“Clarence Darrow, the famous labor lawyer from Chicago, had stood tall in the public’s eye for almost two decades, and even those who didn’t much like him respected his vigorous defense of what seemed to be hopeless cases.” Brenda Wineapple, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation.

“Wise guests wake early at the Royal Karnak Palace Hotel.” Christopher Bollen, Havoc.

“Picture the biggest tree you’ve ever seen, laid on its side and sliced lengthways into boards no thicker than expensive steaks.” Callum Robinson, Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman.

“A wise man once said that next to losing its mother, there is nothing more healthy for a child than to lose its father.”  Halldór Laxness, The Fish Can Sing.

“History, as the cliché goes, is written by the winners, but this is a history of the losers: candidates who lost their elections, movements that bubbled up and fizzled out, protests that exploded and dissipated, writers who toiled at the margins of American life, figures who became briefly famous or infamous and then were forgotten.” John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.

“In the next town over, a man had killed his family.” Paul Murray, The Bee Sting.

“As ice gathered several inches thick on the Hudson River and the mercury plummeted below freezing, Hortense Odlum stepped from her chauffeured car onto the Fifth Avenue sidewalk.” Julie Satow, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion.

“In a moment of panic, we decided to look for a home.” Ayşegül Savaş, The Anthropologists.

“The First Federal Congress was the most momentous in American history.” Fergus M. Bordewich, The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government.

“Terry Tice liked killing people.” John Banville, April in Spain.

“Comrades, In the summer of 2022, I returned to Howard University to teach writing.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message.

“Rotating about the earth in their spacecraft they are so together, and so alone, that their thoughts, their internal mythologies, at times convene.” Samantha Harvey, Orbital.

“He stands offstage unseen before seen by millions—oh, sweet polarities!—consolidating adrenaline into twinkling brio.” Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas, Carson The Magnificent.