From the top of the large boulder he sat on, Ensign Tom Davis looked across the expanse of the cave toward Captain Lucius Abernathy, Science Office Q’eeng and Chief Engineer Paul West perched on a second, larger boulder, and thought, Well, this sucks
redshirts by John Scalzi
Now that’s an opening line that grabs you. So to speak. Gonna have to find that one.
I love that book.
“On a cool October day in the oak-forested hills of Lorestan Province in Iran, a lost child was saved in an inconceivable way.”
Small Wonder: Essays, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven Hopp
“Until the fat man yelled, I didn’t see the knife.”
The Singularity Project by F. M. Busby
November 1930
A fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the café.
Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
“Tori had no way of knowing that the diamond would finish her story, a story begun before she was born.”
Stealing Time by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach
“By late 1944 the US submarine campaign against Japan approached its climax.”
The Naval Siege of Japan 1945 by Brian Herder
“Although elsewhere in the published accounts of my adventures with Sherlock Holmes I have referred in passing to the disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore as one of Holmes’s unsolved cases, I have to confess that this was a deception on my part, carried out on Holmes’s instructions in order to protect the anonymity of Mr. Phillimore’s exact whereabouts.”
The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes by June Thomson (from the short story “The Case of the Vanishing Head-Waiter”)
“In his early twenties, Benjamin Franklin recalled, ‘I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.’”
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America by Jeffrey Rosen
“Single women.”
The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women, Rosalie Gilbert.
“The office was dark.”
Were-, edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier (Note that this is an anthology and the above sentence is from the first story, “Best in Show”, by Seanan McGuire)
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that we will all get to that stage in life where we start to notice the birds around us.”
Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make, by Becca Rowland
“The magazine where I worked occupied half of the twenty-ninth floor of a Manhattan skyscraper.”
Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, by Jeff Chu
“As Marcellinus stepped out of the Southgate of the fortress of the Third Parthica, the elite horsemen of the Chernye Klobuki were wheeling around into a full charge in the torn-up grasslands just beyond.”
Eagle and Empire, by Alan Smale
“About 14 billion years ago, matter, time, and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these features of our universe is called physics.” These are the first lines but the book is all about homo sapiens.
Sapiens: a brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Brief? I guess. But it is over 400 pages. Thorough and definitive reporting/educating. I thought I knew a lot but I’m now learning so much. Regarding the lives of our ancient ancestors, the author is clear at distinguishing between what realities are certain and near certain from what is uncertain. I trust him.
As always, given the thread title above, I encourage you to post your thoughts on any book in the Whatcha Reading? thread instead. Here’s the current one: Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - September 2025 edition
Thanks!
“The history of cars in Hong Kong is a captivating narrative that mirrors the region’s unique development and rapid urbanization.”
Hong Kong 20s-70s [sic] Motoring by Andrew Ng
“So, I’m supposed to tell you how I became a brain in a box. Huh. Well, that starts off a little dark, doesn’t it.”
The End of All Things by John Scalzi
“One day not so long ago a group of American military officials got together to share a secret plan that would result in the death of 600 million people, one-fifth of the world’s then population of 3 billion people.”
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen
About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
He was lost.
One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson
“In the dream, there was nothing; nothing, and then fire.”
The Maker of Swans by Paraic O’Donnell – yes, it is Paraic.
“The race to invent the first mechanical orange harvester was on.”
The Stingray Shuffle, Tim Dorsey
" ‘Watch out!’ a woman screamed."
Trapped: The 2031 Journal of Otis Fitzmorgan by Bill Doyle
“As a young adult, Richard was a three-pack-a-day smoker with a stressful job.”
The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity’s Deadliest Diseases, by Andrew Lam, M.D.
“Miss Armstrong? Miss Armstrong, can you hear me?”
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
“Many years ago, when my parents came down to visit me in New York City, I decided to put them up at the Mercer Hotel.”
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know, by Malcolm Gladwell
“The rectangular slate-black sign stood on a low mound of bright green and clumpy Korean grass, surrounded by irises and sided by a dark, cement-bedded brook filled with koi.”
Blood Music, by Greg Bear.
“This is a book about languages: what languages can and what they cannot do.”
Speaking in Tongues, by J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimopulos
“The journeyman on duty in the prisoners’ quarters at Mine 23 in the western foothills was the first one to see the bright, almost bluish streak in the sky.”
The Skies of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
“My Lord, I may go no farther,” said the Cambodian.
The Land of Hidden Men (aka Jungle Girl), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“You realise you might die down there,” said Warren.
“Great Wall of Mars”, the first story in Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds