“On the night of May 28, 1988, my dad took me to a baseball game.” Russell A. Carleton, The New Ballgame: The Not-So-Hidden Forces Shaping Modern Baseball.

“Trey comes over the mountain carrying a broken chair.” Tana French, The Hunter.

“When white-sheeted nightriders first appeared in the dark Southern night, many people thought they were ghosts.” Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.

“. . . I know, I understand, I shouldn’t have done it.” David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black.

“In winter, when the green earth lies resting beneath a blanket of snow, this is the time for storytelling.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

“He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.” Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

“On January 25, 2011, on the first day of the Egyptian Arab Spring, nothing happened in Abydos.” Peter Hessler, The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution.

“You will notice in just a second that this book actually begins on page 145.” Paul Reiser, Couplehood.

“He was like the hero in an action movie: cool under pressure, always ready with a quip.” Reid Mitenbuler, Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age.

“They had come to the spot in the freshness of June, chased from the village by its people, following deer path through the forest, the valleys, the fern groves, and the quaking bogs.” Daniel Mason, North Woods.

“Probably the strangest way anyone celebrated the accession of King James I of England was when a gentlewoman in the far north of Lancashire organised a mock wedding in a country church, between two male servants.” Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689.

“Mas Arai didn’t think much of slot machines, not to mention one with a fake can of Spam mounted on top of it.” Naomi Hirahara, Snakeskin Shamisen: A Mas Arai Mystery.

“I stood on the ship’s deck in my long underwear and fireproof jumpsuit, watching a pale silver sunrise and gauging the wind.” Susan Casey, The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean.