Warren Zanes’s Dusty in Memphis is not a book about a record. It’s a part of Continuum’s 33⅓ series, which I believe to be a series of essays on albums and what they mean to the writer. So, in a way, and despite it’s first line, it is a book about a record: it’s a… Read more »
Posts Categorized: First Lines
First lines: The Leap
Before Jonathan Stroud wrote his totally awesome Bartimæus Trilogy, he wrote The Leap. It’s the story of Charlie, who is searching for her friend Max, who has drowned in the mill pool. At least, that is what everyone else says. Charlie just knows that Max is out there somewhere, and she is going to find… Read more »
First lines: Outlaws, Blobs and Other Things
There’s no way I’m going to repeat the full title of this collection of short stories by various authors more than once. Outlaws, Blobs and Other Things contains stories primarily aimed at jounger readers by Jonathan Safran Foer (an excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), Nick Hornby (a story about a football match in… Read more »
Eerste zinnen: Het doden van een mens
Al zou slechts de helft van wat Guus Kuijer in Het doden van een mens beschrijft waar zijn, dan nog is Johannes Calvijn een godlasterende ketter die zijn mensonterende interpretatie van de bijbel als een goddelijk geïnspireerd dogma en onfeilbare openbaring met geweld aan de man bracht, een gewetenloze lompe hork zonder enige blijk van… Read more »
First lines: Dreams of Terror and Death
In the Dream Cycle, HP Lovecraft explores the unknown vistas of the dreamlands and what unimaginable horrors unsuspecting dreamers may encounter there. Dreams of Terror and Death collects all those stories in a handsome tome. Much of the criticism from my previous foray into Lovecraft’s vast body of work applies here as well. But since… Read more »