Life On Books Podcast The BEST Opening Lines in Books
There's probably few things more difficult for a writer than figuring out exactly how to start a book.
Afterall, the first line of a novel is essentially a "hook." If you don't reel people in, they'll likely put it down and pick up something else instead.
Think about some of the most famous opening lines, like Charles Dickens in a Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".
Or Melville's Moby Dick: "Call me Ishmael".
In this episode, Andy and I dive into some our favorite opening lines, passages, and pages.
What are some of your favorite book openers?
Here are the books mentioned in this episode:
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781590173244
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Angels by Denis Johnson
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060988821
Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781646052028
Memed My Hawk by Yashar Kemal
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781590171394
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781417735983
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781590173466
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781982147174
Hamas: From Resistance to Regime by Paola Caridi
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781644211892
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780316066525
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780143039945
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780679728757
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781501110368
12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780345816023
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780141439600
Jorge Luis Borgs Collected Fictions
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780140286809
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781455540013
The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781250033314
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780684841212
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781451626650
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781681374666
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780142437247
The Stranger by Albert Camus
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780679720201
The Brother by Rein Raud
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781940953441
The Instructions by Adam Levin
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781952119736
Pay as you Go by Eskor David Johnson
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781952119743
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780140186390
Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312423209