>http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_a125216a-649f-5414-88b5-76a688ea3b6a.html
>(it's from 2006 - should any be added to the list?)

They are all out of order but that's a good list.

The best opening paragraph IMO wasn't even from a book envisioned as a book. Graham Greene wrote "The Quiet American" as a screenplay and then rewrote it as a novel to make it look more respectable. The movie, starring Orson Welles, is a classic and so is the book. (The best line, written by Welles, was the one about cuckoo clocks).

http://www.headbutler.com/books/fiction/graham-greene

My favorite writer by far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene