A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES: Alongside the "Best American Things To Know About Chuck Norris," and "Best American Things To Know About Hoboes," The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 (a series which I find to be required reading each year) features "Best American First Sentences of Novels of 2005." I'm not quite sure how this works, since a number of the authors cited are not American (Nick Hornby, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie), and I was upset to see that "By the sixth leg of the game, we have accumlated the following objects: a ski pole, a bishop from a crystal chess set, a sheet of rice paper, a trilobite fossil, an aviator's helmet, and a live parrot," from Lost and Found, didn't make the list. But apropros of a request in the comments, what are your favorite first lines in recent years (or ever)?