Agent Palmer

I always read through entire books. I’m not saying that to be a snob, but most Acknowledgments at the end of a book, give you a glimpse into a short commentary on the book process itself. However, I was thrown for a loop when I was reading the Acknowledgements of Bomber by Len Deighton, when I read the sentence; “This is perhaps the first book to be entirely recorded on magnetic tape for the I.B.M.72IV.”

Deighton’s modesty aside, “this is perhaps,” is definitely modest, the sentence was something that I couldn’t just read, it had to be looked into.

Believe it or not, the opening line of a book can truly shape the entire experience of reading it. Much like the opening scene to a movie, an author can choose to bring us straight into the action or build a slowly burning sense of purpose through their words.

With that in mind, I wanted to discuss the 12 best opening lines from books I’ve recently read, but I had a decision to make before I got started. I wasn’t sure what the criteria should be. Should it be the prologue, for those that have a prologue, or should it be the first line from chapter one because all of them had a chapter one?

Declarations of War is a collection of short stories; 13 to be exact, a baker’s dozen if you will. Of, exactly what you would expect, war… But the title goes deeper. Each of these short stories contains a declaration about war. But that’s not as good of a title, though it could be argued that these stories are declarations on war, which makes sense despite the fact that my spell checker thinks “declarations on war” was a mistake. No, I meant it.

And like Deighton’s full size novels, I’m basing this off of the one’s that I have read. this story is a wealth of great intelligence in storytelling, dialogue, and of course, precisely written descriptions and detail.

“Len Deighton, the mastercraftsman of spy thrillers, here applies his eye for stunning detail and his story-telling skill to the novel of action. With documentary precision, he has created a powerful panoramic account of a bombing raid over the Ruhr during World War II. And in the process, he has written a devastating indictment of war and of the mechanical processes – in man and society – that perpetuate it.”

That’s the first paragraph on the inside dust cover of Bomber by Len Deighton and it is a perfect description of the book.