Let's post strong book openings

[Anonymous No.2455866]

Dear /lit/,

I want to get lost in a fantasy or magical realism novel as I used to be able to do, but for the last 10 years or so I have had a hard time getting interested in anything but non-fiction (of which I read a lot, so it's not that I don't like reading). I did manage to read the first Harry Potter book, and I think it's because it is well-written and consciously hooks you from page 1.

How about we post the first few paragraphs or pages of the books we've read that we consider to be engaging from the start? This format of recommendation might also be useful in getting some of you to jump genres, as well as writers trying to perfect their own skill in grabbing the reader.

[fuck that shit, favorite book openings general No.2455869]

>Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

[Anonymous No.2455873]

>Harry Potter [...] is well-written

[Anonymous No.2455883]

>>2455873
The prose is to the point, doesn't call attention to itself, and effortlessly moves from plot point to plot point with no filler shit. I'd be interested to hear your critique of her writing. Or maybe it was just you trying to feel better about yourself?

[Anonymous No.2455884]

You might like the book that I'm currently writing, OP.

But I'm too a'scared to post any of it until it's finished.

[Standard Toaster !RQTOASTvfI No.2455886]

>>2455884
I would steal it if you posted it. Good call.

[Anonymous No.2455887]

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall--soon--it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.

[Anonymous No.2455888]

>>2455883
>calls the book 'well-written' because the prose is unmemorable and utilitarian
>talks about plot

O, /lit/, why dost thou not know of what thou speakest?

[Standard Toaster !RQTOASTvfI No.2455889]

>>2455887
HEY THAT'S GRAVITY'S RAINBOW

[Anonymous No.2455906]

>>2455888
We have different definitions of good writing and we can't do anything about that, I s'ppose. In my view the goal of fiction writing is to confer emotion and paint evocative images in readers' minds without boring them or calling attention to the writing itself -- a careful balance few authors master. Authors that use bigger words than are needed or that wax on with the metaphors to show how fucking dark and deep they are just make me stop and giggle. Unless that's the point of the book, it's not good writing to me.

[Anonymous No.2455908]

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.

And thus begins the rabbit hole...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius

>mfw people say Lovecraft has a complex mythology

[Anonymous No.2456085]

read Brandon Sanderson

[Anonymous No.2456133]

>>2455887
that first line blows. Everything after that is solid gold. Whats that from?

[Anonymous No.2456444]

>>2456085
Hi Brandon.

[Anonymous No.2456463]

>Harry Potter
>well-written

You don't deserve any decent fiction

[Anonymous No.2456575]

I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.

Last night Boris discovered that he was lousy. I had to shave his armpits and even then the itching did not stop. How can one get lousy in a beautiful place like this? But no matter. We might never have known each other so intimately, Boris and I, had it not been for the lice.
Boris has just given me a summary of his views. He is a weather prophet. The weather will continue bad, he says. There will be more calamities, more death, more despair. Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere. The cancer of time is eating us away. Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves. The hero, then, is not Time, but Timelessness. We must get in step, a lock step, towards the prison of death. There is no escape. The weather will not change.

[Anonymous No.2456588]

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

[Anonymous No.2456600]

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles"

damn precocious talent. one of the best opening lines in modern literature.

[Anonymous No.2456601]

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He strokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.

[‮ suomynonA‪‪‪‮‪‪‬‬‬‬‬ No.2458246]

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[‮ suomynonA‪‪‪‮‪‪‬‬‬‬‬ No.2458251]

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