“Her hair was matted, her face streaked and swollen.”
Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (1967)
“Smile!”
Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
“She was squinting at the thermometer in the white light coming through the window.”
The Running Man by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)(1982)
“The laboratory, in Cumbria, was home to four young scientists.”
The Psychology of Time Travel, by Kate Mascarenhas
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“It was Ptah-Hotep, an Egyptian official of the 24th century BC, who first expressed the sentiment ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ and it has been used as an excuse for throwing a party ever since.”
A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction, by Suzette Field
“I don’t think anyone can truly comprehend just how vast the North Atlantic Ocean is without spending six or seven weeks sailing it in a small boat.”
Phantom Islands of the Atlantic by Donald S. Johnson (1994)
“Thin, pale sunbeams shone tentatively around the edges of curtains drawn tight against the winter cold in the windows of the master suite of Elm Creek Manor.”
A Christmas Boutique, by Jennifer Chiaverini.
“I hope you have better luck with this parish than you’ve had in your first one.”
How Green Was My Curate by Fred Secombe.
“The city was covered in snow, thirty-one inches so far with more on the way.”
Monsters Among Us: A Bianca Jones Collection, by John L. French.
“I have been here before,” I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian almost twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour, and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest.
And the author and title…?
“There were at least three kinds of cops in Harvard Yard: a scattering of Cambridge cops, gray-haired mostly, with faces out of County Mayo; portly old men in brown uniforms and no sidearms who guarded the gates; and squadrons of Harvard University police who wore tailored blue uniforms and expensive black gun belts, and looked like graduates of the Los Angeles Police Academy.”
Valediction by Robert B. Parker (1984)
“Kamila Jan, I’m honored to present you with your certificate.”
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
At three-thirty a.m. on June 22, 1773, fifteen minutes before sunrise, a royal chaise pulled by four matched horses burst from the gates of Kew Palace, escorted by cavalry outriders in scarlet coats.
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 - Rick Atkinson, first book of a trilogy about the Revolutionary War.
“The Red Centre. We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The Aunts patrolled.”
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, art by Renee Nault (graphic novel, 2019)
“I first saw the light of the city of Boston in the year 1857.”
Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy
“This soup combines two separate recipes attributed to the agriculturalist and linguist Varro.”
Skipping the rather long Preface and Introduction, this is the first sentence of the first recipe in “Cooking Apicius” by Sally Grainger. It is a translation with adaptations for the modern cook based upon the world’s oldest known cookbook. The soup, to my everlasting surprise, is a “Roman Bortsch”.
“Napoleone di Buonaparte, as he signed himself until manhood, was born in Ajaccio, one of the larger towns on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, just before noon on Tuesday, August 15, 1769.”
Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts
“The Story of a Hundred Operas is not intended in any way to be a serious literary production, but is an endeavor to present to the opera-loving public in clear and concise form, the plots of the operas, with mention of the principal arias as they appear.”
-The Story of a Hundred Operas, Felix Mendelsohn