There's a moment when you open a book and the very first sentence stops you cold. You read it again. Then once more. Something about it just hooks you in a way that's almost unfair. A single line, ...

Some sentences do more than begin a story. They shatter something. They rearrange the air in the room, and nothing about how ...

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 ...