First Impressions

This week's competition, in which you have to identify a book from its opening sentence, is from a biographical ramble by counterculture's reluctant voice:

"Lou Levy, top man of Leeds Music Publishing company, took me up in a taxi to the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street to show me the pocket sized recording studio where Bill Haley and His Comets had recorded 'Rock Around the Clock' - then down to Jack Dempsey's restaurant on 58th and Broadway, where we sat down in a red leather upholstered booth facing the front window."

* Entries, including postal address, should be sent to First Impressions, The Times Higher , Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX, faxed to 020 7782 3300 or e-mailed to theschat@thes.co.uk

Nobody identified last week's opening sentence, taken from Sean Wilentz's The rise of American Democracy , so the prize this week is a £50 book voucher. The closing date is February 26.

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