\u2018I walked into the back room at Dad\u2019s house about midday with his dinner on a plate covered in cling film in one hand and a bowl of crumble and custard in the other, and he was dead in his chair.\u2019<\/em><\/h5>\nThe opening of Si\u00e2n Hughes\u2019 new novel offers an attention-grabbing foretaste of horrors and humour to come. In a rueful yet raucous tale of estranged sisters and their overbearing, bullying father, the narrator Steffie looks back on Stanley\u2019s low-life adventures in bare-knuckle fighting and other illegal scrapes, and her own struggles through childhood, school, low-grade jobs and descent into substance abuse. On a hunch, we asked Si\u00e2n for a Top Ten list of her own most memorable opening lines, and they don\u2019t disappoint\u2026<\/h5>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bookanista.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/charlottes-web.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n1. E.B. White: Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/strong><\/p>\n\u2018Where\u2019s Papa going with that axe?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\nIsn\u2019t this everyone\u2019s favourite? I put it at number one, and all the others are joint second. You have to find out what crime that man with the axe is off to commit. From the first time she opens her mouth, Fern has hero written all over her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2. Peter Carey: Bliss<\/strong><\/p>\nHarry Joy was to die three times, but it was his first death which was to have the greatest effect on him, and it is this first death which we shall now witness.<\/em><\/p>\nI love the detachment of the narrator.\u00a0 We are held suspended in mid-air, seeing all that the spirit of Harry Joy can see on his brief visit to the world of spirits. All through the book we have this ability to float free of the body of the main character and see with the cool eye of a ghost, and it is all there in the opening sentence. And don\u2019t you want to go on and find out about his other deaths?\u00a0 I did.<\/p>\n
3. Thomas Lynch: The Undertaking<\/strong><\/p>\nEvery year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople. Another two or three dozen I take to the crematory to be burned. I sell caskets, burial vaults, and urns for the ashes. I have a sideline in headstones and monuments. I do flowers on commission.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nThis memoir by the poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch is a masterclass in precision. It is a poet\u2019s book in that it pares down all its observations into the kind of detail that bores into your soul. I have lost track of how many times I have read it, and it still surprises me. I never tire of its understated and devastating opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bookanista.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/riddley-walker.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n4. Russell Hoban:\u00a0 Riddley Walker<\/strong><\/p>\nOn my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we were then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, \u2018Your tern now my tern later.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\nDiving into the post-apocalyptic language of Riddley Walker you know from the first sentence you are hearing the voice of a true seer and philosopher. Every re-made word or phrase is resonant with its old meaning and layered up with interpretation. He is made of riddles, but he walks through the story with utter grace. You think \u2013 will I even understand this new language? But you do. You understand more of your own for reading it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
5. Niall Williams: Time of the Child<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is what happened in Faha over the Christmas of 1962, in what became known in the parish as the time of the child.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nTo those who lived there, Faha was perhaps the last place on earth to expect a miracle. It had neither the history not the geography for it.<\/em><\/p>\nSo there IS going to be a miracle. We know from the start. How deeply reassuring to see the story unfold while we hold on to that opening promise. Miracles happen where we least expect them. Transformation and redemption are going to appear out of the mud and darkness. However messy and undignified, divinity will appear in human form.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI will never see the word \u2018over-emote\u2019 again without laughing. Once it has been handled like this, the language cracks open and shows its ridiculous and wonderful underbelly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
6. Mary Ruefle: My Private Property<\/strong><\/p>\nAt headquarters they asked me for something dry and understated. Mary, they said, it\u2019s called a statement. They took me out back to a courtyard where they always ate lunch, and showed me a little tree that was, sadly, dying. Something with four legs had eaten it rather badly. Don\u2019t over-emote, they said. I promised I wouldn\u2019t but I was thinking to myself that the something-with-four-legs had certainly over-emoted and that the tree, in response, was over-emoting now, being in the strange little position of dying.<\/em><\/p>\nWell if you start laughing in the first two lines, you are going to want to go on reading, aren\u2019t you? I will never see the word \u2018over-emote\u2019 again without laughing. Once it has been handled like this, the language cracks open and shows its ridiculous and wonderful underbelly. Believe me every page is this good. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bookanista.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/my-name-is-why.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n7. Lemn Sissay:\u00a0 My Name Is Why<\/strong><\/p>\nAt fourteen I tattooed the initials of what I thought was my name into my hand. The tattoo is still there but it wasn\u2019t my name. It\u2019s a reminder that I\u2019ve been somewhere I should never have been. I was not who I thought I was. The Authority knew it but I didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nTechnically this is the opening to the preface rather than the first chapter, but let\u2019s not split hairs, we have our hero, carving out his identity, we have the baddy, we have the quest for truth. It\u2019s all there, and we want to know how the battle will be won. It never flags for a second. I could pick almost any sentence really. Read it and weep.<\/p>\n
8. Anne Tyler: Searching for Caleb<\/strong><\/p>\nThe fortune teller and her grandfather went to New York City on an Amtrak train, racketing along with their identical, peaky white faces set due north. The grandfather had left his hearing aid at home on the bureau.<\/em><\/p>\nTwo travellers set out on a quest. One earns a living telling the future. One cannot hear a word. They are locked in their separateness, but held by the family likeness, facing due north, which is surely some kind of metaphor for a spiritual journey. Don\u2019t we long to find out how they came to be so tied together in this, to find out where they are going, and why?<\/p>\n
9. Anne Holm: I am David<\/strong><\/p>\nDavid lay quite still in the darkness, listening to the men\u2019s low mutterings. But this evening he was aware of their voices only as a vague meaningless noise in the distance, and he paid no attention to what they were saying.<\/em><\/p>\n\u2019You must get away tonight,\u2019 the man had told him. \u2018Stay awake so that you\u2019re ready just before the guard\u2019s changed. When you see me strike a match, the current will be cut off and you can climb over \u2013 you\u2019ll have half a minute for it, no more.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\nI love an escape story. Some of my favourites, like Susanna Clark\u2019s Piranesi<\/em> or Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s The Marriage Portrait<\/em>, leave you to work out that this is a prison, and the only happy ending is the one where they break out. It takes you a while to find out. This one tells you right away, and the first step of the escape is only seconds away.\u00a0<\/p>\n10. Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead<\/strong><\/p>\nFirst, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they\u2019ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let\u2019s just say out of it.<\/em><\/p>\nI was tempted to try and choose which Dickens opening I like best. Lots of the most famous openings are there, and it\u2019s hard for a fan like me to pick one. But Kingsolver\u2019s take on David Copperfield took me into the voice of the hero from the first moment, and had me by the throat. Dickens would be proud of her. Demon Copperhead\u2019s voice sings out, however you hear it in your head, and as soon as he spoke to me, I loved him.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bookanista.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/sian-hughes-290.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nSi\u00e2n Hughes<\/strong> lives in rural Cheshire and is a Royal Literary Fund Writing Tutor based at the University of Liverpool. Her first collection of poetry, The Missing<\/em> (Salt, 2009), was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Seamus Heaney Award, among other accolades. Her first novel Pearl<\/em> (The Indigo Press, 2023) was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Authors\u2019 Club Best First Novel Award. It has been published in many languages worldwide. No Such Thing As Monday<\/em> is published by The Indigo Press.
Read more<\/a>
instagram.com\/theindigopress<\/a><\/p>\nAuthor photo by Stretton Studios<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n1. E.B. White: Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Where\u2019s Papa going with that axe?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t this everyone\u2019s favourite? I put it at number one, and all the others are joint second. You have to find out what crime that man with the axe is off to commit. From the first time she opens her mouth, Fern has hero written all over her.\u00a0<\/p>\n 2. Peter Carey: Bliss<\/strong><\/p>\n Harry Joy was to die three times, but it was his first death which was to have the greatest effect on him, and it is this first death which we shall now witness.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the detachment of the narrator.\u00a0 We are held suspended in mid-air, seeing all that the spirit of Harry Joy can see on his brief visit to the world of spirits. All through the book we have this ability to float free of the body of the main character and see with the cool eye of a ghost, and it is all there in the opening sentence. And don\u2019t you want to go on and find out about his other deaths?\u00a0 I did.<\/p>\n 3. Thomas Lynch: The Undertaking<\/strong><\/p>\n Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople. Another two or three dozen I take to the crematory to be burned. I sell caskets, burial vaults, and urns for the ashes. I have a sideline in headstones and monuments. I do flowers on commission.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This memoir by the poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch is a masterclass in precision. It is a poet\u2019s book in that it pares down all its observations into the kind of detail that bores into your soul. I have lost track of how many times I have read it, and it still surprises me. I never tire of its understated and devastating opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n 4. Russell Hoban:\u00a0 Riddley Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we were then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, \u2018Your tern now my tern later.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Diving into the post-apocalyptic language of Riddley Walker you know from the first sentence you are hearing the voice of a true seer and philosopher. Every re-made word or phrase is resonant with its old meaning and layered up with interpretation. He is made of riddles, but he walks through the story with utter grace. You think \u2013 will I even understand this new language? But you do. You understand more of your own for reading it.\u00a0<\/p>\n 5. Niall Williams: Time of the Child<\/strong><\/p>\n This is what happened in Faha over the Christmas of 1962, in what became known in the parish as the time of the child.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n To those who lived there, Faha was perhaps the last place on earth to expect a miracle. It had neither the history not the geography for it.<\/em><\/p>\n So there IS going to be a miracle. We know from the start. How deeply reassuring to see the story unfold while we hold on to that opening promise. Miracles happen where we least expect them. Transformation and redemption are going to appear out of the mud and darkness. However messy and undignified, divinity will appear in human form.\u00a0<\/p>\n I will never see the word \u2018over-emote\u2019 again without laughing. Once it has been handled like this, the language cracks open and shows its ridiculous and wonderful underbelly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n 6. Mary Ruefle: My Private Property<\/strong><\/p>\n At headquarters they asked me for something dry and understated. Mary, they said, it\u2019s called a statement. They took me out back to a courtyard where they always ate lunch, and showed me a little tree that was, sadly, dying. Something with four legs had eaten it rather badly. Don\u2019t over-emote, they said. I promised I wouldn\u2019t but I was thinking to myself that the something-with-four-legs had certainly over-emoted and that the tree, in response, was over-emoting now, being in the strange little position of dying.<\/em><\/p>\n Well if you start laughing in the first two lines, you are going to want to go on reading, aren\u2019t you? I will never see the word \u2018over-emote\u2019 again without laughing. Once it has been handled like this, the language cracks open and shows its ridiculous and wonderful underbelly. Believe me every page is this good. \u00a0<\/p>\n 7. Lemn Sissay:\u00a0 My Name Is Why<\/strong><\/p>\n At fourteen I tattooed the initials of what I thought was my name into my hand. The tattoo is still there but it wasn\u2019t my name. It\u2019s a reminder that I\u2019ve been somewhere I should never have been. I was not who I thought I was. The Authority knew it but I didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Technically this is the opening to the preface rather than the first chapter, but let\u2019s not split hairs, we have our hero, carving out his identity, we have the baddy, we have the quest for truth. It\u2019s all there, and we want to know how the battle will be won. It never flags for a second. I could pick almost any sentence really. Read it and weep.<\/p>\n 8. Anne Tyler: Searching for Caleb<\/strong><\/p>\n The fortune teller and her grandfather went to New York City on an Amtrak train, racketing along with their identical, peaky white faces set due north. The grandfather had left his hearing aid at home on the bureau.<\/em><\/p>\n Two travellers set out on a quest. One earns a living telling the future. One cannot hear a word. They are locked in their separateness, but held by the family likeness, facing due north, which is surely some kind of metaphor for a spiritual journey. Don\u2019t we long to find out how they came to be so tied together in this, to find out where they are going, and why?<\/p>\n 9. Anne Holm: I am David<\/strong><\/p>\n David lay quite still in the darkness, listening to the men\u2019s low mutterings. But this evening he was aware of their voices only as a vague meaningless noise in the distance, and he paid no attention to what they were saying.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2019You must get away tonight,\u2019 the man had told him. \u2018Stay awake so that you\u2019re ready just before the guard\u2019s changed. When you see me strike a match, the current will be cut off and you can climb over \u2013 you\u2019ll have half a minute for it, no more.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I love an escape story. Some of my favourites, like Susanna Clark\u2019s Piranesi<\/em> or Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s The Marriage Portrait<\/em>, leave you to work out that this is a prison, and the only happy ending is the one where they break out. It takes you a while to find out. This one tells you right away, and the first step of the escape is only seconds away.\u00a0<\/p>\n 10. Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead<\/strong><\/p>\n First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they\u2019ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let\u2019s just say out of it.<\/em><\/p>\n I was tempted to try and choose which Dickens opening I like best. Lots of the most famous openings are there, and it\u2019s hard for a fan like me to pick one. But Kingsolver\u2019s take on David Copperfield took me into the voice of the hero from the first moment, and had me by the throat. Dickens would be proud of her. Demon Copperhead\u2019s voice sings out, however you hear it in your head, and as soon as he spoke to me, I loved him.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n Si\u00e2n Hughes<\/strong> lives in rural Cheshire and is a Royal Literary Fund Writing Tutor based at the University of Liverpool. Her first collection of poetry, The Missing<\/em> (Salt, 2009), was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Seamus Heaney Award, among other accolades. Her first novel Pearl<\/em> (The Indigo Press, 2023) was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Authors\u2019 Club Best First Novel Award. It has been published in many languages worldwide. No Such Thing As Monday<\/em> is published by The Indigo Press. Author photo by Stretton Studios<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Read more<\/a>
instagram.com\/theindigopress<\/a><\/p>\n