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First Sentences

“On the morning of April 20,2001, George Tenet gazed out the glass wall of his seventh-floor suite at the Central Intelligence Agency, looking upon a vision of serenity, tall green trees reaching as far as the eye could see.” Tim Weiner, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.

“Behold. Forty-four-year-old him. A low-budget, Black Jack London shivering in the frozen north called Minnesota.” Jason Mott, People Like Us.

“The Bronx is a hand reaching down to pull the other boroughs of New York City out of the harbor and the sea.” Ian Frazier, Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough.

“A prim girl stood still as a fencepost on Rhys Kinnick’s front porch.” Jess Walter, So Far Gone.

“History shows us how to behave.” David McCullough, History Matters (ed. Dorie McCullough Lawson & Michael Hill.)

“The seventeenth century was a tough time to be alive.” Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689.

“The body floats downstream.” Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River.

“In 1991, a generational tale of parking’s role in American life began in Solana Beach, California.” Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

“At least it gives me an excuse for sweating, thought Peter Pascoe, as he scuttled toward the shelter of the first of the two cars parked across the road from number 3.” Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man.

“Robert Langdon awoke peacefully, enjoyed the gentle strains of classical music from his phone’s alarm on the bedside table.” Dan Brown, The Secret of Secrets.

“After a hasty exit, I patted myself down, checking my pockets to see whether I had stashed anything useful.” Hannah Carlson, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.

“In 1959 Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not.” Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop.

“On the southern slopes of Mount Zion, alongside the ruins of biblical Jerusalem, lies a small Protestant cemetery.” Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (translated by Haim Watzman).

“In conversation play, the important thing is to get in early and stay there.” Stephen Potter, Lifemanship: Some Notes on Lifemanship with a Summary of Recent Research in Gamesmanship.

“Every Wednesday afternoon in the laboratory where I used to work, we had an event called journal club.” Chris v. Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food that Isn’t Food.

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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.

“Had Ernst Simmel known he was to be the Axman’s second victim, he would no doubt have downed a few more drinks at The Blue Ship.” Hǻkan Nesser, Borkmann’s Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery.

“In the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 28, 1917, someone knocked on Khalil al-Sakakini’s front door and brought him great misfortune, indeed almost got him hanged.” Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (translated by Haim Watzman).

“We are the earth, the land.” Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

“It was July 29, 2019—the worst day of my life., though I didn’t know that quite yet.” Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

“Whenever I woke up, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed.” Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

“In 1848 Will and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, embarked upon a five-thousand-mile journey of self-emancipation across the world.” Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife.

“My journal is a private affair, but as I cannot know the time of my coming death, and since I am not disposed, however unfortunately, to the serious consideration of self-termination, I am afraid that others will see these pages.” Percival Everett, Erasure.

“Mark Twain counted pockets among the most useful of inventions.” Hannah Carlson, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.

“They were still traveling, into the dark.” Denise Mina, Field of Blood.

“It was a November afternoon in Queens and Jie Zou was looking for a parking spot.” Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

“From then on whenever he heard the song he thought of the death of Munson.” Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto.

“A little more than two hundred years ago, Europeans contemplated the Islamic countries of the Middle East from afar and imagined rare silks and spices, harems, and gold—yellow gold, not the underground sea of black gold that modern Westerners associate with the region.” Nina Burleigh, Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.