Because I read lots I have always been fascinated by the first paragraphs of books that I am about to buy or ultimately do so.
I have written about it a few times, and I have even singled second paragraphs.
First Paragraphs & Autobiographical novels
Jane Rule - Of Second Paragraphs
In my Sunday, September 24 New York Times Book Review I immediately noticed this first paragraph in Dwight Garner’s review of J.M. Coetzee’s latest The Pole (167 pp.).
The South African writer J.M. Coetzee’s novels are slim and so, by and large, are his characters – they’re Modiglianis, not Boteros.
I often use one of my first paragraphs in my bios:
My birth in Buenos Aires in 1942 was recorded by a photographer with the burst of magnesium flash powder. I knew then I would someday be a photographer.