Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (master of opening lines): Also, I found this site in my hunt for the exact verbiage to that opening:In the last quarter of the twentieth century, at a time when Western civilization was declining too rapidly for comfort and yet too slowly to be very exciting, much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat, waiting--with various combinations of dread, hope, and ennui--for something momentous to occur.
From your link: Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins."The beet is the most intense of vegetables."
-That was a novel I really enjoyed reading. I went through a big Tom Robbins phase in high school/college.
I've never read these books, but the opening lines make me want to: -- Fred D'Aguiar, The Longest Memory -- Jane Austen, Pride and PrejudiceI found this site
The future is just more of the past waiting to happen.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.