The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. 

--from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

My book club is reading James by Percival Everett for our next get together. James is a "reimagining" of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim the runaway slave, Huck's companion in adventure. I wanted to reread the original before I read the new novel. 

I decided to read Huck Finn with my ears this time. The story depends so much on the dialects used that I want to hear them instead of imagine them in my head. I am about six chapters in and know this was a good decision. I have loved the book since I first read it in high school. The narrator of the audiobook, Patrick Fraley, really brings the story to life. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Huckleberry Finn:

When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In recent years, neither the persistent effort to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel's wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic.