I love considering opening lines in novels - why they work, which ones don't work, the point at which a cute attempt to suck the reader in becomes irritating. A good opening line stays with me even if the novel turns out to be a little bit of the meh variety. So I very much enjoyed
Glen Weldon's blog post on the subject, not least because he included two of my favourites. I mean no surprises there - these lines are kind of everyone's favourites, that's why they're famous. But still:
“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” – Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers
"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” – Samuel Beckett, Murphy
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