Rightly or wrongly, readers fix a gimlet eye on beginnings, as do writers, aware of the myriad rules, warnings, and dictates about what to do or not to do. This discussion will look at some classic and not-so-classic examples, explore how they affect the reader, and examine the purpose and dynamics of a book's first words.

Walter Bode has been in book publishing for three decades and was editor-in-chief of Grove Press and a senior editor at Harcourt. Books he has edited have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the Whitbread Award, among others.

The Writing Life events in 2013 were generously underwritten by Jenny Lawrence.