Addicted to Books: Memorable Opening Paragraphs

But it isn't the latest book I'm reading that I'm going to quote, but one of the most memorable introductory paragraph's I've ever read (with that last as one of the longest sentences, too) - from Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet: ... mestizo male in his early twenties, identified in the interminable press coverage that followed the catastrophe as Raúl Páramo, the playboy heir of a well-known local construction baron, one of whose corporations owned the hotel. ...