Share with us your current book's opening paragraph.....we love to nosy in other people's stories .....

PONTOON ~ GARRISON KEILLOR 

Evelyn was an insomniac so when they said she died in her sleep,you have to question that.Probably she was sitting propped up in bed reading and heard the brush of wings and smelled the cold clean air and the angel appeared like a deer in the bedroom and Evelyn said," Not yet, I have to finish this book ."  And the angel shook his glolden locks, which made a skittery sound like dry seed pods, and he laughed  a long silent laugh, and took her pale hand in his. He'd heard that line "Not yet " before.........

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question. 

A Florentine Death by Michele Giutarri

7 a.m. Michele Ferrara's apartment.

That morning, Florence had woken up twice: from a night's sleep, and from the sluggishness of a summer that had been too hot and too long.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo was well known througout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was called the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.

 must...persevere... *zonk*

I would rather read Heart of Darkness once every day for the next five years. At least that was a compelling read! I've read the first two chapters of this and am still not inspired by it. Yeah, sure, historical significance, portrays black people in ways which could be useful for my English research...but I would like to analyse a book I'd actually enjoyed.

Has anyone read this and can they tell me if it gets more interesting after the first few chapters?

Shakespeare, by Bill Bryson

Before he came into a lot of money in 1839, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Greville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, led a largely uneventful life.

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This is great - I'm really enjoying it so far!

Mudbound - Hillary Jordan.

Henry and I dug the hole seven feet deep. Any shallower and the corpse was liable to come rising up during the next big flood: Howdy boys! Remember me? The thought of it kept us digging even after the blisters on our palms had burst, re-formed and burst again. Every shovelful was an agony - the old man, getting his last licks. Still, I was glad of the pain. It shoved away thought and memory.

Playing Away - Adele Parks

Before the invention of networking, people simply met, social climbed, or licked ***.  Now it's more hygienic. Now we have networking conferences in Blackpool.  I don't know which is more depressing.

The Headhunters - Peter Lovesey

"I could cheerfully murder my boss," Gemma said.

"Is he a slave-driver, then?"

"Oh, no."

"A groper?"

"No.  He's nice."

The logic was lost on Jo, but her friend had a wild imagination - which was why she was fun to be with.  "You want to kill him and he's nice?"

SPANKY - CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

All this has happened before, and will happen again.

But this time it happened in London, to the most ordinary of mortals. It happened to a man lost and damned in a tangle of wet North London streets, a man who appeared to be running for his life.

But I wasn't running for my life; I was running for someone else's.

Tom, *** & Debbie Harry by Jessica Adams

 Between his twenty eighth and twenty ninth birthdays, Harry Gilby was invited to fifteen weddings. 'And now there's another one,' Harry complained to his parents at breakfast. 'Plus this muesli's got dangly bits in it. Has anyone noticed?'

 The Curry Mile by Zahid Hussain

Red lipstick on the coach window was the first thing Sorayah saw when she awoke.  Fleetingly disorientated, she pulled out her headphones, rubbed her eyes and craned her neck. Are we any closer to Manchester?  The M6 kept the remaining distance locked inside its tarmac heart. Vehicles flicked past. Heading nowhere. Is this what it means to be coming home? Going from nowhere to nowhere? She retrieved a tissue from her black leather jacket and wiped off the lipstick.

Cutting Blades by Victoria Blake

In the grey morning light, he looks like a giant standing on Putney Bridge in softly falling snow.  Behind him a red London bus accelerates, sending a wave of brown slush across the payment against the back of his trousers, but he barely notices.

The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritsen

They looked like the perfect family.
  This was what they boy thought as he stood beside his fathers open grave, as he listened ti the hired minister read platitudes from the Bible.  Only a small group had gathered on that warm and buggy June day to mourn the passing of Montague Saul, no more than a dozen people, many of whom the boy had just met.  For the past six month, he had been away at boarding school, and today he was seeing some of these people for the very first time.  Most of them did not interest him in the least.

Ghost - Robert Harris

The moment I head how McAra had died I should have walked away. I can see that now. I should have said "Rick, I'm sorry, this isn't for me, I don't like the sound of it", finished my drink and left. But he was such a good storyteller, Rick - I often thought he should have been the writer and I the literary agent - that once he'd started talking  there was never any question I wouldn't listen, and by the time he was finished, I was hooked.