It’s the second day of the week! It’s also time for a Top 5 Tuesday update. Top 5 Tuesdays and their topics are brought to you by Shanah @ the Bionic Bookworm. Do check out her blog, she’s got an awesome one. For the list of topics in May, click on this page.

This week’s topic:  Top 5 Opening Lines

As the saying goes, first impression never last. In the world of literature, it maybe true, at times. More often than not, writers strive to create great impression at the onset of the story. The opening lines also establish the tempo of the story. Without more ado, here are five of the most memorable opening lines I’ve come across in my reading journey.

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” ~ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” ~ J.D. Salinger, A Catcher in the Rye

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” ~ Jane Austen, Emma