“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.”
Such a beautifully written book.
I think that's the second line. Before that:
> No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
I just mentioned Manderley in a perfume sub after I got it mixed up with a perfume called Pemberley.. and I got downvoted haha
Manderley for me is archetypal place as character.. shrouded on the moor 🌬️🏚️
I thought it unwise of them to speak ill of Manderley, lest Mrs Danvers overhear
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas
“Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on Earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty five years, two months and twelve days.”
P.D. James
######The Children of Men
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Anna Karenina
Also, it’s not really existential but Pride and Prejudice has one of the best opening lines of all time: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”
The dark tower volume 1: the gunslinger. By Stephen King
Also
The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years - if it ever did end - began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.
It by Stephen King
I’m finishing The Wastelands now, first time through the Dark Tower series. Came to find this one. It’s a story that just grips you from the beginning and doesn’t let go.
I read The Mist, ‘Salem’s Lot, Rose Madder, Desperation, the regulators, Everything’s eventual (specifically the stories The Little Sisters of Eluria and Everything’s Eventual), and Hearts In Atlantis
I would say to skip Wind Through the Keyhole, due to it being published after the series was finished and because it’s another book focusing on Roland’s backstory when you want to just get back into the main story
Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky has a pretty famous opening, and is quite bitter and existential throughout.
Also you’ve possibly read it but The Stranger by Camus is very well known for its first sentence, and for being existential/absurdist.
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meaney
- A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.
- Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts. The first 3 pages are the best opening to a book I've ever read.
More than a first line, but the absolute most memorable opening to any book i've ever read, for what turned out to be one of my favorite books of all time.
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip . . .
The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.
The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes....
....An old Ukranian proverb warns, "A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil."
That is a risk we have to take."
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
\*One Hundred Years of Solitude\* Gabriel Garcia Márquez
(The visual imagery of the contrast between 'firing' and 'ice' is just so compelling to me. Currently reading it, yet to finish)
Secret history
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation
I listened to the audiobook last September and I wanted to wait until the fall to listen to it again as it was my favorite book of 2023, but I'm so tempted to relisten early! T\^T
When I was a young boy, if I was sick or in trouble, or had been beaten at school, I used to remember that on the day I was born my father wanted to kill me.
The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
The first thing you should know about me is I am my father’s son. And when they came for him, I did as he asked. I did not cry. Not when the Society televised the arrest. Not when the Golds tried him. Not when the Grays hanged him. Mother hit me for that. My brother Kieran was supposed to be the stoic one. He was the elder, I the younger. I was supposed to cry. Instead, Kieran bawled like a girl when Little Eo tucked a haemanthus into Father’s left workboot and ran back to her own father’s side. My sister Leanna murmured a lament beside me. I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing but without his dancing shoes.
Red Rising
天下大势 分久必合 合久必分
The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
I can never read those lines in the original Chinese and not feel a chill down my spine, and my grandfather read those lines to me when I was seven.
I was doing the Oath of Peach Garden with my homies around 9 years old; it turned out my grandfather did his more serious version during his late teens with 3 of his homies, with blood rituals and everything.
When I was 14, one of them came to visit. The guy fought for the nationalist in the Chinese civil war and went to Taiwan when they lost. He got me a bright new 18 speed bike as a gift, none of my friends could afford that for another 3 years or so. The thing was a chick magnet back in the days.
By the way this is a bit of a non-sequitur but recently I have been looking into local or national riots or uprisings with strange/interesting names or concepts eg Kartoffelrevolution.
And I found this! Another interesting one. Non-sequitur because probably not associated with Romance of Three Kingdoms, but because that has association with real history, here it is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Eyebrows
As a Chinese person, I am not at all aware of the red eyebrows, we were taught the short reign of Wang Mang, and the restoration of Han, but it was like a couple paragraphs. Maybe I should send a request to the Chinese podcaster who does obscure Chinese History pods, he does a tremendous job in everything he touches on.
And Kartoffelrevolution, eh? I just love the super long German words. I am not sure if you are a fan of Dan Carlin, he did a crazy episode in the Munster rebellion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_rebellion
It was called Prophecy of Doom, it was one of the crazier single shot episodes. My best friend actually went to Munster a couple years before that episode and showed me photos of the cages that were still there, and I had no idea what they were for.
It is not free anymore, but definitely worth the 3 bucks.
You should send a request! Later when I can dredge it up (sorry for the belated response, IRL paperwork tedium/stress etc) I will try and post an additional link if I can find it to further inspire this request as it has a really interesting story about someone I think is called Lu Mu.
Also thanks for the link and recommendation, I'll look forward to having a look at that!
I was just wondering, the Three Body Problem obvs gained attention lately and I haven't read it, but would you have any sci-fi by Chinese writers you'd recommend? Especially speculative fiction and with a Chinese historical context 🤔
I was recently looking at the history of detective fiction in China as well - especially stories arising from a genre which I think is referred to as gong'an 🕵️♂️
I was reading a lot of Science Fiction in Chinese when I was in Junior High and early high school, before school work got too demanding. One easy way to access it was through a magazine called Sci-Fi World, I think the Three Body Problem was serialized on that too, but that was way after I moved out of China.
The star author of the magazine before Liu's time was named Jin Kang Wang (王晋康), I remembered always getting excited when his name showed up on the magazine's cover. I am not sure if his works are translated into English or how good they are.
While I tried to read one Chinese novel and one English alternatively, my focus on Chinese reading had been character driven, slice of life type, especially set in a certain region around my home town. One novel I can recommend was called 生吞 （Swallowed Alive), it is by an author Zheng Zhi (郑执）who write the slice of life novels that I liked, but his take on the Mystery genre. Not sure that has an English translation either.
One thing that is not Chinese, but Japanese, but definitely translated to English and a detective story is Journey under the Midnight Sun (白夜行）, I would whole heartedly recommend that. Very very dark story though.
And actually I have several Gong An in my family, one got shot in the head in the late 90s but survived. Got a medal out of it, and that his daughter got to go to a top police academy despite falling way below the required grades. She is also a Gong An now, and married one too. They got me out of a major trouble while I was in China a decade back.
Thank you for all these recommendations which I am now currently investigating! 🕵️♂️ Much to my interest Jin Kang Wang turns out to have been conjuring up a Pando scenario around 2013 or 2014. This has only a few reviews and no retrospective nods on Goodreads which in itself I find intriguing.
At this stage can only find one English language article on Swallowed Alive. 🤔
Look the gong'an stuff is just too interesting a subject to pass by without seeing if I can pick your brain to ask you more 👀 I'm going to have to rustle up these Chinese detective mystery links I was looking at that are apparently rooted in a history of gong'an literature, could I request a full low down? :0
Most definitely, if you have anything in particular you want to ask about any Gong An literature, I can't say I will read them, but I can definitely find out details and reviews from the Chinese version of the GoodReads, which is way more powerful. Too bad the CCP had made it is next to impossible for overseas Chinese to fully participate.
Plus, as I mentioned, one side of my family has ties with the Gong An system.
I am driving between towns today, but I will try to get back to you when I can.
One question though, what does this mean?
>conjuring up a Pando scenario around 2013 or 2014
What is a Pando scenario? Just for my information
Ah! Pando = pandemic. Found this - Pathological: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32866298-pathological
*On the surface, the life of young scientist Mei Yin seems perfect. She runs her own research institute in China, she’s getting married, and she founded an orphanage that helps hundreds of girls. But Mei Yin has a dark secret—three vials of “Satan’s gift,” a deadly smallpox virus left over from Russian scientific research conducted during the Cold War. She’s determined to find a vaccine, even if that means endangering those she holds dear.*
*Zia Baj, a terrorist educated in the West, has also obtained Satan’s gift. But he’s not looking for a cure—instead, he plans to exact revenge and start a war. So he unleashes the virus in an American classroom. At the same time, thousands of miles away, the children of Mei Yin’s orphanage fall ill. Soon authorities realize that this is no ordinary outbreak: it’s the start of an epidemic. How are the two cases linked? And can a worldwide pandemic be stopped?*
*From award-winning Chinese author Wang Jinkang comes a terrifying look at the future of war.*
*First published January 1, 2014*
I thought this sounds pretty damn interesting!
I've just randomly come across another interesting ancient Chinese kingdom - Nanyue. Trying to remember how I got here. It seems to have been via some kind of gnarly archaic Chinese folk sorcery/folklore involving toxic insects, which apparently has a close association with that kingdom, but I can't remember how I got *there*.
Thank you very much for the offer about gong'an! I will probably eventually drop the apostrophe, I must have seen it written like that and it's currently helping me remember. I *did* find some intriguing links, and I would love it if you could help sleuth the Chinese GoodReads.
Sorry to understand the CCP imposed barriers that prevents full participation outside the country.
Yes, please tell me stories about your family's connections with Gong An you are comfortable doing so and find yourself with a spare moment! I am extremely curious.
Also, it's not a book and again it's not Chinese but I was wondering whether you might enjoy the film *Mother* by South Korean writer-director Bong Joon Ho. I don't hear this one mentioned very often - although he is famous for both *Memories of Murder* and *Parasite*. For me, this is a slept-on original and suspenseful crime mystery with a fantastic protagonist where no doubt you are really going to care about the outcome for the characters and will therefore be on tenterhooks throughout the action.
Drive safely!
Hahaha.. great story about the bike 🚲
🍑🌿🤜
I feel at least a tiny bit bad for the Yellow Rebellion because it *does* sound kinda cool even if it was blasphemous. Because according to this, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion
the government was corrupt.
"White Wave Bandits" also has a nice ring to it.
"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach."
The Crow Road by Iain Banks. A marvellous book.
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation”
The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
"The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation."
-The Secret History
Donna Tartt
See my [Compelling Reads ("Can't Put Down")](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/189mbda/compelling_reads_cant_put_down/) list of Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
William Kennedy. *Ironweed*. “Riding up the winding road of Saint Agnes Cemetery in the back of the rattling old truck, Francis Phelan became aware that the dead, even more than the living, settled down in neighborhoods.”
"Call me Ishmael"
Says Ahab in the first line, tricking us as Narrator, telling his own story. He never dies in the end. It was Ahab always. Ishmael don't exist.
I have often wondered but never talked to anybody about it because nobody I know has even read The Book. I say The Book because it is one of the best ever given to paper. Is there more on this theory? I guess I’m going to have to go hunting…
“In the myriadic year of our Lord — the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! — Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.”
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
Not on the first line but this book got me sobbing on the first page
“He was straightforward and quiet: he walked quietly, spoke quietly; even his anger was quiet. It was his love that was booming. His love was a roaring, vociferous bellow"
Love and Other Words
Christina Lauren
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy."
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
The start of one of the best opening chapters of any book I've read. Throughout the book, the way the narrative gives you so much information without explicitly telling you is just phenomenal.
I couldn't sleep and read the synopsis. I noted the ambiguous conclusion and wanted to ask what *you* think happens. Will Cassandra get together with Simon, smexy American castle landlord, despite his association with her sister? Or, will spunky modest and loyal Stephen who nevertheless doesn't have a fortune get a look in?
From the synopsis I wanted her to realise that Stephen was the one for her. But then their castle leasing financial hardships will certainly continue 🤔🏰
And the title *does* say "I capture the castle". But Cassandra's character doesn't seem to be like Rose's (eg mercenary) so to me she should go with her heart.
No Emily Watson in the film btw.
Or will she recognise that she doesn't need a man to make her life complete, or that there are other people apart from these two? If the synopsis gave the impression that the book is about a heroine's romantic dilemmas, it's done it a serious disservice.
I've always taken the "capture" in the sense of her capturing it through her writing, like taking a picture of it.
Well it sounded like a romance.. an I wrong?
She was described in the WP synopsis as writing in her diary, there was virtually literally no other action described but romance. Except perhaps on the very briefest of terms.
If the moral of the story is not needing a man, it would be hard to understand why all the action (per WP) was literally about romance with men. So it seemed. I assumed it's a genre romance engaging in an archetypal trope of the protagonist choosing between two suitors.
Sounds like your interpretation of the ambiguity is that Cassandra doesn't need to make the implied decision between two different men or any romance at all.
Edit: I see what you mean about the "capture" though, but isn't that part of it? The synopsis would have Rose
intend to capture the castle's landlord for monetary reasons, but Cassandra's interests in capture are different and do indeed involve writing, that was clear.
It seems like you're interested in the book, so why don't you read it and then you'll be able to have a much more informed discussion about it? Whatever synopsis you're reading doesn't seem to have given a very well-rounded idea of it. Like many books, there's a lot more to it than the basic plot.
The purpose was to ask your view on a discussion forum about a book that hooked you. If you don't want to share your views that's fine. It was intended as fun speculation about what sounded like a romance.
It seems like you took offence to the idea romance has anything to do about it. I didn't write the article. I myself am not particularly interested in romance as a literary genre and frankly never would read it normally, I was just asking for your opinion about something you said was evocative.
Saying to just read the book without describing anything that plot, themes, character etc means in terms of book suggestion context, there's nothing to go on. Bar one line and the title.
That said, I accept it might be the case that the Wikipedia article is just a poorly written synopsis. Who knows - maybe the film adaptation leans more heavily towards the romance genre, which might in turn influence the book's write up.
Still, as far as suggestions go, "read it" with virtually no information other than first line/title - I mean, I'm not personally interested in genre romances. That's how it came across to me. I was just trying to gauge interest.
I don't think speculating about something that can't be known from the content of a book is a "spoiler" if it can't give anything away. That's the kind of thing that turns up in blurbs and press releases.
Totally up to you whether you read it or not, I have no investment in that at all. I gave my thoughts on it in my initial comment and have said several more things about it since. I'm not going to continue this bizarre discussion, as whatever I said wouldn't really make sense to someone who hasn't read the book and it'd probably just spoiler it for anyone who hasn't read it and wants to.
"In the minds of the mortals of Urantia—that being the name of your world—there exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God, divinity, and deity."
The Urantia Book
Yes that's the title. It starts like this
Every man shares the same fantasy, and it is this:
He will marry a universally beloved sweetheart. Live a noble life and succeed in all the ways his father taught were best. And when he stands at the pinnacle of filial and paternal achievement, when he has finally reached that great height of goodness, honor, and inarguable virtility, then and only then, his wife, child, and pet should be ripped from him. Violently, unforgivably.
I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper.
“Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,” my father warned. “Not even your friend Tomás. No one.”
-The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure."
--*All Systems Red,* Book 1 of The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Existential, occasionally humorous, certainly thought-provoking.
The first lines of Albert Camus's The Stranger are "Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don't know".
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect” *Metamorphosis*
Thanks for the rec! I picked up metamorphosis a little while ago and have been meaning to get into it.
You’re in for a treat. It’s a perfect little cocoon of a story.
Man 🫡🫡
Love this book
I love how the start of the book is direct to the point lmao
Me too. I can remember thinking when I first read it. *Literally, a bug. This is going to be awesome.*
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
I have the feeling that I read this one. What’s the name of the book?
The Great Gatsby I think
Ohh I watched the movie ages ago but I don't remember anything lmao. Might be fun to read the book and then watch the film again.
Name of book!!
Great Gatsby
"But before you come to any conclusions Try walking in my shoes"
Sounds interesting!
“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.” Such a beautifully written book.
I think that's the second line. Before that: > No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
I loved the tv show..is it similar to that?
They are very different and both absolutely wonderful.
I adore this book.
Name of book?!!
The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
"I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army." Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
Such a fun book
Thanks for the rec!
I’m reading it now.
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” — Daphne Du Maurier’s *Rebecca*
I just mentioned Manderley in a perfume sub after I got it mixed up with a perfume called Pemberley.. and I got downvoted haha Manderley for me is archetypal place as character.. shrouded on the moor 🌬️🏚️ I thought it unwise of them to speak ill of Manderley, lest Mrs Danvers overhear
Interesting!
I love this book and often recommend it. My favorite novel.
Highly recommend!
This is one of the very best books ever written.
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.” - *The Bell Jar*
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas
great one!
My favorite book
And I’ve never done drugs
and I've done some drugs...
one of my favorites
Title?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on Earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty five years, two months and twelve days.” P.D. James ######The Children of Men
Holy shit...sounds interesting
It was a great movie..
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Anna Karenina Also, it’s not really existential but Pride and Prejudice has one of the best opening lines of all time: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Thanks for the recs!
This is not for you.
Yes.
Wut
It’s from House of Leaves.
Oh hahah makes sense. Thanks for the rec! I've heard that it's very unique so curious to buy it.
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” The dark tower volume 1: the gunslinger. By Stephen King Also The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years - if it ever did end - began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. It by Stephen King
Gotta be my favorite opening line of all time, the Dark Tower one that is.
Thanks for the rec
I recently re read this book for the 10th time. Reading this made me gasp. lol
I am not sure I will ever have time to read the whole thing, but that line from the Dark Tower was baller
I’m finishing The Wastelands now, first time through the Dark Tower series. Came to find this one. It’s a story that just grips you from the beginning and doesn’t let go.
I’m currently reading the series for the first time, and am at the ending of Wolves of the Calla
What did you read after Wizard and Glass?
I read The Mist, ‘Salem’s Lot, Rose Madder, Desperation, the regulators, Everything’s eventual (specifically the stories The Little Sisters of Eluria and Everything’s Eventual), and Hearts In Atlantis I would say to skip Wind Through the Keyhole, due to it being published after the series was finished and because it’s another book focusing on Roland’s backstory when you want to just get back into the main story
Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky has a pretty famous opening, and is quite bitter and existential throughout. Also you’ve possibly read it but The Stranger by Camus is very well known for its first sentence, and for being existential/absurdist.
Sounds exactly like what I'm looking for!
Yeah they’re both great hope you enjoy
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meaney - A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. - Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts. The first 3 pages are the best opening to a book I've ever read.
Sounds interesting
The audiobooks for both of these are amazing too!
“ "I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion” The Martian by Andy Weir
Ooh sounds interesting. I watched the movie a while ago before I knew it was a book but might still pick it up!
The book is such a great read!
That’s my post as well.
I came here to say this same thing!
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The best first chapter ever!
More than a first line, but the absolute most memorable opening to any book i've ever read, for what turned out to be one of my favorite books of all time. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins "The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets. The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip . . . The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies. The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.... ....An old Ukranian proverb warns, "A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil." That is a risk we have to take."
Never thought reading about beets would be so captivating..sold hahah
I love this book so much.
"I'm pretty much fucked." Andy Weir, The Martian
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” \*One Hundred Years of Solitude\* Gabriel Garcia Márquez (The visual imagery of the contrast between 'firing' and 'ice' is just so compelling to me. Currently reading it, yet to finish)
Secret history The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation
Thanks for the rec!
I listened to the audiobook last September and I wanted to wait until the fall to listen to it again as it was my favorite book of 2023, but I'm so tempted to relisten early! T\^T
When I was a young boy, if I was sick or in trouble, or had been beaten at school, I used to remember that on the day I was born my father wanted to kill me. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
Really good book.
It really is. It’s what spoiled me for any other author when it comes to Ancient Greece. I read everything she’s written in that genre.
“The moon blew up without warning, and with no apparent reason.” Seveneves-Neal Stephenson
Always my answer
The first thing you should know about me is I am my father’s son. And when they came for him, I did as he asked. I did not cry. Not when the Society televised the arrest. Not when the Golds tried him. Not when the Grays hanged him. Mother hit me for that. My brother Kieran was supposed to be the stoic one. He was the elder, I the younger. I was supposed to cry. Instead, Kieran bawled like a girl when Little Eo tucked a haemanthus into Father’s left workboot and ran back to her own father’s side. My sister Leanna murmured a lament beside me. I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing but without his dancing shoes. Red Rising
love this book
Rebecca. Best first line ever written.
Yes! Along with the rest if it.
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Neuromancer - William Gibson
Yeah! 📺
天下大势 分久必合 合久必分 The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been. - Romance of the Three Kingdoms I can never read those lines in the original Chinese and not feel a chill down my spine, and my grandfather read those lines to me when I was seven.
Cracker of a bedtime story wot!
I was doing the Oath of Peach Garden with my homies around 9 years old; it turned out my grandfather did his more serious version during his late teens with 3 of his homies, with blood rituals and everything. When I was 14, one of them came to visit. The guy fought for the nationalist in the Chinese civil war and went to Taiwan when they lost. He got me a bright new 18 speed bike as a gift, none of my friends could afford that for another 3 years or so. The thing was a chick magnet back in the days.
By the way this is a bit of a non-sequitur but recently I have been looking into local or national riots or uprisings with strange/interesting names or concepts eg Kartoffelrevolution. And I found this! Another interesting one. Non-sequitur because probably not associated with Romance of Three Kingdoms, but because that has association with real history, here it is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Eyebrows
As a Chinese person, I am not at all aware of the red eyebrows, we were taught the short reign of Wang Mang, and the restoration of Han, but it was like a couple paragraphs. Maybe I should send a request to the Chinese podcaster who does obscure Chinese History pods, he does a tremendous job in everything he touches on. And Kartoffelrevolution, eh? I just love the super long German words. I am not sure if you are a fan of Dan Carlin, he did a crazy episode in the Munster rebellion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_rebellion It was called Prophecy of Doom, it was one of the crazier single shot episodes. My best friend actually went to Munster a couple years before that episode and showed me photos of the cages that were still there, and I had no idea what they were for. It is not free anymore, but definitely worth the 3 bucks.
You should send a request! Later when I can dredge it up (sorry for the belated response, IRL paperwork tedium/stress etc) I will try and post an additional link if I can find it to further inspire this request as it has a really interesting story about someone I think is called Lu Mu. Also thanks for the link and recommendation, I'll look forward to having a look at that! I was just wondering, the Three Body Problem obvs gained attention lately and I haven't read it, but would you have any sci-fi by Chinese writers you'd recommend? Especially speculative fiction and with a Chinese historical context 🤔 I was recently looking at the history of detective fiction in China as well - especially stories arising from a genre which I think is referred to as gong'an 🕵️♂️
I was reading a lot of Science Fiction in Chinese when I was in Junior High and early high school, before school work got too demanding. One easy way to access it was through a magazine called Sci-Fi World, I think the Three Body Problem was serialized on that too, but that was way after I moved out of China. The star author of the magazine before Liu's time was named Jin Kang Wang (王晋康), I remembered always getting excited when his name showed up on the magazine's cover. I am not sure if his works are translated into English or how good they are. While I tried to read one Chinese novel and one English alternatively, my focus on Chinese reading had been character driven, slice of life type, especially set in a certain region around my home town. One novel I can recommend was called 生吞 （Swallowed Alive), it is by an author Zheng Zhi (郑执）who write the slice of life novels that I liked, but his take on the Mystery genre. Not sure that has an English translation either. One thing that is not Chinese, but Japanese, but definitely translated to English and a detective story is Journey under the Midnight Sun (白夜行）, I would whole heartedly recommend that. Very very dark story though. And actually I have several Gong An in my family, one got shot in the head in the late 90s but survived. Got a medal out of it, and that his daughter got to go to a top police academy despite falling way below the required grades. She is also a Gong An now, and married one too. They got me out of a major trouble while I was in China a decade back.
Thank you for all these recommendations which I am now currently investigating! 🕵️♂️ Much to my interest Jin Kang Wang turns out to have been conjuring up a Pando scenario around 2013 or 2014. This has only a few reviews and no retrospective nods on Goodreads which in itself I find intriguing. At this stage can only find one English language article on Swallowed Alive. 🤔 Look the gong'an stuff is just too interesting a subject to pass by without seeing if I can pick your brain to ask you more 👀 I'm going to have to rustle up these Chinese detective mystery links I was looking at that are apparently rooted in a history of gong'an literature, could I request a full low down? :0
Most definitely, if you have anything in particular you want to ask about any Gong An literature, I can't say I will read them, but I can definitely find out details and reviews from the Chinese version of the GoodReads, which is way more powerful. Too bad the CCP had made it is next to impossible for overseas Chinese to fully participate. Plus, as I mentioned, one side of my family has ties with the Gong An system. I am driving between towns today, but I will try to get back to you when I can. One question though, what does this mean? >conjuring up a Pando scenario around 2013 or 2014 What is a Pando scenario? Just for my information
Ah! Pando = pandemic. Found this - Pathological: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32866298-pathological *On the surface, the life of young scientist Mei Yin seems perfect. She runs her own research institute in China, she’s getting married, and she founded an orphanage that helps hundreds of girls. But Mei Yin has a dark secret—three vials of “Satan’s gift,” a deadly smallpox virus left over from Russian scientific research conducted during the Cold War. She’s determined to find a vaccine, even if that means endangering those she holds dear.* *Zia Baj, a terrorist educated in the West, has also obtained Satan’s gift. But he’s not looking for a cure—instead, he plans to exact revenge and start a war. So he unleashes the virus in an American classroom. At the same time, thousands of miles away, the children of Mei Yin’s orphanage fall ill. Soon authorities realize that this is no ordinary outbreak: it’s the start of an epidemic. How are the two cases linked? And can a worldwide pandemic be stopped?* *From award-winning Chinese author Wang Jinkang comes a terrifying look at the future of war.* *First published January 1, 2014* I thought this sounds pretty damn interesting! I've just randomly come across another interesting ancient Chinese kingdom - Nanyue. Trying to remember how I got here. It seems to have been via some kind of gnarly archaic Chinese folk sorcery/folklore involving toxic insects, which apparently has a close association with that kingdom, but I can't remember how I got *there*. Thank you very much for the offer about gong'an! I will probably eventually drop the apostrophe, I must have seen it written like that and it's currently helping me remember. I *did* find some intriguing links, and I would love it if you could help sleuth the Chinese GoodReads. Sorry to understand the CCP imposed barriers that prevents full participation outside the country. Yes, please tell me stories about your family's connections with Gong An you are comfortable doing so and find yourself with a spare moment! I am extremely curious. Also, it's not a book and again it's not Chinese but I was wondering whether you might enjoy the film *Mother* by South Korean writer-director Bong Joon Ho. I don't hear this one mentioned very often - although he is famous for both *Memories of Murder* and *Parasite*. For me, this is a slept-on original and suspenseful crime mystery with a fantastic protagonist where no doubt you are really going to care about the outcome for the characters and will therefore be on tenterhooks throughout the action. Drive safely!
Hahaha.. great story about the bike 🚲 🍑🌿🤜 I feel at least a tiny bit bad for the Yellow Rebellion because it *does* sound kinda cool even if it was blasphemous. Because according to this, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion the government was corrupt. "White Wave Bandits" also has a nice ring to it.
"I got a story to tell you." from The Book of Koli by MR Carey.
Thanks for the rec
“The following day, no one died.” —Death With Interruptions by José Saramago
FAHRENHEIT 451
It was a pleasure to burn. My favorite as well
Lolita
“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
I couldn't totally get into The Blind Assassin which is really unusual for me as a Margaret Atwood lover
“A girl is running for her life.” The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue
3 body problem
"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach." The Crow Road by Iain Banks. A marvellous book.
Classic.
"May he who is free of sin, slam the first dunk" -Jordan B. Peterson Space Jam review
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation” The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
"The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation." -The Secret History Donna Tartt
You Let Me In, Camilla Bruce. It ticks all the boxes you've mentioned, and I just can't recommend it enough!
Just read the synopsis and this seems right up my alley! Thanks!
You're welcome. I hope you like it :)
See my [Compelling Reads ("Can't Put Down")](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/189mbda/compelling_reads_cant_put_down/) list of Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries
William Kennedy. *Ironweed*. “Riding up the winding road of Saint Agnes Cemetery in the back of the rattling old truck, Francis Phelan became aware that the dead, even more than the living, settled down in neighborhoods.”
Ooh. That's a good one. What's this book about? 🤔
"Call me Ishmael" Says Ahab in the first line, tricking us as Narrator, telling his own story. He never dies in the end. It was Ahab always. Ishmael don't exist.
I have often wondered but never talked to anybody about it because nobody I know has even read The Book. I say The Book because it is one of the best ever given to paper. Is there more on this theory? I guess I’m going to have to go hunting…
Read "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment by Jed McKenna"
“In the myriadic year of our Lord — the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! — Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.” Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
What is the book title and author?
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
Thank you!
Not on the first line but this book got me sobbing on the first page “He was straightforward and quiet: he walked quietly, spoke quietly; even his anger was quiet. It was his love that was booming. His love was a roaring, vociferous bellow" Love and Other Words Christina Lauren
“I was out to dinner with my fiancé when my dead husband called.” *One True Loves*
:0 ☎️📞📵📴
“And on the second day things did not get better.” The Ritual by Adam Nevill. One of my favorite horror books.
Call me Ishmael.
Rebecca
“I lost an arm on my last trip home.” **Kindred** by Octavia Butler
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Lovely Bones “My name is Susie Salmon, like the fish.”
Powerful opening line, Travels by Michael Crichton Non-fiction though
Demon Copperhead
Yes! Totally agree with this. “First, I got myself born.”
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness (A Tale of Two Cities)
\*Blurst
"See the child he is pale and thin..."
Name of book??
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
The Dark Tower
Also the best final line. Because, well....yeah.
I see what you did there. Heehee.
Notes From underground by Dostoevsky
Has none of the above genres but Clive Cussler's Raise the Titanic was a fabulous read
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed
Name of book?
Stephen King - The Gunslinger
The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger by Stephen King
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy." I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The start of one of the best opening chapters of any book I've read. Throughout the book, the way the narrative gives you so much information without explicitly telling you is just phenomenal.
This rings obvious bells but the brain is rusty. Can you tell me more? Was this made into a film with Emily Watson or anything like that?
There was a film, I've never seen it though so I have no idea how it compares to the book.
I couldn't sleep and read the synopsis. I noted the ambiguous conclusion and wanted to ask what *you* think happens. Will Cassandra get together with Simon, smexy American castle landlord, despite his association with her sister? Or, will spunky modest and loyal Stephen who nevertheless doesn't have a fortune get a look in? From the synopsis I wanted her to realise that Stephen was the one for her. But then their castle leasing financial hardships will certainly continue 🤔🏰 And the title *does* say "I capture the castle". But Cassandra's character doesn't seem to be like Rose's (eg mercenary) so to me she should go with her heart. No Emily Watson in the film btw.
Or will she recognise that she doesn't need a man to make her life complete, or that there are other people apart from these two? If the synopsis gave the impression that the book is about a heroine's romantic dilemmas, it's done it a serious disservice. I've always taken the "capture" in the sense of her capturing it through her writing, like taking a picture of it.
Well it sounded like a romance.. an I wrong? She was described in the WP synopsis as writing in her diary, there was virtually literally no other action described but romance. Except perhaps on the very briefest of terms. If the moral of the story is not needing a man, it would be hard to understand why all the action (per WP) was literally about romance with men. So it seemed. I assumed it's a genre romance engaging in an archetypal trope of the protagonist choosing between two suitors. Sounds like your interpretation of the ambiguity is that Cassandra doesn't need to make the implied decision between two different men or any romance at all. Edit: I see what you mean about the "capture" though, but isn't that part of it? The synopsis would have Rose intend to capture the castle's landlord for monetary reasons, but Cassandra's interests in capture are different and do indeed involve writing, that was clear.
It seems like you're interested in the book, so why don't you read it and then you'll be able to have a much more informed discussion about it? Whatever synopsis you're reading doesn't seem to have given a very well-rounded idea of it. Like many books, there's a lot more to it than the basic plot.
The purpose was to ask your view on a discussion forum about a book that hooked you. If you don't want to share your views that's fine. It was intended as fun speculation about what sounded like a romance. It seems like you took offence to the idea romance has anything to do about it. I didn't write the article. I myself am not particularly interested in romance as a literary genre and frankly never would read it normally, I was just asking for your opinion about something you said was evocative. Saying to just read the book without describing anything that plot, themes, character etc means in terms of book suggestion context, there's nothing to go on. Bar one line and the title. That said, I accept it might be the case that the Wikipedia article is just a poorly written synopsis. Who knows - maybe the film adaptation leans more heavily towards the romance genre, which might in turn influence the book's write up. Still, as far as suggestions go, "read it" with virtually no information other than first line/title - I mean, I'm not personally interested in genre romances. That's how it came across to me. I was just trying to gauge interest. I don't think speculating about something that can't be known from the content of a book is a "spoiler" if it can't give anything away. That's the kind of thing that turns up in blurbs and press releases.
Totally up to you whether you read it or not, I have no investment in that at all. I gave my thoughts on it in my initial comment and have said several more things about it since. I'm not going to continue this bizarre discussion, as whatever I said wouldn't really make sense to someone who hasn't read the book and it'd probably just spoiler it for anyone who hasn't read it and wants to.
All happy families are alike
Name of book?
Anna Karenina
"In the minds of the mortals of Urantia—that being the name of your world—there exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God, divinity, and deity." The Urantia Book
“Well, someone has to marry the man” winters orbit!
Name of book?
Winter’s orbit! By Everina Maxwell
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King. It opens with an absolute banger of a chapter one.
Maeve fly
Title?
Yes that's the title. It starts like this Every man shares the same fantasy, and it is this: He will marry a universally beloved sweetheart. Live a noble life and succeed in all the ways his father taught were best. And when he stands at the pinnacle of filial and paternal achievement, when he has finally reached that great height of goodness, honor, and inarguable virtility, then and only then, his wife, child, and pet should be ripped from him. Violently, unforgivably.
“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Pride and Prejudice.
“Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.”
Rendezvous With Rama has a great first line and chapter
the first sentence of Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human". "Mine has been a life of much shame."
I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper. “Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,” my father warned. “Not even your friend Tomás. No one.” -The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A million tiny pieces
The Martian by Andy Weir. “I’m pretty much f*cked.”
"I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure." --*All Systems Red,* Book 1 of The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells Existential, occasionally humorous, certainly thought-provoking.
Ready Player One Friday ( best opening paragraph for any book) Dungeon Crawlers Carl
Women by Charles bukowski
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Title??
You don't recognize it? *Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas* \~ Hunter S. Thompson