Books: ...love and hate and the choices we make...

I'm reading the first page of Shantaram tonight, at a writer's salon where we are talking about openings. Shantaram has one of the best openings I have ever read: it tells you that you are about to go on a journey that may change you forever. Here is a taste:

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is a universe of possibility.

And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.

And yes, the rest of the book lives up to the promise.