 Hi everyone, a big welcome or welcome back to my channel. I am very excited about this video, I cannot tell you. So a little while ago I was reading Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. I had heard nothing but glowing reviews about this book, obviously it won the Pulitzer. I finally picked it up for myself and can confirm it was glorious right from the start. I adored the opening so much that I went straight to Cameron, my husband, and read it out loud to him. And in that moment I was inspired to make this video and read you some of my favourite openings in literature. Isn't it just the best feeling when you open a new book and the first sentence, few sentences, first paragraph is just stunning. I have had so much fun rereading the openings of basically all of the books in my library in preparation for this video. Books are so so good. So let's do this. I have seven books here with me to share today from classics all the way up to newer releases. I'm just going to read you their openings and then have a little chat about them. Hopefully you enjoy this, hopefully it inspires you to pick up some of these books if you haven't read them already. I really hope you love this even a little bit as much as I already do. So starting with Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. I told you last night that I might be gone sometime and you said where and I said to be with the good Lord and you said why and I said because I'm old and you said I don't think you're old and you put your hand in my hand and you said you aren't very old as if that settled it. I told you you might have a different life from mine and from the life you've had with me and that would be a wonderful thing. There are many ways to live a good life and you said mama already told me that and then you said don't laugh because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face beside your mother's. It's a kind of furious pride very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them. I just think this has such a powerful opening. I absolutely love it. So this book Gilead is set in a small town in America in the 1950s. It is told through one long letter that an old reverend is writing to his son as he nears the end of his life. That opening to me is basically perfection. I love the second person narration. I love the back and forth dialogue. I'm instantly drawn in and want to learn about this man and his relationship with his son. I can feel the intimacy and the longing and the pain. I love the allusion to the boy's mother in here that absolutely warmed my heart and ending on the I Will Miss Them is so stark and devastating. An incredibly crafted well opening. It's like burned into my brain now. It's really really staying with me. I want to write something like that opening one day. Pause Water by Sarah Hall. The woman on the bed was screaming bold blue murder and Jesus bastard Christ. Curses formed like saliva in her mouth and she spat them out onto the tangled sheets of the bed. A bed which had once belonged to her grandmother and in which her own mother had been born. The cotton under her hot body was saturated with her sweat and with her swearing. The woman's body was making colours that her husband had never seen before colours he did not know a human being could make. Soft orange on her like human blood should never be and white and a precise burgundy. Samuel Lightburn watched his wife struggling as internal shapes moved throughout her body saw her muscles damaging themselves as she struggled. Jesus bastard Christ. The woman screamed and slowly she came apart. He could not stand it. So probably important to note that that was actually the beginning of chapter one. There is a prologue that comes before that which is technically the opening but fuck it my video my rules I guess. So this one is actually also set in the 1950s but it is set in a very small town in the Lake District, England. Mardale is very isolated and very set in its ways so when a man comes from Manchester wanting to build a reservoir in the town the town basically goes into panic. I read this book a few years ago now and I can still remember so clearly reading that opening. I adore how this book just drops you right in there. Right from the start I feel like I'm in that room with them seeing and hearing and smelling and I just love those descriptions. They are so visceral and butter bashed and earthy and just the tone as well and the dialect that comes through in here really really speaks to me. I'm actually from Cumbria where this book is set and where the author is from so these characters screaming bold blue murder and Jesus bastard Christ is just so right. It is so spot on. I love this book. I love this opening so so good. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. I'm writing a history of the world she says and the hands of the nurse are arrested for a moment. She looks down at this old woman this old ill woman. Well my goodness the nurse says that's quite a thing to be doing isn't it and then she becomes busy again. She heaves and tucks and smooths upsy a bit dear there's a good girl then we'll get you a cup of tea. A history of the world to round things off. I may as well know more nitpicking stuff about Napoleon, Tito, the Battle of Edge Hill, Hernando Cortez, the works this time. The whole triumphant murderous unstoppable shoot from the mud to the stars universal and particular your story and mine. I'm equipped I consider eclecticism has always been my hallmark. That's what they've said though it has been given other names. Claudia Hampton's range is ambitious some might say imprudent my enemies. Miss Hampton's bold conceptual sweep my friends. A history of the world yes and in the process my own the life and times of Claudia H the bit of the 20th century to which I've been shackled willy-nilly like it or not. Let me contemplate myself within my context everything and nothing. The history of the world as selected by Claudia. Fact and fiction, myth and evidence, images and documents. So this is one of my favorite openings to a novel of all time. Moon Tiger is a modern classic written in the 1980s and it tells a story of a celebrated old writer named Claudia who was in hospital coming to the end of her life. Claudia decides that she will be writing her final novel which will be a history of the world as experienced by her. So this book won the Manbooker Prize when it was first published and it went on to be shortlisted for the Manbooker 50 Prize a few years ago where I first discovered it. I actually had the honor and utter utter pleasure of hearing Penelope Lively read this opening herself at the Manbooker 50 celebrations in London. I have never in my life heard a reading so beautiful. I think this opening is beautiful anyway but the way she read it brought it to life in such a magical way. This opening is so distinct and intriguing and indulgent and philosophical. It really sets up the tone for the novel and gives you an insight into this protagonist so perfectly. And now whenever I read this opening I will forever hear it in Penelope Lively's voice which honestly makes it a thousand times better. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Book one an upright man. Montsueur Muriel. In the year 1815 Montsueur Charles Francois beyond the new Muriel was Bishop of Dignay. He was then about 75 having held the bishopric since 1806. Although it has no direct bearing on the tale we have to tell we must nevertheless give some account of the rumours and gossip concerning him which were in circulation when he came to occupy the diocese. What is reported of men whether it be true or false may play as a larger part in their lives and above all in their destiny as the things they do. So many words in there for me to mispronounce. I am so sorry. So for those of you who don't know Les Miserables is an epic French classic written in the 1800s and it also happens to be one of my favourite novels of all time. Primarily it tells the story of an escaped convict named Jean Valjean and consequently the stories of various other characters whom he crosses paths with. It is a story of love and justice and heroism and poverty and it is sublime. So I couldn't really make this video and not mention this book. I read Les Miserables last year and had one of the most profound reading experiences of my life. No joke. It is such a massive sweeping epic intelligent story in so so many ways but one of those ways is the prose. This is some of the best writing I have ever read in my life and it is translated. This opening for me was just perfect and it perfectly set the tone and paved the way for the rest of the novel. It felt instantly insightful and comforting to me and rereading this opening now just always makes me smile. The Gathering by Anne Onright. I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine but I am not sure if it really did happen. I need to bear witness to an uncertain event. I feel it roaring inside me this thing that may not have taken place. I don't even know what name to put on it. I think you might call it a crime of the flesh but the flesh is long fallen away and I am not sure what hurt may linger in the bones every fucking time. So The Gathering is actually another booker winner that also made it onto the shortlist for the Man Book of Fifty Prize. Set in Dublin it tells the story of the nine Hegeti siblings who all travel back to their family home for the wake of their brother Liam. Anne Onright is just a fantastic writer. She is one of those writers that inspires me that I just aspire to be even a tiny bit like. This opening is so intriguing right off the bat it has me. What happened? What on earth are you talking about? I also love the exploration of memory and childhood in novels and Anne Onright is the queen of exploring memory and childhood. I adore this hazy, uneasy, what is real, what isn't, blurring of lines, vibe that this opening has and that continues throughout the rest of the book. Every time I read this opening, especially the line about the hurt lingering in the bones, I just feel like I've been punched in the gut in the best way. Such amazing writing. Ending on a short and sweet one we have What I Was by Meg Rossoff. I am a century old, an impossible age and my brain has no anchor in the present. Instead it drifts nearly always to the same shore. Today as most days it is 1962, the year I discovered love. I am 16 years old. So this is the only young adult novel on this list and I actually read this one when I was a young teen myself. Primarily set in the 1960s off the coast of East Anglia, this one tells the story of a young disgruntled student who ends up making friends with a teenage boy who is living just off the edge of the sea. This opening is pretty much perfection in my eyes, it is simple and true and I completely buy it. I'm a sucker for love, I'm a sucker for young love and old love and everything in between. And this is the opening of a love story, first and foremost, and it makes me want to learn about it. I just think it's so effective and lovely. It's the kind of thing that you almost think anybody could have written, but really they couldn't. And then when you do see it written down and experience it, you just think that is so special. So there we go, those were six of my favorite openings in literature. Thank you so much for hearing me talk about them. I really hope you enjoyed the readings and the little chats. I would love to know what you think about these openings and whether you've read these books. Also please please please let me know what some of your favorite openings in literature are. I would love to hear about them. Again thank you so much for watching, I appreciate you all so much. I hope you're doing really well and having really nice weeks. Really looking forward to hearing from you down below and I will hopefully see you all soon in my next one. Bye everyone. I'm just filming a video mom. Sorry. Thank you. Love you too. Bye.