Tuesday's First Chapter, First Paragraph - City of Thieves

Each Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea shares the first part of a book that she is reading or thinking about reading. This week I'm sharing the first paragraph from the book I recently finished (and loved).

 City of Thieves 

by David Benioff

You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold. When we slept, if we slept, we dreamed of the feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier--all that buttered bread, the potato dumplings, the sausages--eaten with disregard, swallowing without tasting, leaving great crumbs on our plates, scraps of fat. In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter.

At night the wind blew so loud and long it startled you when it stopped; the shutter hinges of the burned-out cafe on the corner would quit creaking for a few ominous seconds, as if a predator neared and the smaller animals hushed in terror. The shutters themselves had been torn down for firewood in November. There was no more scrap wood in Leningrad. Every wood sign, the slats of the park benches, the floorboards of shattered buildings--all gone and burning in someone's stove[...]

I finished this book last week and the characters continue to haunt my dreams. This is my first 5-star book for 2016 and I can't wait to share my review with you.

Happy Tuesday, friends! Visit Bibliophile By the Sea for more introductions.