Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“At the turn of the twentieth century, before Zionist colonization had much appreciable effect on Palestine, new ideas were spreading, modern education and literacy had begun to expand, and the integration of the country’s economy into the global capitalist order was proceeding apace.” Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017.

“Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.” Percival Everett, James.

“An ocean mapper once told me about a sponge that had shaken up his perspective on surveying the seafloor—not some ordinary dish sponge, but a fantastic deep-sea sponge that is among the oldest life-forms on Earth.” Laura Trethewey, The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans.

“Nicole often wondered what had happened to the body.” Vanessa Walters, The Nigerwife.

“Vince McMahon, like many of his wrestlers, didn’t grow up with the name he now uses.” Abraham Riesman, RingMaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.

“I have no hatred in me.” Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain.

“In the first five years that I lived in America, four of the five deadliest shootings in the nation’s history took place—at a school, a nightclub, a concert, a church.” Dominic Erdozain, One Nation Under Guns.

“So I’m writing again. Which is good news, I suppose, for those wanting a second book, but more unfortunate for the people that had to die so I could write it.” Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect.

“Chris Pearce grew up in the loud silence of his own mysterious origins.” Alexander Stille, The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune.

“Nigel Bathgate, in the language of his own gossip column, was ‘definitely intrigued’ about his week-end at Frantock.” Ngaio Marsh, A Man Lay Dead.

“Eugene Pacelli sat in a chair beside the simple brass bed, watching as the once robust pope, his face shrunken, labored to breathe beneath his oxygen mask.” David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler.

“Simon Diggery and Ethel, his pet boa constrictor, were about fifty feet from Simon’s rust buck double-wide. Ethel looked comfy over a branch halfway up the tree.” Janet Evanovich, Hardcore Twenty-Four: A Stephanie Plum Novel.

“Heading out to dinner on a summer Saturday night, Byron and Emma Haines-Pescott (not their real names) couldn’t have expected much.” David Howard, Chasing Phil: The Adventures of Two Undercover Agents with the World’s Most Charming Con Man.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“There is a perennial temptation to read the greatness of distinguished men backward into their youth; to imagine that, if one just knows where to look, their early lives will provide evidence that the fully formed person was there in microcosm all along.” Troy Senik, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland.

“Á filthy boy stood on the doorstep.” Zadie Smith, The Fraud.

“If you were searching for world-famous deep-sea monsters, a stately building at the top of a hill in Upsala, Sweden, is not the first place you’d look.” Susan Casey, The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean.

“This early, the East River takes on a thin layer of translucence, a bright steely skin that appears to float over the river itself as the water turns from its nocturnal black to the opaque deep green of the approaching day.” Michael Cunninghan, Day.

“A young woman sprinted ahead of the fleeing soldiers on the forest path, her long red hair streaming on the wind as if it were a banner urging them onward to escape their own destruction.” Peter Stark, Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation.

“Needless to say, when Julia Prentice began to cast her huge, hazy eyes in the direction of my husband, I should have snapped to immediate attention. But at the moment I was too distracted thinking about her breasts.” Lindsay Maracotta, The Dead Hollywood Moms Society.

“European Wars would bookend Rudolf Diesel’s life.” Douglas Brunt, The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genuis, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I.

“The night I watch Athena Liu die, we’re celebrating her TV deal with Netflix.” R.F. Kung, Yellowface.

“‘Please throw down the box.’” John Boessenecker, Gentleman Bandit: The True Story of Black Bart, the Old West’s Most Infamous Stagecoach Robber.

“Possum Creek trickles out of a swampy waste a little south of Raleigh.” Margaret Maron, Bootlegger’s Daughter: A Deborah Knott Mystery.

“Jim Wedick yanked at his collar as he walked across the parking lot toward the Thunderbird Motel, a sprawling Native American-themed lodge in suburban Minneapolis.” David Howard, Chasing Phil: The Adventures of Two Undercover Agents with the World’s Most Charming Con Man.

“In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta.” A.A. Milne, The Red House Mystery,

“Since first setting foot on the Te-Chag-U ranch, Gil Bonifácio Carvalho Neto had felt a growing sense of dread—but it was only after uncovering a hidden clearing in the jungle that he began to truly fear for his life.” Heriberto Araujo, Masters of the Lost Land: The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World’s Last Frontier.