Off to a Good Start - Introduction and Prologue

I love books. I love everything about them, from the smell to the colours to the paper and the type itself. But most of all Iove, and sometimes love to hate, the things I feel, learn, and experience through them. Corny, I know, but true nonetheless. So, on a lark, I decided to gather some of my favourite opening lines from some of my favourite novels and put them together in a form I could then share. Never one to pass up an opportunity to put in my two cents, each novel’s opening lines are followed by some inane personal commentary or other. Maybe you’ll feel the need to read some of these books, maybe you’ll feel the need to run screaming from them, or maybe you’ll just wonder once again what in the world goes on inside my head. In any case, enjoy.

Toronto, ON

December 2005

Prologue

Opening lines are how books flirt with you.

There it is on the shelf at your local bookstore, all dolled up and smiling, fluttering its embossed title and coyly revealing its author’s name, waiting patiently for you to spot it and pick it up. After gently stroking the cover to see just how embossed or smooth the title is, and how it feels in your hand, you open to the first page. You skip the back cover blurb because it’s written by someone who may or may not have read the book, the reviews because obviously they only pick the positive ones, the inside flap because it only ever seems to resume the plot, and the introduction because it’s always full of spoilers. So you turn directly to the opening lines. You have crossed the crowded room, walked up to the most interesting person at the party, smiled, introduced yourself, and sat down for a chat. Now it’s up to them.