You know that feeling when you crack open a book and the very first sentence grabs you by the collar? It's rare, honestly. Most books ease you in gently, maybe too gently. But then there are those ...

Some sentences do more than begin a story. They shatter something. They rearrange the air in the room, and nothing about how you read - or think - is ever quite the same again. Literature is full of ...

British novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) sat in his study in Gads Hill near Rochester, Kent circa 1860. He wrote one of the best first lines in literature. Great opening lines to books set the ...