Olingiris
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Thank God We’ve Got A Navy
Brian Thompson
‘Today it is usual—especially among those who have never faced conscription—to describe national service as time wasted, even an offence against civil liberties in some sinister way.’
Loved Ones: Introduction
Ian Jack
One of the world's unfair divisions is that between the writer and the written-about, and this is nowhere more true than in the literary form called the memoir.
Help, Help, Help
Jonathan Taylor
‘Day in, day out, my father had to watch us smiling and laughing, while he couldn't join.’
Five Houses
Melanie McFadyean
‘I live here, we say, this is my house, my home. We settle, dwell, adorn. A house feels permanent. But this illusion of security can end in a minute.’
Early Retirement
John Lanchester
‘My father used to tell the story of a tutor at his university, a Viennese professor of something or other.’
Year of the Monkey
Fan Wu
‘I stood in front of the roller coaster, whose winding tracks looked like intestines in a demon's stomach.’
Jumping Monkey Hill
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
‘His accent was what the British called posh, the kind some rich Nigerians tried to mimic and ended up sounding unintentionally funny.’
Mao Comes to Sydney
Georgia Blain
‘After all, it was only politics, and I was too young to understand.’
Twins
Jeremy Seabrook
‘Separation has been, perhaps, the single biggest determining influence in my life.’
Resolution
Jim Shepard
‘Everything suggests an ongoing and immemorial enervation. A kind of trance in the air.’
Where is Thy Sting-a-Ling-a-Ling?
James Lasdun
‘The fire department didn't have a tall enough ladder to reach his body.’
On the Road Again: Introduction
Ian Jack
‘Switzerland absolutely fulfils our idea of the picturesque’
We Went to Saigon
Tia Wallman
‘I thought that this must be the sort of plane that crashes. What were a few more dead, travelling to the city of the dead?’
Bye-Bye Natalia
Michel Faber
‘Natalia picks at the frayed black lace of her dress while the photograph of her American penpal loads into the computer.’
Cary Grant’s Suit
Todd McEwen
‘North by Northwest isn't a film about what happens to Cary Grant, it's about what happens to his suit.’
Trenitalia
Tim Parks
‘It was explained to me that in Italy a formality is a sort of dormant volcano.’
Lavande
Ann Beattie
‘It seemed impossible, but probably everyone marries thinking such a thing impossible.’
We Have No Minorities
George Bowater
‘The state can burn houses but it can't stop the rain, can't round up all the sheep. It isn't an easy place to control.’
The End of Travel
James Hamilton-Paterson
‘The more we flock to view the disappearing glaciers, the faster they will vanish.’
Homage to Mount Desert Island
Mark Haworth-Booth
‘A cow was on the wrong side of the fence on Crooked Road on May 26.’
Introduction: God’s Own Countries
Ian Jack
‘The idea of God as creator and custodian died, and many words in the old vocabulary were robbed of their potency.’
A Prisoner of the Holy War
Wendell Steavenson
‘Thayr held out. He would not betray his country, he would not betray his leader.’
In the Clearing
Andrew Brown
‘I asked where the path was to the rapids. He looked at me as if all his suspicions had been confirmed.’
The Lord in his Wisdom
Jackie Kay
‘I realize with a fresh horror that Jonathan is seeing me as the sin’
Tales Out of School
Kees Beekmans
‘But it seems I’ve said something stupid again, and blasphemous to boot.’
