What is the best opening to a book ever?

Question

In my opinion it's Lolita by Nabakov.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul Lolita. She was plain Lo in the morning standing four foot ten in socks, she was Lola at school, Delores on the dotted line but in my arms she was always Lolita.

Answer 1

Not a book, a play which can be found in book form - Shakespeare's, Richard III - It introduces a top villain and sets the scene nicely for the rest of the play:
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

Answer 2

Several and a half metric miles North East of Sligo,split by a
cascading stream,her body on earth her feet in the water,dwells the microcephalic community of Puckoon

So begins the Surreal Comedy of The Twentieth or any Other Century Spike Milligan`s Puckoon
Oh Spike We Miss Your Off The Wall Off The Planet Humour

Answer 3

The Cross house was 20 paces away and the proximity and sight of it made Gary Soneji's skin prickle. It was a victorian -style, white shingled, and extreemly well kept. As Soneji stared across Fifth Street, he slowly bared his teeth in a sneer that could have passed for a smile. This was perfect. He had come here to murder Alex Cross and his family.

Taken from Cat and Mouse by James Patterson

Answer 4

H G WELLS - WAR OF THE WORLDS

'No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless world of space..................'

If you listen to the Geoff Wayne musical version you get the full intro - a long pause - then the orchestra blasting out a few notes - another pause - more notes - long pause then into the whole piece of music CLASSIC !!!!!!!!

Answer 5

Rodney was bored.

First line from King Fortis the Brave. Sets the tone and immediately makes you want to know what is going to break this boredom.

Simple, but effective.

Answer 6

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun." Douglas Adams -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

or,

"My mother was a virgin, trust me." Kate Atkinson. Emotionally Wierd.

Answer 7

recent fave-

middlesex, by jeffrey eugenides;

' i was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.'

i'm about halfway through it and it's great!

Answer 8

"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. "

Answer 9

"It was the day my granny exploded"...The Crow Road by Ian Banks.

I think the opening to 1984 is meant to be quite a classic...it goes soemthing like this:

"It was a bright, cold April day & the clocks were striking thirteen."

Answer 10

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.