England Is Not Normal

The book on tape I'm listening to is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I didn't even think about that when I downloaded Ken Follet's Eye Of The Needle. I guess I should have. I could very soon start suffering from Nazi overload. Then again, I do get to see the war from several different angles.

That being said, here is the first line and first passage from that book.

"IT WAS THE COLDEST WINTER FOR FORTY-FIVE YEARS. Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow and the Thames froze over. One day in January the Glasgow-London train arrived at Euston twenty-four hours late. The snow and the blackout combined to make motoring perilous; road accidents doubled, and people told jokes about how it was more risky to drive an Austin Seven along Piccadilly at night than to take a tank across the Siegfried Line."

Follett, Ken - Eye Of The Needle

I like the way he tells the reader that things are not normal without immediately talking about The Blitz. It's other things around England that are not normal as well, then later the reader hears about the war. As is usual, the book continues to get better with each page.