First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.


My entry this week comes from Alice McDermott's Charming Billy: A Novel

Somewhere in the Bronx, only twenty minutes or so from the cemetery, Maeve found a small bar-and-grill in a wooded alcove set well off the street that was willing to serve the funeral party of forty-seven medium-rare roast beef and boiled potatoes and green beans amandine, with fruit salad to begin and vanilla ice cream to go with the coffee. Pitchers of beer and of iced tea would be placed along the table at intervals and the bar left open--it being a regular business day--for anyone who wanted a drink.

The inclusion of the number of servings of food would be available is what pulled me in. Who were the 47 members of the funeral party? Why were they attending "Charming Billy's" funeral? A quiet yet emotionally evocative read.

Book Mark: National Book Awards

The National Book Awards, recognizing the best of American literature, were announced this past Thursday.

FICTION
Winner: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)

Finalists:
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

NONFICTION
Winner: T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)

Finalists:
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)

POETRY
Winner: Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)

Finalists:
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Penguin Books)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Young People's Literature
Winner: Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Finalists:
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
David Small, Stitches (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)

DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS
Gore Vidal

LITERARIAN AWARD
Dave Eggers