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.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“A French quadrille is a dance of four couples.” Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.

“Frozen snow, severe frost. Midwinter.” Henning Mankell, The Man from Beijing.

“The Reagan Revolution had arrived, and it was off to a shaky start.” Nicole Hemmer, Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s.

“Miss Minerva Winterslip was a Bostonian in good standing, and long past the romantic age.” Earl Derr Biggers, The House Without a Key.

“Since its establishment by an act of Congress in 1790, Washington, DC, has attracted men and women from every segment of American society.” James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.

“On a hot night in Apartment C4, Blandine Watkins exits her body.” Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch.

“Back when the war that would consume the world was a worry but not yet a fact, a remarkable man came to the attention of the US military.” Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia.

“The whole thing began with a blunder on my part, an entirely innocent piece of clumsiness, a gaffe, as the French call it.” Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity.

“Long before he was famous for wandering the West, John C. Frémontgrew up in a family that wandered the South.” Steve Inskeep, Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War.

“Myron Bolitar used a cardboard periscope to look over the suffocating throngs of ridiculously clad spectators.” Harlan Coben, Back Spin.

“Imagine that four teams of friends have gone to a shooting arcade.” Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment.

“On screen, a woman lounges on a rubber float, her face toward the sun, fingertips trailing in the water.” William Landay, Mission Flats.

“A little after three o’clock in the afternoon, the wooden door behind the defendant’s dock slid open and Hans Frank entered courtroom 600.” Philippe Sands, East West Street.

“It was to have been a quiet evening at home.” John D. MacDonald, The Deep Blue Good-By.

“In my twenty-five years of teaching I have tried to make people realize that cooking is primarily fun and that the more they know about what they are doing, the more fun it is.” James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking.