First Lines: Jules Verne

The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Jules Verne

First Lines: Mario Vargas Llosa

That was a fabulous summer. Pérez Prado and his twelve-professor orchestra came to liven up the Carnival dances at the Club Terrazas of Miraflores and the Lawn Tennis of Lima; a national mambo championship was organized in Plaza de Acho, which was a great success in spite of the threat by Cardinal Juan Gualberto Guevara, Archbishop of Lima, to excommunicate all the couples who took part; and my neighborhood, the Barrio Alegre of the Miraflores streets Diego Ferré, Juan Fanning, and Colón, competed in some Olympic games of mini-soccer, cycling, athletics, and swimming with the neighborhood of Calle San Martín, which, of course, we won.

The Bad Girl

Mario Vargas Llosa

First Lines: Jules Verne

When a journey begins badly it rarely ends well.

The Floating Island

Jules Verne

First Lines: Juan Gabriel Vasquez

The first hippopotamus, a male the colour of black pearls weighing a ton and a half, was shot dead in 2009.

The Sound of Things Falling

Juan Gabriel Vasquez

First Lines: Kurt Vonnegut

This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

First Lines: Kurt Vonnegut

All this happened, more or less.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

First Lines: Wendelin Van Draanen

All I’ve ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone.

Flipped

Wendelin Van Draanen

First Lines: John Varley

“In five years, the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman.

Steel Beach 

John Varley

First Lines: H.G. Wells

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.

The Time Machine

H.G. Wells

First Lines: Kurt Vonnegut

Nothing in this book is true.

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut

First Lines: Abraham Verghese

After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother’s womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954.

Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese