First Sentences

“Charles Mitchell strode up the steps of 55 Wall Street, determined to project his usual sense of confidence and certitude.” Andrew Ross Sorkin, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—And How it Shattered a Nation.

“‘We hold these truth to be sacred. . .’ Sacred? No. That doesn’t sound right.” Walter Isaacson, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.

“Few Americans understand just how great the Great Lakes really are.” John U. Bacon, The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

“The fear that gripped the world in March 2020 is not something we will soon forget.” Steven Macedo & Frances Lee, In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us.

“A black man in a white hat stood sleeping against a brick wall.” Michael Rips, The Golden Flea: A Story of Obsession and Collecting.

“In the Roaring Twenties, the famous philanderers William Randolph Hearst and Babe Ruth might have thought it, but only Henry Ford said it out loud: Housewives of America should be patient with outbreaks of marital infidelity.” Gary M. Pomeranz, The Devil’s Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age.

“On the night the ships appeared, some fishermen were out on the ocean, working by torchlight.” Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook.

“The first time it happened I was in a stall in a public bathroom just off Wall Street in Manhattan.” Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.

“‘Have you ever thought what you are going to do when you get out of High School?’ asked an editorial in Rahway High’s Scarlet and Black.” Jennifer Burns, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative.

“There was a buzz of excitement when I arrived at my Harvard office at 78 Mt. Auburn Street on a June morning in 1972.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.

“Fred Rogers had given some very specific instructions to David Newell, who handled public relations for the PBS children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers.

“I like to probe the darkness at the edges of our nation’s history.” Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy.

“The glass doesn’t just break, it explodes into hundreds, thousands of pieces.” Andrew McCarthy, Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain.

“One of the great myths of our criminal system is that minor arrests and convictions are not especially terrible for the people who experience them.” Alexandra Natapoff, Punishment without Crime: How our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.

“The Indian Nation turnpike is a four-lane highway cutting north to south through the bottom right corner of Oklahoma.” Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land.

First Sentences

“Three Lives & Company is a 650-square-foot bookshop on a corner in New York City’s West Village.” Evan Friss, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.

“I wonder if there isn’t a lot of bunkum in higher education?” Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels.

“On the outskirts of Nashville, tucked between open pastures and suburban cul-de-sacs, stands a museum dedicated to the memory of Andrew Jackson.” Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land.

“So you have decided to commit a murder.” Rupert Holmes, Murder Your Employer: McMasters Guide to Homicide.

“Benjamin Franklin, forty-six years old in June 1752, strode into a field just north of the burgeoning village of Philadelphia.” Richard Munson, Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist.

“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said.” Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake.

“When I was a very young man and became very successful in the movies very quickly, I harbored a notion that I had not earned my accomplishments, that I hadn’t done the requisite work, that it was all merely a fluke, that I didn’t deserve it.” Andrew McCarthy, Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain.

“As requested, they had all assembled in the Library before dinner.” Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Book.

“It is predawn in Macon, Georgia, and at four o’clock, the city does not move.” Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife.

“Alice and Emma, the two ducks, sat on the bank and watched the breeze crinkle the surface of the duck pond into a sort of blue and silver carpet.” Walter R. Brooks, Freddy and the Perilous Adventure (illustrated by Kurt Wiese).

“Florie’s Papa had sent a letter.” Jon Grinspan, The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy.

“No. Nup. That wouldn’t do. It reeked of PhD. This was meant to be read by normal people.” Geraldine Brooks, Horse.

“It is worse, much worse, than you think.” David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. (Thanks to Steve Newman)

“I learned of Samuel’s death two days before Christmas while standing in the doorway of my mother’s new home.” Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us.

“The House of the Vampire arrived in 1907, with a pinch of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a dash of Swinburne, and a major crush on Oscar Wilde.” Rachel Maddow, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism.