First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, She Did It by Mel Sherratt.  The excerpt comes from the Kindle version, purchased from amazon.com.  

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Today

I hardly dare open my eyes but I must.  I don't even know how long I've been here.  An hour, perhaps?  Two hours?  A minute?  Why is my watch broken?

I'm sitting on the floor, my back against the wall.  My knees pulled to my chest, my hands wrapped around them.  The kitchen tiles are cold on my feet.  A metallic smell is in the air.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

The narrator's opening questions and the metallic smell in the air don't bode well.  It has me curious, and I'm looking forward to finding out what's going on.

 

 

 

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, which is the selection of one of my book clubs.  The excerpt comes from a trade paperback version borrowed from the library.

 

I

Night

1

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.  The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the  hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone.  A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair.  Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving hall of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

 

 

 

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

After all the fanfare about the recent television adaptation, I am eager to get started on this novel.  The very descriptive first paragraph brought back images and memories of my own high school gym.

 

 

 

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring my current read, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz, translated from the Swedish by George Goulding.  The excerpts shared are from a library copy.

 

Beginning:  Prologue

Holger Palmgren was sitting in his wheelchair in the visitors' room.

"Why is that dragon tattoo so important to you?" he said.  "I've always wanted to know."

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Page 56: "''So what was it?'"

 

"No idea.  All I know is that it ended as quickly as it started, a few days later.  He totally fell apart."

 

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My thoughts:  This is the latest book in the Millennium Series, created by Stieg Larrsson, which began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The book was an instant success, as were the other two he wrote in the trilogy.  Unfortunately, Larrsson died shortly after turning in the manuscripts for the trilogy (and had planned 10 books in the series)--before their publication and huge success.  When it was announced that another author would continue the series, I was skeptical that the quality and integrity would remain intact.  To my delight, Lagercrantz has lived up to the challenge, having written books 4 and 5. 

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From Goodreads:  From the author of the #1 international best seller The Girl in the Spider's Web: the new book in the Millennium series, which began with Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  

Lisbeth Salander - the girl with the dragon tattoo, the brilliant hacker, the obstinate outsider, the volatile seeker of justice for herself and others - has never been able to uncover the most telling facts of her traumatic childhood, the secrets that might finally, fully explain her to herself. Now, when she sees a chance to uncover them once and for all, she enlists the help of Mikael Blomkvist, the editor of the muckraking, investigative journal Millennium. And nothing will stop her - not the anti-Muslim gang she enrages by rescuing a young woman from their brutality; not the deadly reach from inside the Russian mafia of her long-lost twin sister, Camilla; and not the people who will do anything to keep buried knowledge of a sinister pseudo-scientific experiment known only as The Registry. Once again, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, together, are the fierce heart of a thrilling full-tilt novel that takes on some of the most insidious problems facing the world at this very moment.

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This Friday Focus post was originally composed and/or compiled and published for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.    

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon. 

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The English Daughter by Maggie Wadey, which I recently purchased.  The excerpt comes from a trade paperback version.

 

Prologue

 

From the beginning, my beginning that is, I had a strong sense of my mother as different.  My English family were small, compact and ginger-haired; my mother was dark, taller than average, long-limbed and heavy-boned.  She wasn't just different; she was special.  She may have told us very little about her life, but I knew her soft white cheeks, her black hair rolled into glossy sausages - one above her brow, one at the nape of her neck - her low voice with its slightly foreign, musical cadence, her strong, careful hands that could suddenly become impatient.  Her brown eyes were velvety, her thin brows two perfect arches.  Her face expressed emotion very subtly, sometimes to the point of invisibility.  A better indicator of her mood was her movements, the set of her shoulders, the exact position of her hands.  As a child - and I was her only child - I learned to read these signs very accurately, not to understand her, but to predict her behaviour.

 

 

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

Family histories are a fascinating subject.  I have long been interested in my family's Irish roots and have begun to do some research into previous generations.  A trip last month to the Irish town where my grandfather was born has motivated me even more.  

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Allison Markin Powell).  The excerpts shared are from a library copy.

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Beginning:  Rectangular #2

You know what I mean?  Mr. Nakano had a habit of saying this.

I was caught off guard when he said abruptly, "You know what I mean--pass me that soy sauce pourer."

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Page 56: "'This was what made love so difficult.  Or rather, the difficult thing was first determining whether or not love was what I wanted."

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My thoughts:  I was drawn to this book by its cheerful cover and book trailer and look forward to starting it soon.

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From Goodreads:  From the author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this funny, heartwarming story about love, life, and human relationships that features a delightfully offbeat cast of characters.

Objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers that handle them. But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart.

Hitomi, the inexperienced young woman who works the register at Mr. Nakano's thrift shop, has fallen for her coworker, the oddly reserved Takeo. Unsure of how to attract his attention, she seeks advice from her employer's sister, Masayo, whose sentimental entanglements make her a somewhat unconventional guide. But thanks in part to Masayo, Hitomi will come to realize that love, desire, and intimacy require acceptance not only of idiosyncrasies but also of the delicate waltz between open and hidden secrets.

Animating each delicately rendered chapter in Kawakami's playful novel is Mr. Nakano himself, an original, entertaining, and enigmatic creation whose compulsive mannerisms, secretive love life, and impulsive behavior defy all expectations.



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This Friday Focus post was originally composed and/or compiled and published for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.  
 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.  

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti, which was selected by one of my book clubs.  The excerpt comes from an advanced readers copy, which I received from the publisher.

 

Hawley

When Loo was twelve years old her father taught her how to shoot a gun.  He had a case full of them in his room, others hidden in boxes around the house.  Loo had seen them at night, when he took the guns apart and cleaned them at the kitchen table, oiling and polishing and brushing for hours.  She was forbidden to touch them and so she watched from a distance, learning what she could about their secrets, until the day when she blew out birthday candles on twelve chocolate Ring Dings, arranged on a plate in the shape of a star, and Hawley opened the wooden chest in their living room and put the gift she had been waiting for--her grandfather's rifle--into her arms.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

This book was chosen before the tragedy that recently unfolded in Las Vegas.  I will read this one with a heavy heart.

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.