Book Club

[LoriLori]

A few sentences, hope no one minds, that open Fredrik Backman's beautiful Christmas novella, "The Deal of a Lifetime":

"Hi.  It's your dad.  You'll be waking up soon, it's Christmas Eve morning in Helsingborg, and I've killed a man.  That's not how fairy tales usually begin, I know."

[tansy]

This opening really stuck with me over the years.

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

By Brady Udall

Published in 2001

"If I could tell you only one thing about my life it would be this: when I was seven years old the mailman ran over my head. As formative events go, nothing else comes close; my careening, zizag existence, my wounded brain and faith in God, my collisions with joy and affliction, all of it has come, in one way or another, out of that moment on a summer morning when the left rear tire of a United States postal jeep ground my tiny head into the hot gravel of the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation."

[gardenman]

I have a decent first line in a new book I'm writing. 

"Sometimes knowing the truth is worse than believing the lies."

In it a young writer discovers that the tragic death of much of the human race was orchestrated by the world government and wasn't caused by a massive mistake. He's now preparing to take on the government to expose the truth.

Here's the first paragraph.

"Sometimes knowing the truth is worse than believing the lies. I’d had been trained to manipulate the public into believing the government’s lies. I’d believed the lies myself until recently, but now I knew the truth. My problem was, what to do with the truth?"

This book, tentatively titled "The Ten Thousand," has a long ways to go yet as just 30,000 words are down, but give it a year or so and it'll be out. The title refers to the number of government sanctioned book titles that are allowed to be in circulation at any one time. Each year the government holds a contest where newly written books are entered and judged by the government to see which, if any, crack the list of ten thousand. Any books that fall off the list must be turned over to the government to be recycled. Only books that promote the government's views and are deemed as progressive are allowed to be published.

But hidden away in an abandoned subway tunnel is a secret library called the Freedom Library, where non-complying books, documents, magazines and newspapers are stored. It's there that our young hero learns the truth of what happened. 

It's a pretty neat story, but it's in the early stages just yet. It's maybe halfway done? Maybe less. Give it a year or so and I should have it finished.

[abbalulu]

@gardenman Sounds really good! I'll be looking forward to it!

[LoriLori]

"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."

-- Stephen King "It"

[LoriLori]

Vladimir Nabakov, "Lolita"

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.  My sin, my soul.  Lo-lee-ta:  the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.  Lo.  Lee.  Ta."

[LoriLori]

Dickens, "Great Expectations":

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip."

[LoriLori]

Dickens, "A Christmas Carol":

"Preface:

I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

                  Their Faithful Friend and Servant,

                  C.D."

First sentences:

"Marley was dead: to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that."

[LoriLori]

First lines of Frederik Backman's "Beartown":

"Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

"This is the story of how we got there."

[teganslaw]

Gardenman, I just noticed the description of a new book you're writing: "The Ten Thousand." it sounds interesting; does it happen to take place in the future? The premise sounds dystopian and of the science fiction genre.