First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #9 and Tuesday Teaser

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. It's an opportunity to share the first paragraphs of a book I am currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

This week I'm featuring the opening paragraphs of my current read, The Dinner by Herman Koch, which I borrowed from my local public library.

And read on after the intro for my Tuesday Teaser.

 

Published by Crown Publishing Group 

February 2013

 A P E R I T I F

1

"We were going out to dinner.  I won't say which restaurant, because next time it might be full of people who've come to see whether we're there.  Serge made the reservation.  He's always the one who arranges it, the reservation.  This particular restaurant is one where you have to call three months in advance--or six, or eight, don't ask me.  Personally, I'd never want to know three months in advance where I'm going to eat on any given evening, but apparently some people don't mind.  A few centuries from now, when historians want to know what kind of crazies people were at the start of the twenty-first century, all they'll have to do is look at the computer files of the so-called 'top' restaurants.  That information is kept on file--I happen to know that.  If Mr. L. was prepared to wait three months for a window seat last time, then this time he'll wait for five months for a table beside the men's room--that's what restaurants call 'customer relations management.'

Serge never reserves a table three months in advance. Serge makes the reservation on the day itself--he says he thinks of it as a sport.  You have restaurants that reserve a table for people like Serge Lohman, and this restaurant happens to be one of them.  One of many, I should say.  It makes you wonder whether there isn't one restaurant in the whole country where they don't go faint right away when they hear the name Serge Lohman on the phone.  He doesn't make the call himself, of course; he lets his secretary or one of his assistants do that.  'Don't worry about it,' he told me when I talked to him a few days ago. 'They know me there; I can get us a table.'  All I'd asked was whether it wasn't a good idea to call, in case they were full, and where we would go if they were.  At the other end of the line, I thought I heard something like pity in his voice.  I could almost see him shake his head.  It was a sport."

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Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, is a weekly event where bloggers open to a random page of their current reads and share a teaser from somewhere on that page--no spoilers allowed.

 

Here's my teaser from The Dinner by Herman Koch:

"I didn't feel like doing this at all, I realized.  Again, my aversion to the evening that lay ahead had become almost physical--a slight feeling of nausea, clammy hands, and the start of a headache somewhere behind my left eye--not quite enough, though, for me to actually become unwell or fall unconscious right there on the spot."  --p. 18

Enjoy life with books . . .

Catherine

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #9 and Tuesday Teaser was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.