“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die.”
‘Illywhacker’ by Peter Carey 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell
‘Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
ILLYWHACKER by Peter Carey #books http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1KP via @SandraDanby

“It was a Saturday night when the man with the red waistcoat arrived in London. It was, to be precise, six of the clock on the fifteenth of April in the year of 1837 that those hooded eyes looked out the window of the Dover coach and beheld, in the bright aura of gas light, a golden bull and an overgrown mouth opening to devour him – the sign of his inn, the Golden Ox.”
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Sea Glass’ by Anita Shreve 
‘Such a Long Journey’ by Rohinton Mistry 
‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
JACK MAGGS by Peter Carey #amwriting http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1GN via @SandraDanby