“Mrs. Tiffen could play the Bouzouki.”
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
By the spring of 1776, British and American troops had been killing each other at a robust rate for a full year.
Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, by Joseph J Ellis
“Duke Russell is not guilty of the unspeakable crimes for which he was convicted; nonetheless, he is scheduled to be executed for them in one hour and forty-four minutes.”
– The Guardians, by John Grisham
“This is not a ‘definitive guide book’ to Manhattan.”
Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, by Roz Chast
“It would’ve been the first part of May.”
The House of Daniel, by Harry Turtledove
“Coriolanus released the fistful of cabbage into the pot of boiling water and swore that one day it would never pass his lips again.”
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins
“Three months. That’s how long Dr. Sheila Tao had been sleeping with Ethan Wolfe. Three months, four days, and approximately six hours.”
Creep, by Jennifer Hillier
The red glow from the stoplight wrapped around Daisy like a bloody veil.
- Tony Dunbar, Crime Czar
It might have been coincidence – the chairman of Eaglehawk Company standing in the foyer of the Grande Hotel, watching the news vid on the three-floor-high screen – but Leonard Wickmore didn’t believe in coincidences.
– "Stars Beyond*, by S K Dunstall
“I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.”
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Picture it. London, 1953, the A&B Club in Rupert Court, Soho.
Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language
“One may as well begin with Jerome’s emails to his father.”
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
“In 1956, at the age of three, I was walking home with my father, physicist Freeman Dyson, from his office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, when I found a broken fan belt lying in the road. I asked my father what it was. ‘It’s a piece of the sun,’ he said.”
Turing’s Cathedral by George Dyson
“As early as during the First World War studies on a new type of warship - the aircraft carrier - were conducted in Germany.”
The German Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin: Super Drawings in 3D by Stefan Draminski
“I’d always liked my name.”
– Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L Trump, PhD.
“The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
“The storm had raged through most of the night. In the wide bed she shared with her mother, the child lay awake beneath the scratchy woolweed blanket, listening.”
Windhaven by George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle
“I went to Arizona that summer for my health. Talk about irony…”
Summer of the Dragon by Elizabeth Peters
“A plume of vapor from a garment steamer clouded the backstage section where Caroline was working.”
The Oysterville Sewing Circle, by Susan Wiggs
In 1904, Winslow Homer spent the month of January fishing midway up Florida’s west coast, where the Homosassa River quietly slips into the Gulf of Mexico.
–The Gulf by Jack E. Davis