‘A great first sentence is very important. In a novel, it’s a “promise,” a “handshake,” an “embrace,” a “key.” Great first sentences are celebrated everywhere literature is cherished and mandated everywhere it’s taught. They’re a pleasure and a duty – the “most important sentence in a book,” everyone agrees. But they haven’t always been important. When Daniel Defoe wrote the first English novel, Robinson Crusoe, in 1719, first sentences weren’t important, and so he wrote, “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull.” When Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre in 1847, first sentences still weren’t important, and even so she wrote, “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”’
Andrew Heisel, Electric Literature
‘Public libraries have long been the Cinderella of local government, as elected members try to cope with the ever increasing demands of other statutory services. Libraries are often seen as a soft option for cuts. It is too easy to cut the books budget, reduce opening hours or threaten to close branch libraries unless they are taken over by volunteers. A few councils have even proposed retaining only their central library and either closing or transferring their other libraries to be run by willing volunteers. Others have looked to outsource their libraries...’