First Chapter Collection 002

A literary tasting menu: fifteen opening chapters pulled from the world's greatest stories, read by LibriVox volunteers. What you get here is the moment each author decided the world should begin listening. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina opens in its original Russian, the extraordinary first pages that launched one of literature's most tragic heroines. Children's classics pulse with adventure: the grim streets of Oliver Twist, the treasure-hunt urgency of Treasure Island, the secret-garden wonder that has enchanted generations. F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise captures the Jazz Age's bright, aching promise. The Book of Mormon offers a different kind of narrative DNA. Each chapter is a door. Some listeners will walk through one and find a whole book. Others will simply savor these openings as art unto themselves, those perfect first sentences that make you believe language can stop time.