A new Top Five Tuesday, the prompts are created by Bionic Book Worm. This week we get to pick our favourite opening lines
1. “Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling – Just iconic, I can practically recite the first chapter but this will always be in my mind. It just sums up the Durley’s so well, who wants to be normal? Not me!
2. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” – The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket – Never before had I read a book where the author tries to dissuade you from reading it, I love Snicket’s strange writing style.
3. “This is the bright candlelit room where the lifetimers are stored – shelf upon shelf of them, squat hourglasses, one for every living person, pouring their fine sand from the furture into the past.” – Mort by Terry Pratchett, I love the image this conjures up, and Death keeps an eye on all our hourglasses and comes to get us when our time is up.
4. “The shape of power is always the same; it is the shape of a tree. Root to tip, central trunk branching and re-branching, spreading wider in ever-thinner, searching fingers.” – The Power by Naomi Alderman, this opening line changes how I see power, as corrupting. The image of the tree is clever, trees are vital to our survival.
5. “The play – for which Briony had designed the posters, programmes and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper – was written by her in a two day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.” – Atonement by Ian McEwan, I love how quick and almost frantic this is, it sums up Briony so perfectly, full of energy, creative and slightly obsessive.
I found this slightly harder than I thought but it was great getting half my books down to see if they had good openers! What are some of your favourites?
We Are Just Stories 
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