the library books I have waiting for me. I need to finish Fanny Burney: A Biography by Claire Harman, and sitting on my headboard are The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, and Civilization by Martin Puchner and Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager. I have until Tuesday. Let's see how I do.
Happy reading!
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