From the category archives:

Opening Lines

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on January 21, 2010

{ 0 comments }

The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac

by Reviewer on September 17, 2009

Opening line:
Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down with my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated the clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara.

{ 0 comments }

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Reviewer on August 30, 2009

Opening line:
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”

{ 1 comment }

Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on August 8, 2009

Opening line: “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train…”

{ 1 comment }

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on July 28, 2009

Opening line: “At night I would lie bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched…”

{ 1 comment }