Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“Many years have gone by, years of war and of what men call History.” Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli.

“Arrive finally at about three. The place has the feel of a 1970s health resort or eco-commune, but is not welcoming.” Charlotte Ward, Stone Yard Devotional.

“The images endure. In his twelve years as the greatest mayor of the world’s greatest city, he smashed slot machines with a sledgehammer, donned a fireman’s raincoat at the first whiff of smoke, and, most famously, narrated Dick Tracy’s exploits on the radio when a newspaper strike deprived youngsters of their comic strips.” Richard Goldstein: Helluva Town: The Story of New York City During World War II.

“It is nowhere you choose to be, and yet you are here.” Karen Russell, The Antidote.

“Hortense could never forget the first dress she bought in New York City.” Julie Satow, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion.

“Mrs. Blossom had never been upgraded before in her life.” Laura Lippman, Murder Takes a Vacation.

“The first time I heard Forbes Smiley’s voice was at six o’clock on a summer Friday as I was drinking a martini at a Boston bar.” Michael Blanding, The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps.

“Why am I in this car?” Daniel Kehlmann (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin), The Director.

“In 1918, a fever gripped Boston.” Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War.

“Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, of the Queensland police, was walking along a bush track on his way to Windee Station.” Arthur W. Upfield, The Sands of Windee.

“I’m standing on the red railway car that sits abandoned next to the barn.” Tara Westover, Educated.

“My first word was ‘mother,’ spoken out loud and with texture.” Tayari Jones, Kin.

“This is a very weird way to begin an investigation, David Clurman thought as he listened to the anonymous caller on the other end of the line.” Michael Riedel, Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“Somewhere in the dark years between Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the turn of the Second World War’s tide, Wystan Hugh Auden returned to his childhood faith.” Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.

“It was not that he didn’t remember he once had another sort of life.” Gao Xingjian, One Man’s Bible (translated by Mabel Lee.)

“My strongest memory is not a memory.” Tara Westover, Educated.

 “The explosion took place two minutes after Elishva, the old woman known as UMM Daniel, or Daniel’s mother, boarded the bus.” Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad.

 “Despite being the official retreat of American presidents, Camp David is a curiously bare and rustic facility.” Michael J. Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy.

“The nights are so pleasant in Caulfield.” Cornell Woolrich, I Married a Dead Man.

“Tuesday, September 16, 2008, was the ‘day after Lehman.’” Adam Tooze, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.

“Her journey from Alton to Springfield should have taken no longer than two days, but as the stage driver himself said, ‘That’s no more ‘n a hope.’” Louis Bayard, Courting Mr. Lincoln.

 “In 1926, there were countless ways to die in an airplane.” Keith O’Brien, Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History.

 “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca.

“I think of the old football press boxes first, the ones where you’d look up from scribbling in your notebook and find a guy in the crowd staring at you through the window, probably wondering if it was your story that made him choke on his cornflakes the other morning.” John Schulian, Football: Great Writing About the National Sport.

“Word came today: four lines squeezed on a three-by-five.” Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations.

“When I left my boxed township of Illinois farmland to attend my dad’s alma mater in the lurid jutting Berkshires of western Massachusetts, I all of a sudden developed a jones for mathematics.” David Foster Wallace, “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley,” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments.