Scoop by Evelyn Waugh -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

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

While still a young man, John Courteney Boot had, as his publisher proclaimed, "achieved an assured and enviable position in contemporary letters."

-- from Scoop by Evelyn Waugh.  

Not, on its face, the most humorous opening lines for what is one of the funniest books I've ever read. The laughs start when the wrong Boot -- William, not John -- gets sent by London's sensationalist newspaper, the Daily Beast, to cover an impending revolution in a (fictional) African nation. William Boot, far from having an enviable position as a contemporary author, lives a quiet life in the country and writes a weekly nature column for the Beast. And yes, the current online Daily Beast got its name from Waugh's book. 

Scoop is a first-rate satire of newspaper journalism and a contender to be my favorite of Evelyn Waugh's comic novels, right up there with Decline and Fall. I read it again in January as part of a Waugh readalong group on bookstagram and loved it even more than when I read it the first time. 

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 Scoop:

Mrs Earl Russell Jackson padded in stockinged feet across the bare boards of the lounge looking for a sizeable cigar-end, found one, screwed it into her pipe, and settled down in the office rocking-chair to read her bible. Outside--and, in one or two places, inside--the rain fell in torrents.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia.

So begins Scoop, Waugh's exuberant comedy of mistaken identity and brilliantly irreverent satire of the hectic pursuit of hot news.