How to Write an Opening Sentence

Iain Banks manages to provide both one of the most memorable opening sentences:

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

and my favourite opening paragraph (or two):

"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa’s six-sided columns and Fingal’s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.

Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain."

From The Crow Road and Espedair Street respectively.

This kind of reminds me that, although I'll read a lot about programming and startups, I haven't learned anything about writing (formally) in many many years.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for books about writing non-fiction? The OP refers to a few book about writing fiction, which sound interesting (and that may be helpful), but I was wondering if there was something similar that targeted maybe copy-writing and just general business writing.

On Writing Well: http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...

Even though I'm not a great fan of his work, Banks did write one of the most memorable opening lines ever in The Crow Road.

Two other great examples:

William Gibson's Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Herman Melville's Moby Dick: "Call me Ishmael."

Neither strictly tells the reader what the books are about, but they're great hooks.

From reading good writing, and by looking at opening sentences specially I came to the conclusion that the best way to start a chunk of text is by starting to say what you want to say. Just say what you have to say and don't think about it as an "opening sentence". By thinking of structure you lose perspective of the most important thing in any writing, the message.

My favorite writers get to the point quickly and effectively. Adding cruft is unnecessary and disrespectful to readers and usually only serves to make you feel better about your writing.

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery