Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“For most of Richard Nixon’s tenure as president, he had an insurance policy against impeachment and removal from office. Its name was Spiro Agnew.” Jeffrey Toobin, The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy.

“All children mythologize their birth.” Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale.

“The call to adventure came in libraries, in faculty offices, at campus football games.” Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

“It’s a Saturday morning, and I’m midway through my shift at the Winter Park Public Library when I see it.” Kristin Harmel, The Book of Lost Names.

“Two things happened the year I turned eleven: my father died and I became friends with my first professional chef, a guy named Jacques. Eric Ripert, 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line.

“The staff meeting of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Egyptian Art was supposed to start at ten, which meant associate curator Charlotte Cross arrived at nine to prepare her colleagues for battle.” Fiona Davis, The Stolen Queen.

“If something begins when it acquires a name we can date the beginnings of fascism precisely.” Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism.

“You must leave as few clues as possible.” Richard Osman, We Solve Murders.

“Noon, 8 September 2021. Central Paris, Île de ka Cité, under a heavy police guard. For the first time, several hundred of us walk through the security gates which we’ll pass through every day for a year.” Emmanuel Carrère, V13: Chronicle of a Trial (Translated from the French by John Lambert).

“Secretary of War Edwin Stanton learned over the bedside of his good friend, Abraham Lincoln, and, tears spilling down his cheeks, spoke the memorable phrase: now he belongs to the angels—or the ages.” Brenda Wineapple, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.

“On a hot afternoon in May 2016, five miles outside the young petro-city of Fort McMurry Alberta, a small wildfire flickered and ventilated, rapidly expanding its territory through a mixed forest that hadn’t seen fire in decades.” John Vaillant, Fire Weather: On the Front Line of a Burning World

“On July 28, 1915, Rear Admiral Willaim B. Caperton stood on the quarterdeck of the USS Washington with a pair of binoculars at his eyes and several questions running through his head.” Sean Mirski, We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus.

“When Mac was three years old and Anya was five, they watched their mother get arrested for a seatbelt violation.” Alexandra Natapoff, Punishment without Crime: How our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“They watched as a dead man was brought to the hospital: a fractured skull, blood everywhere, ligaments ripped loose from their mooring—medics had hauled him there ‘in three buckets,’ a bystander remarked.” Reid Mitenbuler, Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age.

“There was an old Jew who lived at the site of the old synagogue up on Chicken Hill in the town of Pottstown, Pa., and when Pennsylvania State Troopers found the skeleton at the bottom of an old well off Hayes Street, the old Jew’s house was the first place they went.” James McBride, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

“Hold out your hands and let me lay upon them a sheaf of freshly picked sweetgrass, loose and flowing, like newly washed hair.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

“Everyone in Lamperdown knew that Mr. Behrens, who lived with his aunt at the Old Rectory and kept bees, and Mr. Calder, who lived in a cottage on the hilltop outside the village and was the owner of a deerhound called Rasselas, were the closest of close friends.” Michael Gilbert, Game Without Rules.

“In August 1945, after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan surrendered, the soldiers, sailors, and airmen scheduled to participate in the invasion of Japan reacted as you might expect.” Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.

“When people ask me what I do—taxi drivers, dental hygienists—I tell them I work in an office.” Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

“Approaching the museum, ready to hunt, Stéphane Breitwieser clasps hands with his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklau, and together they stroll to the front desk and say hello, a cute couple.” Michael Finkel, The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession.

“Killing someone is easy.” Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club.

“For more than a decade, defenders of democracy have been issuing a stark warning: The world is in the midst of a ‘democratic recession,’ with sign of a turnaround on the horizon.” Sohrab Ahmari, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It.

“Jacob Finch Bonner, the once promising author of the ‘New & Noteworthy’ (The New York Times Book Review) novel The Invention of Wonder, let himself into the office he’d been assigned on the second floor of Richard Peng Hall, set his beat-up leather satchel on the barren desk, and looked around in something akin to despair.” Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot.

“In January 1829, Abram Garfield emerged from a shack in Orange, Ohio, swiveled west, and started toward what passed for civilization on this frontier.” C.W. Goodyear, President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier.