Twittering the first lines of books so you don't have to!
What is TwitterLit?

It's a site that serves up literary teasers twice daily. At 9:00 AM and 9:00PM Eastern Time I post the first line of a book, without the author's name or book title, but with a link to Amazon so readers can see what book the line is from. Why? Because it's fun! The posts are also available for subscription via RSS, Twitter, Identi.ca, and email. Literary teasers in your inbox or RSS reader, on your Google home page, on the web, in your Twitter reader, or by mobile phone. Curiously addictive. (Full disclosure)


New York Magazine calls TwitterLit "an extremely simple and extremely addictive site...."

Search TwitterLit:  

The Guardian Arts Blog calls TwitterLit "an intriguingly random way to discover new reads...."

03-17-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"At the age of sixteen, I suffered recurring nightmares."

03-17-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"In New Hampshire we know ourselves by winter -- in snow, in cold, in darkness."

03-16-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Here is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years."

03-16-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"You may have heard of Twitter but have no idea what it actually is."

03-15-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"The whole of the East was on the move."

03-15-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Guys have long-standing relationships with their plumbing tools, particularly the plunger."

03-14-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"The first charge against human reproductive cloning is that it is an expression of hubris."

03-14-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"The canary yellow three-by-five card fell to the floor, face down."

03-13-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Tom Kendall was woken by the sounds of a cat killing the family of blackbirds which had nested in the creeper outside his bedroom window."

03-13-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"The boy had been crouched so long that his legs had fallen asleep beneath him--but he dared not move now."

03-13-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"America, said Horace, the office temp, was a run-down and demented pimp."

03-12-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Humans are selfish."

03-12-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Tibet was a forbidden land."

03-11-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself."

03-11-10 AM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"Gita rose from her table at the Au Bon Pain and carefully wiped away the crumbs."

03-10-10 PM -- Amazon:   US   UK   CA | Post to Twitter
"At fourteen I decided to spend my life writing poetry, which is what I have done."

Yahoo! Picks: "For either logophiles or aspiring writers, Twitterlit's twice daily delivery of first sentences may be the most condensed form of education and enlightenment you can get."


Full Disclosure: TwitterLit is an Amazon affiliate. The links that appear in the posts/tweets point to Amazon.com, and they contain TwitterLit's affiliate ID. Sales resulting from clicks on those links will profit TwitterLit.

TwitterLit is not affiliated with Twitter.com.
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There are three versions of TwitterLit -- US, UK, and Canadian:
RSS | Twitter | Email
RSS | Twitter | Email
RSS | Twitter | Email
2110 1st lines posted!
(Now you can get random first lines on your iPhone too!)
 
Got an iPhone or iPod Touch?

Add an iPhone-friendly version of TwitterLit to your home screen: twitterlit.com/iphone
New! Get random first lines on your iPhone! twitterlit.com/iphone/random
Add TwitterLit to :

1. In your Gmail account, click the green Gmail Labs bottle at the top right of the screen. Scroll down to "Add any gadget by URL," click enable, and save changes.

2. Now go into your settings--which is right next to the green Gmail Labs bottle. Click the "Gadgets" link. And in the input box under "Add a gadget by its URL" add this address:

Bookmarklet!
Drag the bookmarklet link above to your toolbar for first lines delivered right in your browser. (Click for more info.)
Google Gadgets

Add TwitterLit to your personalized Google homepage:


    US:  Add to Google
    UK: Add to Google
    CA: Add to Google

(The UK and CA versions of TwitterLit feature the same first lines but link to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca respectively.)
TwitterLit Widgets

Click here for directions on adding a customizable TwitterLit widget to your site.
Suggest a First Line!

Have a great first line you'd like to see on TwitterLit? Click here to suggest it.