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First Sentences

“In March 1939, as the world hurtled toward a catastrophic war, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gathered to elect a new supreme pontiff.” David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler.

“All the Venables sat at Sunday dinner.” Edna Ferber, Cimarron.

“As the scientific world prepared to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species in 1909, an amateur English geologist named Charles Dawson made a momentous find thirty miles from Darwin’s country home in southern England.” Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion.

“They found the corpse on the eighth of July just after three o’clock in the afternoon.” Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (translated from the Swedish by Louis Roth), Roseanna.

“By September 1986, after four years as secretary of state, George Schultz had grown accustomed to presiding over official dinners for foreign dignitaries visiting Washington: the rigorous protocol, the solemn oratory, the contrived cordiality.” Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines.

“Today, on this island, a miracle happened: summer came ahead of time.” Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel.

“The unlimited money unleashed into politics by the Citizens United decision in 2010 powered up the influence of the fossil fuel industry, which went to work hiding its political mischief behind an array of phony front groups and co-opted trade associations.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse with Jennifer Mueller, The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.

“I drove to the Crossroads with the windows rolled down, the radio off, scanning the flat, packed earth in the glare of the afternoon light, the land broken up by clumps of creosote and rabbitbrush.” Ruchika Tomar, A Prayer for Travelers.

“I have done things the wrong way round all my life.” Andrea Wulf, Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of Self.

“It was the coldest winter for forty-five years.” Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle.

“The Middle East, as we know it from today’s headlines, emerged from decisions made by the Allies during and after the First World War.” David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.

“You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks.” Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

“The stories of Rondon do Pará had prepared me for a dodgy, crime-ridden place, but when I first visited the little Brazilian town on the eastern edge of the Amazon, it didn’t look particularly threatening to me.” Heriberto Araujo, Masters of the Lost Land: The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World’s Last Frontier.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“A brilliant flash broke the morning darkness on November 8, 2018, as strong winds pummeled a PG&E power line scaling the Sierra Nevada ninety miles north of Sacramento.” Katherine Blunt, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America’s Power Grid.

“The Korowai Pass had been closed since the end of the summer, when a spate of shallow earthquakes triggered a landslide that buried a stretch of the highway in rubble, killing five, and sending a long-haul transport truck over a precipice where it skimmed a power line, ploughed a channel down the mountainside, and then exploded on a viaduct below.” Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood.

“On April 3, AD 33—or perhaps three years before that—a quite dramatic event took place in the holy city of Jerusalem.” Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims.

“I stood in the sally port while the steel door rolled back with a clang and then I stepped through into the jail.” Michael Nava, The Little Death.

“Five years before a pair of bullets tore through his gut, Billy Joe Aplin reached over the silt-smeared water of the tidal flats with a boat hook to snare a small buoy bobbing near the grassy shoreline.” Kirk Wallace Johnson, The Fisherman and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast.

“Geneva Sweet ran an orange extension cord past Mayva Greenwood, Beloved Wife and Mother, May She Rest with Her Heavenly Father.” Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird.

“The history of Cuba begins where history begins.” Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History.

“Maurice Oulette tried to kill himself once but succeeded only in blowing off the right side of his jawbone.” William Landay, Mission Flats.

“One of the biggest complaints about motherhood is the lack of training.” Erma Bombeck, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession.

“The train had left Sacramento some distance behind, and was now bravely beginning the long climb that led to the high Sierras and the town of Truckee.” Earl Derr Biggers, Keeper of the Keys.

“On the pivotal day of his presidency, Woodrow Wilson tried to clear his mind by playing golf.” Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.

“Mr. Bowling sat at the piano until it grew darker and darker, not playing, but with Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Flat Minor opened before him at the First Movement, rubbing his hands nervously, and staring across the shadowy room to the window, to see if it was dark enough yet.” Donald Henderson, Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper.

“There is a scheme afoot.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse with Jennifer Mueller, The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.