‘Was there a story? Yes, there was always a story .Did you write this one down? I've written them all down’.
It wasn’t really his story. I thought it was. I thought it had something to do with him–or one of his shipmates, at least. That it had happened on a boat he knew. But then I was reading to my son one night, and there it was in this book of sea stories.
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘The catastrophe had not happened to all of us, we began to understand, but to each of us.’
‘To the inexperienced, hurricane stories always sound like exaggerations.’
‘She got skinny and became a clairvoyant. And she wasn't even a stigmatic.’
‘At night her friends let loose and relax.’
Photography by Vera Yijun Zhou of house parties and clubs in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
Our ten most popular pieces of memoir, criticism and reportage, including writing by Mary Gaitskill, Gary Indiana, Christian Lorentzen, Tao Lin and Sheila Heti.
‘It was like trying to go back to before the earthquake, to before knowledge.’
