Category: BOOKS Page 1 of 3

No033 MY The Making of Americans Book Icon poster

33. Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. “Stop!” cried the groaning old man at last, “Stop! I did not drag…

No032 MY The Unnamable Book Icon poster

32. Where now? Who now? When now? —Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953; trans. Patrick Bowles) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are…

No031 MY Notes from Underground Book Icon poster

31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz) Part of my 100…

No030 MY Neuromancer Book Icon poster

30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from…

No029 MY Waiting Book Icon poster

29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project….

No028 MY The Stranger Book Icon poster

28. Mother died today. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Stuart Gilbert) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful. It’s the…

No027 MY Don Quixote Book Icon poster

27. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a…

No026 MY Beloved Book Icon poster

26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful. It’s the author’s best chance to…

No024 MY City of Glass Book Icon poster

24. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for…

No025 MY The Sound and the Fury Book Icon poster

25. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929) Part of my 100 Best First…

No023 MY The Crying of Lot 49 Book Icon poster

23. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she,…

No022 MY Paul Clifford Book Icon poster

22. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which…