“He was seated by my desk waiting for me when I strolled into the office at 7:30 that morning.”
Say No to Murder, by Nancy Pickard.
Let us start this long tale, tragic even among the myriad tragedies of wars, not with a Frenchman or an American, but with a Vietnamese.
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings
“John Leeming cursed loudly as his shoulder connected painfully with one of the Wellington bomber’s internal struts, his stomach lurching as the stricken plane pitched and rolled alarmingly through the air as it headed for the earth.”
Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussolini’s Colditz, by Mark Felton
“Debra Sue closed her eyes and listened with all her might.”
– A Dangerous Man, by Robert Crais
“Does anyone really believe what happened at the Reichenbach Falls? A great many accounts have been written but it seems to me that all of them have left something to be desired – which is to say, the truth.”
Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz
“I take it as a given that no one really likes to see me in my official capacity.”
The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi
“It should have been the greatest week of my life, but instead I hit an all-time low”
-My Cross to Bear, by Gregg Allman with Alan LIght
“There could not have been a great many people in Western Europe or the United States who were greatly surprised when they learned from early TV and radio broadcasts on the morning of 4 August 1985 that the armed forces of the two great power blocs, the United States and her allies on the one hand and Soviet Russia and hers on the other, were at each other’s throats in full and violent conflict.”
The Third World War: The Untold Story by Gen. Sir David Hackett
“All the structures in this book willingly reveal important things about why and how they were built if we know what to look for.”
Building Big, by David Macaulay
“Phil Walden intended Duane’s new band to be the centerpiece artists on his new Atlantic-distributed label, Capricorn Records.”
- One Way Out - The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, by Alan Paul
“It was one of those super-duper-cold Saturdays.”
The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis
“With greatcoat flapping, Lieutenant Krafft hurried across the graveyard like some startled bird of ill omen.”
Officer Factory by Hans Hellmut Kirst
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas
Quite astonishing! A visceral therapeutic venting that sometimes makes me laugh it’s so absurd yet I connect with the rawness of the emotion.
“I am a fifth-generation native New Yorker.”
The Moth Presents: All These Wonders–True Stories about Facing the Unknown, edited by Catherine Burns. (Note: The above sentence is from the first essay, “The Moon and Stars Talks”, by Tara Clancy.)
“Leo spun to life in late July in the restless waters of the far eastern Atlantic, about two hundred miles west of Cape Verde.”
– Camino Winds, by John Grisham
“Dr. Kent Abner began the day of his death comfortable and content.”
Golden in Death, by J.D. Robb
“Stories and statistics? Whatever might this juxtaposition be getting at?”
Once Upon a Number: The Hidden Mathematical Logic of Stories, by John Allen Paulos
“I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods.”
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earn my living by the labor of my hands only.
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
My father first met Donald Trump in the early 90s, when they were both in their mid-40s — my father the elder by a year —- and as each was coming out from under virtual financial ruin.
Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar (I skipped over the atypically styled “Overture” chapter)
“‘Is it blood, doctor?’” Jonathan Hoag moistened his lips with his tongue and leaned forward in the chair, trying to see what was written on the slip of paper the medico held."
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert A. Heinlein