Here’s the opening sentence of seven memorable nonfiction books:
In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
– The Bible
In the summer of the Roman year 699, now described as the year 55 before the birth of Christ, the Proconsul of Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar, turned his gaze upon Britain.
– Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
Put this puzzle together and you will find milk, cheese and eggs, meat, fish, beans and cereals, greens, fruits and root vegetables – foods that contain our essential daily needs.
– Irma S. Rombauer, Joy of Cooking
To the Manus native the world is a great platter, curving upwards on all sides, from his flat lagoon village where the pile-houses stand like long-legged birds, placid and unstirred by the changing tides.
– Margaret Mead, Growing Up in New Guinea
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women.
– Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
Within five minutes, or ten minutes, no more than that, three of the others had called her on the telephone to ask her if she had heard that something had happened out there.
– Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
You know more than you think you do.
– Benjamin Spock, Baby and Child Care
