“I leaped onto the sliding ladder in the back room of Gladstone’s Shoe Store of Chicago, gave it a shove, and glided fast to the end of the floor to ceiling shelves of shoe boxes.”
Rules of the Road, by Joan Bauer
June, 1631
After Melissa Mailey ushered Mike Stearns into her living room and took a seat on an armchair facing him, she lifted her eyebrows.
“Cookbooks”, by Eric Flint
First story in 1634: The Ram Rebellion, by Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce
“Life in ancient Egypt was fairly simple. Most people were farmers.”
Pyramid by David Macaulay
Living with a child between 1 and 3 years of age is an exhilarating experience.
The Emotional Life of the Toddler by Alicia F. Lieberman
“The earliest ‘writing’ was not writing as we recognize it today.”
A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order, by Judith Flanders
“There hadn’t been a god for many years.”
Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr.
August 1634
Magdeburg
United States of Europe
Don Francisco Nasi, spymaster for the United States of Europe, pushed his glasses up his nose.
1635: The Dreeson Incident, by Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce
“On Tuesday, October 11, 1988, the Jason Taverner Show ran thirty seconds short.”
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick
“Although it is docile and trainable, we should never forget that the horse is a powerful animal and if it really did not want to do something, nothing we could try would persuade it.”
The Sporting Horse: In Pursuit of Equine Excellence, by Nicola Jane Swinney
“I powered up the transporter and said a silent prayer.”
Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor
“All right, let’s put our backs to it,” said Stephen Hamilton, as the barge carrying the rest of the escapees from the Tower of London began to pull away downriver, Harry Lefferts waving over the stern.
1635: A Parcel of Rogues, by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
Kindred by Octavia Butler
“This book explains how minds work.”
Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky
“From an early age, I believed I had an extra amount of imagination.”
Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir, by Amy Tan.
“A hundred and fifty-seven castaways on a desert island in the South China Sea, the survivors of the wreck of HMS Diane, which had struck upon an uncharted rock and had there been shattered by a great typhoon some days later: a hundred and fifty-seven, but as they sat there round the edge of a flat bare piece of ground between high-water mark and the beginning of the forest they sounded like the full complement of a ship of the line, for this was Sunday afternoon, and the starboard watch, headed by Captain Aubrey, was engaged in a cricket-match against the Marines, under their commanding officer, Mr Welby.”
The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O’Brian
“It is the summer of 1848. We are in New England. Phineas P. Gage, twenty-five years old, is about to go from riches to rags. A century and a half later his downfall will still be quite meaningful.”
–Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio
The dark, cold bulk of the Neana insertion ship had been traveling through interstellar space for twenty-two years before it flew across the faint twinkling specks of the star’s cometary belt.
Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton
Excellent book.
“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”
– Emma, by Jane Austen
“That smashed elbow was still in a crooked cast after a month of repeated surgery, when Zev Barak emerged from a dingy reddish building on the Tel Aviv waterfront, into blinding noontime sunlight and a blistering hot breeze.”
The Hope by Herman Wouk