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First Sentences

“He could see it now: they were a little mad, the Booths, though each in a different way.” David Stacton, The Judges of the Secret Court: A Novel about John Wilkes Booth.

“When Elizabeth Blackwell decided to become the first woman doctor, in many ways she wasn’t actually the first.” Olivia Campbell, Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine.

“Lexa McCaskill ran both hands through her coppery hair, adding up appetites.” Ivan Doig, Mountain Time.

“The adventure that changed the course of George Bird Grinnell’s life began with a train, and the path of the train, as it crossed the plains in the summer of 1870, was blocked by buffalo.” Michael Punke, Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West.

“One hot spring evening, just as the sun was going down, two men appeared at Patriarch’s Ponds.” Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita.

“Her sister’s drawing room was already crowded when Marie-Madeline Fourcade arrived.” Lynne Olson, Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler.

“In early spring, everything had been so different.” Serena Kent, Death in Provence.

“At seventy-three, with his wartime career as president of the Naval Consulting Board behind him, Edison tried to make sense of a new intellectual order that challenged everything he had learned of Newtonian theory.” Edmund Morris, Edison.

“Some years ago, on a sunny Friday in early May, still vivid to crime buffs, a bold new age commenced, or the visible part of it anyway, when Romo Malbonum, the Deckled Don, talked himself into a life sentence to be served in a maximum-security federal prison.” Jethro K. Lieberman, Everything is Jake.

“For sixty-five days, the Mayflower had blundered her way through storms and headwinds, her bottom a shaggy pelt of seaweed and barnacles, her leaky decks spewing salt water onto her passengers’ devoted heads.” Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea.

“The Pacific is the loneliest of oceans, and travelers across that rolling desert begin to feel that their ship is lost in an eternity of sky.” Earl Derr Biggers, The Black Camel.

“At the slow beat of approaching rotor blades, black birds rose into the sky, scattering over the frozen meadows and the pearly knots of creeks and ponds facing the Pripyat Basin.” Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

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First Sentences

“To my surprise some years back, I began to hear people outside of my home state, Texas, talk about, and actually celebrate the holiday ‘Juneteenth.’” Annette Gordon-Reed, On Juneteenth.

“When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half of the windows.” Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun.

“There are silences in American history.” Peter S. Canellos, The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero.

“An entire day had passed since George Walker had spoken to his wife.” Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water.

“By any traditional measure, James Buchanan was one of the best qualified men ever to hold the presidency.” Fergus M. Bordewich, Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America (2020).

“Wanda Batton-Smythe, head of the Women’s Institute of Nether Monkslip, liked to say she was not one to mince words.” G.M. Malliet, Wicked Autumn.

“I’ve referred to America as Fantasyland, but it was always also Tomorrowland.” Kurt Andersen, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History.

“In the wings, behind a metal rack crowded with bundles of cable and silk flower garlands and the stringless lutes from Act 1, two black dachshunds lie in a basket.” Maggie Shipstead, Astonish Me.

“There had seemingly never been a better night for baseball in Cleveland than on August 20, 1948.” Luke Epplin, Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series that Changed Baseball.

“Something was wrong.” Jo Nesbo, The Bat.

“It was the middle of the night.” Lynne Olson, Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler.

“Penelope Kite stood at the door of her dream home and wiped her brow with the back of her hand.” Serena Kent, Death in Provence.

“Toward the end, as at the beginning, he lived only on milk.” Edmund Morris, Edison.

“’If there’s one thing wrong with people,’ Paul always said, ‘it’s that no one remembers the shit that they should, and everyone remembers the shit that doesn’t matter for shit.’” Gabriel Bump, Everywhere You Don’t Belong.

“I am a copy editor.” Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.