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Book Review of First Paragraphs: Inspired Openings for Writers and Readers

First Paragraphs: Inspired Openings for Writers and Readers
reviewed on + 301 more book reviews


from the back cover:
If you're a writer burning to strike a great first paragraph--or a reader looking to savor some--this little gem of a book could be all the inspiration you need. Author Donald Newlove combines human insight, personal taste, and his own crackling talent as a writer to show how, with the right opening, we can created a work of genius. These seventy-five selections are from works as diverse as Dickens's Bleak House and Kerouac's On the Road, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. Also represented are works by Alice Walker, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, J.D. Salinger, Eudora Welty, John Updike, and dozens more. This idiosyncratic collection not only celebrates great authors, it explains how they make their all-important first words "sing on the eyeball."