Dust motes danced in the air, flickering like tiny sparks of fire as a blade of sunlight cut through the grisaille glass of the medieval window.
Murder at the Merton Library. by Andrea Penrose
There are not many historic cities, especially in northern Europe, whose early identity is defined by nudity.
Coventry: November 14, 1940, by Frederick Taylor
“Call me Ishmaelle. But know that I have not always gone by this name.”
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
“The moment my oldest child was born, I began reading to him from an anthology of Romantic poetry that I have owned for decades.”
Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together, by Ilana Kurshan
“Greetings. It is 0700 hours, and I am your pre-scheduled alarm.”
Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, by Ryan North
“Goddamn, but that … that thing is weird,” the Aerospace Force general said, looking up at the immaterial – but very solid – structure of the Gate.
The Lords of Creation, by S M Stirling
“Recently, I was asked to write a short essay describing one piece of wisdom to live by.”
Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer, by Heather Lende
“Three days before Mr. Fareed Halawani was washed and turned to face the northeast, a beatific smile on his face, he had the unusual distinction of entertaining the angel Gabriel at the coffeeshop he operated in the unfashionable district of Moqattam in Cairo.”
Jewel Box: Stories, by E. Lily Yu. (This sentence is from “The Pilgrim and the Angel”.)
It was well past four in the afternoon when Billy gimp finally woke up, and he knew in an instant that something was wrong with his room.
The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse
Rain lashed through the hellishly hot Saharan sky, hurling itself groundward with chaotic fury only to evaporate before it made contact with the dying earth.
Category 7, by Bill Evans and Marianna Jameson
“Things that are funny on a submarine, but not really–The other radioman named Baitz who lives in South Carolina and thinks North Carolina is in the North.”
Things That Are Funny on a Submarine–But Not Really, by Yannick Murphy
“When the roughly forty-seven-foot-long, fifty-thousand-pound humpback approached marine biologist Nan Hauser–who was swimming near the whale–she assumed that he would swim around her.”
When Animals Rescue: Amazing True Stories about Heroic and Helpful Creatures, by Belinda Recio
“With the building dark beneath it, the skylight on the roof of the Land Trust was a pyramid of pure black.”
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
“By the fall of 2013, Scott Peters had spent nearly a quarter of his life anticipating a brick.”
SAM: One Robot, a Dozen Engineers, and the Race to Revolutionize the Way We Build, by Jonathan Waldman
“‘Listen, you guys, I have to go to the bathroom.’”
Just Like Always, by Elizabeth-Ann Sachs
“It’s late at night as I lie in bed in the blue glow of the television set.”
The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, by Sidney Poitier
“She awoke, there in the common room of the inn, from a brief dream of roses and death.”
Wall, Stone, Craft by Walter Jon Williams
“How easy it was to disappear: A thousand trains a day entered or left Chicago.”
The Devil In The White City - Murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America. Written by Eric Larson
“Damnation!”
Murder at King’s Crossing, by Andrea Penrose
“Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair came into the railway station and inquired about shipping furniture.”
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
“The Shars seethed in the dim light of their ruddy sun.”
Dinosaurs, by Walter Jon Williams
“Clay is earth locked in a cycle with water and air that is only broken when we surrender it to fire.”
Clay: A Human History, by Jennifer Lucy Allan.
“You awaken slowly, struggling to surface.”
The Locked Ward by Sarah Pekkanen
With the building dark beneath it, the skylight on the roof of the Land Trust was a pyramid of pure black.
Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford
Sagamore Hill, Long Island, New York
May 25th, 1912-1912(B)
Point of Departure plus 4 hours
There was a rising murmur of voices in the entranceway of Sagamore Hill’s great North Room.
Black Chamber: A Novel of an Alternate World War I, by S M Stirling (reread)
“At first Donald lay still.”
The Big Book of Favorite Horse Stories, edited by P. C. Braun. (The sentence is from “The Black Stallion and the Red Mare”, by Gladys Francis Lewis.)
“I am the person you spot up in the tree, dirt smeared across my face.”
Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto, by Leslie Buck.
All Hallows
November 1st
20 Geo. II
1746
The brig Henrietta having made Sandy Hook a little before the dinner hour – and having passed the Narrows about three o’clock – and then crawling to and fro, in a series of tacks infinitesimal enough to rival the calculus, across the grey sheet of the harbour of New-York – until it seemed to Mr. Smith, dancing from foot to foot upon deck, that the small mound of the city waiting there would hover ahead in the November gloom in perpetuity, never growing closer, to the smirk of Greek Zeno – and the day being advanced to dusk by the time Henrietta at last lay anchored off Tietjes Slip, with the veritable gables of the city’s veritable houses divided from him by only one hundred foot of water – and the dusk being moreover as cold and damp as November can afford, as if all the world were a quarto of grey paper dampened by drizzle until in danger of crumbling imminently to pap: – all this being true, the master of the brig pressed upon him the virtue of sleeping this one further night aboard, and pursuing his shore business in the morning.
Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York, by Francis Spufford
Aujourd’hui, Maman est morte; ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.
(L’Étranger, Albert Camus)
I’m off to the French countryside in an hour, and I found the book that my French teacher in high school had us read. It was my first introduction to serious existential literature.
I was disappointed that the owner of the used bookstore, when I mentioned I’d just bought a book from his store just so I could reread the first sentence, didn’t ask me what it was.
eta:
“Today, Mama died… or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.”