“Our story begins on the east coast of Italy on a sunny day sometime around the year 430 CE, when artisans entered a small chapel and turned the sky blue.”
The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, by Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry
In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.
Dune - Frank Herbert
“I shouldn’t be here.”
Glitter and Glue: A Memoir, by Kelly Corrigan
“I, Lily Hicks, housemaid of Mr and Mrs Joseph Paxton do solemnly swear as every word I set down in this book shall be true.”
The Crystal Palace: The Diary of Lily Hicks, London 1850-1851, by Frances Mary Hendry.
“In the fall of 1957, I began what turned out to be a two-year membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.”
Quantum Leaps: How Quantum Mechanics Took Over Science, by Jeremy Bernstein
“The first time I ever saw Ernie Lambert was on that sweltering August day when he showed up at my tiny office in the Athlete’s Club and asked if he could join my boxing team”
Time Bombs and Zahndry Others by Timothy Zahn
Twelve-year-old Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz held tightly to his mother’s hand as she stopped in front of the Augsburg assay office of the Fugger banking family.
1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz by Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright.
“If Winston Churchill had died in his forties, which he believed was the lifespan for males in his aristocratic family, he would have gone down in history as a brilliant but maverick failure.”
Churchill: An Illustrated Life by Brenda Ralph Lewis
“On August 20, 1917, I, Karl Heinrich, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein, Lieutenant-Commander in the Imperial German Navy and in charge of the submarine U-29, deposit this bottle and record in the Atlantic Ocean at a point to me unknown but probably about N. Latitude 20 degrees, W. Longitude 35 degrees, where my ship lies disabled on the ocean floor.”
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories by Gou Tanabe (from the story “The Temple”)
“From its stately site on Mount St. Alban, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul towers above the city of Washington.”
Washington National Cathedral ed. by Anne-Catherine Fallen
“I wear the ring. I wear the ring and I return often to the city of Charleston, South Carolina, to study the history of my becoming a man.”
The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy
“So how are the French lessons coming along?”
Metropolitan Diary: The Best Selections from The New York Times Column, edited by Ron Alexander.
“I do not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the Lady Vain.”
The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H. G. Wells.
“In the spring of 1871, a young man picked up a book and read twenty-one words that had a profound effect on his future.”
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time Tested Methods for Conquering Worry, by Dale Carnegie.
“Noel Haviland Field spent his first eighteen years in the Swiss lakeside town of Zurich.”
True Believer by Kati Marton
“I grew up in Ketonah, New York, a beautiful town about sixty miles north of Manhattan.”
Taste by Stanley Tucci
"A variety of empires, for some the vestiges or remnants of empires, the fortunes of some declining and others rising, collided in Burma in 1942.
A War of Empires by Robert Lyman
“Herb Macklin always said he wanted to die in the arms of his dear second wife Nyla, the lady who helped him keep Herb’s Cafe thriving.”
The Reunion at Herb’s Cafe - Dan Jenkins
“Andrew Johnson of Tennessee felt shaky on the morning of March 4, 1865.”
-Impeached - The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight For Lincoln’s Legacy, by David O. Stewart
(the book actually opens with this quote from Abraham Lincoln - “This Johnson is a queer man.”)
“Richard Vier tips back his drink and looks me directly in the eye.”
Now, Then, and Every When, by Rysa Walker
“May 19, 1932, another Thursday night at the Roxy bar in Berlin.”
Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best, by Neal Bascomb
“By the third decade of powered flight, when aeronautical technology had evolved to the contemplation of over-ocean travel, not one major civil airport yet possessed a long, flat paved surface to accommodate the weight of an oceangoing transport airplane.”
–China Clipper: The Age Of The Great Flying Boats by Robert Gandt
“It was common for American expatriates to visit the U.S. consulate in Berlin, but not in the condition exhibited by the man who arrived there on Thursday, June 29, 1933.”
– In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson
“Only two days before the world fell in on us, she said it again at tea.”
The Queen’s Own Grove, by Patricia Beatty