“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterwards the road bare and white except for the leaves.”
From ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway 

And here are the #FirstParas from other novels by Hemingway:-
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ by Carol Birch
‘Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2s3 via @SandraDanby