Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“At high tide on the clear morning of January 10, 1926, to the squalling of circling gulls, the Prinz Valdemar, a five-masted steel-hulled barkentine, weighed anchor.” Christopher Knowlton, Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (2021).

“With eyes fixed thoughtfully on the slow-moving muddy stream of the River Darling, William Clair lounged in the golden light of the setting sun.” Arthur W. Upfield, The Barrakee Mystery (1929): An Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Mystery.

“‘Save Your Soul, Turn Back Now’ proclaimed a protest sign at the entrance of the pop-up vaccination clinic at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on January 30, 2021.” Kira Ganga Kieffer, Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America (2026).

“Her feet were as purple as calf liver.” Douglas Stuart, John of John (2026).

“The brothers smoothed a map on the table in front of them.” Nathalia Holt, The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’ Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda (2025).

“When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one.” Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (1985).

“On Wednesday, July 20, 1910, as a light fog drifted along the River Scheldt, Capt. Henry George Kendall prepared his ship, the SS Montrose, for what should have been the most routine of voyages, from Antwerp direct to Quebec City, Canada.” Erik Larson, Thunderstruck (2006).

“Vera Stanhope climbed out of Hector’s ancient Land Rover and felt the inevitable strain on her knees.” Ann Cleeves, The Glass Room (2012).

“No one had any doubt that the bombers would come.” Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020).

“The city was hers for a single hour, just the one magic hour, only hers.” Robert Crais, The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (2007).

“The year my sister Amy was invited to play Mrs. Claus in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was the same year Hugh had his hip replaced.” David Sedaris, The Land and Its People (2026).

“It was a city within a city, a textile mill to weave the gossamer of fantasy on looping looms of celluloid.” Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy (2019).

“Huie Kin grew up in Wing Ning, a tiny village of about seventy people, all from the same clan, tucked away in the hell of Taishan, an impoverished, mountainous county in the Pearl River Delta.” Michael Luo, Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America (2025).

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

Some religions prohibit saying the sacred Name of God. What if it turned out to be Chip or Baxter? Or Henrietta?

He “never acknowledge[ed] that the general culture is often stupid or evil and would vote out God in favor of the devil if he fed them back their hate and fear in a way that made them feel righteous.” Charles Frazier, Varina.

Irony is dead, or at least it is in certain conservative circles. Some conservatives find the troubled past of Graham Platner disturbing. But they don’t have a similar concern with Ken Paxton’s history. Or that Trump has been adjudicated a sexual abuser. And is a convicted felon. Of course, there are many examples that irony is dead in certain conservative circles. We could make a list.

Many friends and the spouse recommended it. It was in the house. I finally read the first chapter. It was good. I only have 101 more chapters to go in Lonesome Dove.

On a friend’s recommendation I watched Ford v Ferrari. It was good. I recognized many of the race car driver names from that era, but the one that most resonated was Phil Hill. In my memory, he won a sports car race on the roads around Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, that I saw when I was kid. My parents took me to it. I was mostly bored. I saw a tiny fraction of the course with unidentifiable cars whipping past. There was no way to tell who was first or last. But Phil Hill won the race, so I must have seen him. However, after watching the movie, I wondered if my memory was correct. I googled and found that Phil Hill did, indeed, win the race at Elkhart Lake when I was seven. My memory might be correct. I told the spouse about this, applauding myself for having such a memory. She, the neuroscientist, told me that the real issue is short-term memory.

Sports are funny. In the New York Knicks’ incredible comeback win in the fourth game of the finals, their star missed an open shot to go ahead with two seconds left. That won’t be remembered because of the teammate’s game-winning tip-in.

World Cup announcers talk about getting the ball into the back of the net, but isn’t the point to get the ball into the back of the goal which is the front of the net?

When I want to feel special, I tell myself that I am one of the few people who knows that Tarzan lived in Wisconsin.

She was in an Off-Broadway musical. I said that I might go to it if I could find discount tickets. Even though I had just met her, she got offended and said that since she had paid full price for her music degree, I should pay full price to hear her. I never heard her sing.

“If one attitude can be said to characterize America’s regard for immigration over the past two hundred years, it is the belief that while immigration was unquestionably a wise and prescient thing in the case of one’s parents or grandparents, it really ought to stop now.” Bill Bryson, Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.