-- Metaphorically speaking: these are all on my Paperwhite, which is often under my pillow (yes) (because after 20+ years of marriage I can FINALLY read myself to sleep again late at night with the lit screen on low, and when I start drowsing off I can just slip the case under my pillow instead of fumbling around for the stand in the dark).
Now it was night.
(A Marker to Measure Drift, Alexander Maksik.)
In the middle of the twentieth century three men were charged with the task of removing the tension between minute and vast things.
(Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Lydia Millet.)
'And the material doesn't stain,' the salesgirl says.
(The Driver's Seat, Muriel Spark.)
When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.
(Bel Canto, Ann Patchett.)
The child's world changed late one afternoon, though she didn't know it.
(Hild, Nicola Griffith.)
On the morning after the Feds burned down her house and took her father, Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones.
(A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra.)
Irresolute, no, shivering, I'd crashed a party in the private dining room of a hotel.
(In America, Susan Sontag.)
Alma Whittaker, born with the century, slid into our world on the fifth of January, 1800.
(The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert.)
The village of Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire was an unlikely setting for paradise, but for Patrick Leigh Fermor the years he spent there as a small child were among the happiest in his life.
(Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, Artemis Cooper.)
One of the women buying amber was so much like Mrs Cosway that it gave me a shock to see her.
(The Minotaur, Barbara Vine.)
This is a game I've played only twice.
(Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Atwood.)
How angry am I? You don't want to know.
(The Woman Upstairs, Claire Messud.)
When the year turns, there are bells on the wind.
(Quiet Dell, Jayne Anne Phillips.)
descensus Averno facilis est