“The two elephants in the huge, dimly lit van were tired and restless and irritated.”
The Long Way Down, by Robb White
“We have not one, but two brains.”
Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut, by Elsa Richardson.
Outside Vindobonum
Provincia Pannonia Superior
Imperium Romanum
September 5, 167 CE
Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus stepped up to the edge of the purple-draped wooden platform on a cool, bright autumn morning, standing tall.
The Winds of Fate, by S M Stirling
One day in early June 1944 the heavily laden troop transports lifted anchor and began moving slowly out of Pearl Harbor.
Their Backs Against the Sea: The Battle of Saipan and the Largest Banzai Attack of World War II, by Bill Sloan
“Ronnie Childers was tripping his balls off in Jackson Square when an angel of the Lord appeared to him.”
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
“Maybe we should’ve tried marriage counseling.”
A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay
“It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.”
The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
“Not long ago, bigness was the thing.”
In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World, by Simon Garfield
“One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering along like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.”
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, illustr. by Dennis Calero
Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening.
Soulless, by Gail Carriger
Berlin,April 30, 1945
For those of Hitler’s men still in the heart of the city’s government sector, the Battle of Berlin was almost lost.
The Axmann Conspiracy: The Nazi Plan for a Fourth Reich and How the U.S. Army defeated It, by Scott Andrew Selby
“It was early February and snowing again in Boston.”
Robert B. Parker’s Hot Property, by Mike Lupica
“The story so far: the Polysyllabic Spree, the ninety-seven young, elegant, cultured, aromatic, but occasionally gullible editors of The Believer, went to Vegas, got drunk, and put everything they owned–named the magazine, plus some aromatherapy oil and a couple of chapbooks–on the number 21 in a game of roulette.”
Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas: A Collection of Riotously Entertaining Columns Written for The Believer magazine During its Years in the Desert, by Nick Hornby
March 16 - July 9, 1943
The news arrived by mail in a brief mimeographed, unsigned letter from the dean of students, University of California, Berkeley.
Infantry Soldier: Holding the Line at the Battle of the Bulge, by George W Neill
“Two Spanish soldiers swaggered up Tower Street toward William Shakespeare.”
Ruled Britannia, by Harry Turtledove.
“Sadie Given woke from a troubled sleep, the stupid phone babbling like an angry turkey, gobble-gobble, gobble-gobble.”
– The Big Empty, by Robert Crais
“At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife just after I came out on stage at the amphitheater in Chautauqua to talk about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm.”
Knife by Salman Rushdie
“This is gonna be my stupidest death ever.”
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
“With a punch of sharp sulphur, the little match snapped to life, flame biting at its wooden stump, hungry for a wick to feed on.”
The Thirteenth Child, by Erin A. Craig
March 11, 1944
A thick black smoke streamed into Jacques and Andrée Marçaise’s fifth-floor apartment at 22 rue Le Sueur in the heart of Paris’s fashionable 16th arrondissement.
Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris, by David King
“Histories of studio filmmaking have a habit of skimming over the disasters–those moments of doomed expenditure that pull the curtain back on what the culture was thinking.”
Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops, by Tim Robey
“Once, somewhere between the Coral Sea and the Indian Ocean but on the way to nowhere, there was a district called–oh, let’s call it Inglewell.”
Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings.
“I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife.”
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher.
Oh man! I haven’t got my copy yet.
My local bookseller got her shipment today, emailed me immediately with the payment link, I fired payment right back, and within a half hour THE BOOK WAS MINE!!! BWA-HAHAHAHAHA!!!
“Welcome to the Nifty Fifties!”
– Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups, by Ed Helms.
Florentino Aspillaga’s final posting was in Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell