“Along with these tots and second-honeymooners, there were Harvard freshmen, giving off that peculiar nervous glow created when a quantity of insouciance is saturated with insecurity; thick-necked Army officers with brass on their shoulders and lead in their voices; pepperings … Read more
Why is it great? Chabon has tapped into that greatest of sensory effects: the ability of smells to take you back to a place, a moment, a memory. The last one, in particular, works its magic on me. The mildewy … Read more
“The private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees — partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would … Read more
Why is it great? This sentence is one of the most vivid metaphors I’ve ever read. It captures the helplessness of a life of desperation, where you can’t even jump from the window, just stare out of it, seeing the … Read more
Why is it great? Written long before every person carried a camera, before Facebook, back when “streaming” was just what water did as it coursed through its bed, Goyen, raised in a small town in East Texas, believed we could … Read more
Why is it great? Yes, it’s three sentences. But it’s one brilliant summation of journalists, from the best-written movie about journalists of all time. God, the banter in the screenplay! I love how this line has hilarious putdowns like “daffy … Read more
Why is it great? Few authors have written as magnificently about nature as Rachel Carson, and this sentence is a good example. Its strength is not in form but content. It revealed to me something I did not know — … Read more
Why is it great? For “Controversy Week” on Storyboard, I chose a sentence from one of the most controversial books of the 20th century. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was shocking on so many levels when it was written: for a woman’s … Read more
In addition to the music of Blythe’s lush language, I love how he captures this brash paradox–that a chorus can make us feel so lonely. Furthermore I love how, like a quintessential writer, he stations himself on an edge between … Read more
Why is it great? Yesterday was Dorothy Parker’s birthday. (She would have been 124, reminding me of her classic line, “Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.”) The line above is one of my favorites, because … Read more
