The most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction was offered at Christie’s in London on December 5, 1985.
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe
“Being a murderer myself, I was very interested in the statement recently made by a well-known reviewer of murder stories that 'the best and most stimulating detective stories being written today are those that stress the puzzle of ‘why’ at least co-equally with ‘who’ and ‘how’.”
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do On TV, edited by Alfred Hitchcock. Note: This is an anthology, and the above quote is from the first story, “Being a Murderer Myself” by Arthur Williams.
“I have an engineering problem.”
The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow.
“I am a carpenter.”
Building: A Carpenter’s Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work, by Mark Ellison.
“In April, millions of tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and vast prairies in the Osage territory of Oklahoma.”
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.
“In the afterlife, Rachel lived alone.”
Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories by Maureen McHugh
“On the very eve of the birth of the Third Reich a feverish tension gripped Berlin.”
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer
“A panhandler intercepted the young couple as they strolled down the night street.”
The Best of R. A. Lafferty, edited by Jonathan Strahan. (Note that this quote is from the first story in this collection, “Slow Tuesday Night”.)
“First, I got myself born.”
Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
“Oscar Hammerstein II seems to have been born with a healthy sense of self-worth, which he maintained for most of his sixty-five years.”
Oscar Hammerstein and the Invention of the Musical, by Laurie Winer.
“The socialite was dragged into the street and attacked by an antisocial homeless man, until another man in a giant bunny costume came to her rescue.”
The Maltese Iguana, by Tim Dorsey.
“Several years ago, I was staying in Rome at an old hotel that was undergoing renovation.”
Signs and Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols, by Mike Aquilina
“In 1925, Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote to a friend that ‘in my present life I don’t remember that I ever was president.’”
The William Howard Taft Presidency , by Lewis L. Gould
“We’d been slowing down to match orbits with Bar None for just over a week.”
School Days (SC Marva Collins Book 1) - Nathan Lowell
“Perry Graves tried not to think about summer’s arrival–the heat devils hovering, breathless, over the blacktop as if waiting for something to happen–or even about the city streets.”
The Ballad of Perilous Graves, by Alex Jennings.
“Put your hands on the table.”
One Way by S.J. Morden
“Argos died twice.”
Logan’s World by William F. Nolan
“It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel.”
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
She was going to die because of the rutabagas. -
Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher
“Two swans at the water’s edge trade bewildered glances when they notice a little frog poking his head out of the river.”
Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing, by Leonard S. Marcus.
“All day the heat had been barely supportable but at evening a breeze arose in the West, blowing from the heart of the setting sun and from the ocean, which lay unseen, unheard behind the scrubby foothills.”
The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh
Looked this up and saw this was the twenty-sixth book in a series. Is it one that can be started anywhere, or should you start at the beginning?