Best First Lines

[naomi24]

Many readers can identify a book by its opening line, and Amazon Books have conducted a survey of the most recognisable, with Charles Dickens' 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' from 'A Tale of Two Cities' coming out at number one.  I was surprised that Jane Austen's 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' from 'Pride and Prejudice' trailed at number thirteen and there are some there I don't recognise at all.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12563537/Charles-Dickens-Tale-Two-Cities-Britains-favourite-start-novel.html

 

What's your number one?

[jno]

“Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot, climbing down from that animal on her return from high Mass.

Fear and Loathing, Piggynose?

[piggynose]

21.23 jno..no

[Toorak]

The book I am referring to is obvious. But I love the first line because it indicates a wish to be personally in control (she wanted everything to be 'just so' for her party) when she had no control over wider events - as the book unfolds. 

[piggynose]

Jno..sorry for being pedantic.. fear and loathing in las vegas! To be precise.

[Toorak]

Gonzo journalism ... I loved it (and the new journalism - Joan Didion, Tom Wolff, Truman Capote etc.)

[piggynose]

When he was 13, my brother Jem, got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

[Cloverjo]

To Kill a Mockingbird? Great book

[Cloverjo]

Has anyone mentioned the classic opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night"?

[Ken4155]

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years - if it ever did end - began, so far as i know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

[tomus42]

The line that started me off as a voracious book reader when I was a kid.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit"

[piggynose]

23.18 correct!

it's been yonks since I've read it! Will need to reread it! I can't remember if the film was similar to the book!