Tag: First Line Fridays

FRIDAY FIRST LINERS

First Line Fridays was created by Hoarding Books. Thanks to them for the meme above.

Today’s Friday First Liner comes from A Light So Lovely by Sarah Arthur. This examination of the spiritual legacy of Madeline L’Engle is a gift from blogger Deb Nance of Readerbuzz. She knows about my undertaking to read books by and about Madeline L’Engle and passed this one along to me. Thanks, Debbie.

Here is the first line:”Sitting on my desk is a signed copy of The Rock That is Higher from one of L’Engle‘s Wheaton College visits…” The author recalls her conservative parents having named her “Sarah,” making her one of two “normally” named women attending Wheaton, rather than a hippie-parent’s offspring named something like “River”

“Into that mix came Madeline L’Engle, a giantess in a great flapping dress of patchwork colors…What I do remember is a tall woman sitting at a table in the bookstore blinking her large eyes like a wise and vigilant owl.”

I am already intrigued and can’t wait to start this book.

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FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

Thanks to Hoarding Books for creating this fun meme.

My First Line Friday offering comes from Think Again by Adam Grant, a book just out. It deals with “The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know.” Skipping the Prologue, which definitely got my attention, the first chapter opens with:

“You probably don’t recognize his name, but Mike Lazaridis has had a defining impact on your life. From an early age, it was clear Mike was something of an electronics wizard.”

I am trying to read more non-fiction in 2021 than I did in 2020, and this is going to be enjoyable reading.

FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

Thanks to Hoarding Books for the use of their meme

Today’s Friday Firstliner comes from Tanya Maria Barrientos’ Frontera Street.

“DEE

There are fourteen verb tenses in Spanish, so much more than the past, present, and future. That’s what it said in the first sentence of the paperback I bought, thinking I just needed to brush up.”

I plan to start this one today.

FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

Thanks to this creative blogger for letting me borrow her meme for this post.

My first lines comes today from a book I plan to start this weekend, When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor. I was lucky enough to order it in large print from the library.

“Oxford 1975”

“We didn’t talk about it afterward. Not to loved ones, or to neighbors who stared at us from across the street, or to the newspapermen who were curious to know more about these lost children, returned from the war in the East like ghosts come back into the lives we’d once known.”

Set in WWII, one of my favorite times to read about, this novel promises to be an enjoyable read. Won’t you join in and read it with me?

FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

Today’s Friday Firstliner is from Just Kids by Patti Smith, a memoir:

” I was asleep when he died. I had called the hospital to say one more good night, but he had gone under, beneath layers of morphine. I held the receiver and listened to his labored breathing through the phone, knowing I would never hear him again.”

This is the story of the strange relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe during the late 60s and early 70s at the height of the drugs and hippies’ culture of New York.

FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

I found this fun meme at Hoarding Books. What one is asked to do is grab a book at random and copy the first line, so here’s mine for Friday, September 18, 2020:

” February 3 was a dark and dank day altogether; cold spitting rain in the morning and a low, steel-grey sky the rest of the afternoon.”

The above is from The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, my choice for the white book of my “Celebration of Color” Challenge.

Grab your current read, and join in.

WHOOOEEEOO: FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

My first liner for today comes from fellow blogger and author, Teagan Riordian Geneviene’s Atonement, Tennessee. From the prologue:

“Dawn’s light cast shadows that shifted amid branches of magnolias and mountain laurel, and danced upon statuary and grave stones.”

This mysterious cemetery which “came with the house” that protagonist, Esmerelda bought for a steal is an integral part of the mystery, suspense, and supernatural of this 2012 publication. It is a real page-turner and a book I am currently reading on my Kindle. My biggest question today is, “Why didn’t I discover this author’s storytelling talent sooner”? EERIE AND SPOOKY AND GOOD!

FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

Both Hoarding Books and Wandering Words have First Line Friday memes. The idea is to copy the first line (or so) from what you are currently reading to see if someone else would like it too.

This is the first line from the second story “Big Driver” in Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars. “Tess accepted twelve compensated speaking engagements a year if she could get them.” Spoiler alert: The story includes a violent, graphic rape.

After reading “1922” about a man who murders his wife (see post last Friday, “Friday Firstliners”) and now “Big Driver” in which an innocent cozy mystery writer is brutally raped after speaking in a small town and taking a short cut home, I think I have had enough of this book. This is not the Stephen King who wrote The Stand trilogy or The Dark Tower series I admire as a favorite author because of his masterful writing style, but a writer who has nightmare ideas and jots them down as short stories. I think from now on I will stick to well-written novels like Mr. Mercedes or Dr. Sleep, which demonstrate the versatility and cleverness of King’s writing style rather than his weird short stories.

FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

I first saw the idea of First Line Fridays on Hoarding Books, then later on Wandering Words, both excellent blogs. One is to open a book and just copy the first line to see if it appeals to other readers.

Taking down a book from my TBR pile, I offer the first lines of the first story in Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars. The story is titled “1922.”

“My name is Wilfred Leland James, and this is my confession. In June of 1922, I murdered my wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, and hid her body by tupping it down an old well.”

Gotcha!