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Patrick French | First Sentence
Patrick French
‘In Edwardian days, if you were growing up in England (though Maurice was from Ireland) your life was regimented.’
First Catch Your Puffin
Sean French
‘A man is rescued after years stranded on a desert island with two companions, one of whom died.’
Notes Toward the Memoirs of a Book Thief
Rodrigo Fresán
‘There’s never enough money to buy all the books we need to read or simply admire, hold, caress, knowing that we have them, that they’re ours.’
Non-fiction by Rodrigo Fresán, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.
Borges and Me, and Me
Rodrigo Fresán
‘What would be the point of writing anything if I went down in history as the person who killed Borges?’
Nell Freudenberger | God and Me
Nell Freudenberger
‘When I was seven, I sat down to draw God. God wore a pirate shirt, purple harem pants and a red fez.’
The Survivals of Lafcadio Hearn
Kenny Fries
‘Did Hearn feel comfortable in Japan because being a foreigner overshadowed his physical difference?’
Switzerland Without an Army?
Max Frisch
‘Why should Switzerland of all places have no army? It costs billions and billions, but we can afford it.’
American Maniac
Rafael Frumkin
‘I would peel wrappers off sandwiches, remove noodles from their boxes, fry up meat before any authorities had the chance to track me and my bounty down.’
The Abyss
Rafael Frumkin
‘I came home this past fall to the Chicago suburb where I’d lived with my parents from age nine until I left for college in 2008, and I moved back into my childhood bedroom.’
The Discovery of Mexico
Carlos Fuentes
‘I was born on 11 November 1928, under the sign I would have chosen, Scorpio, and on a date shared with Dostoevsky, Crommelynck and Vonnegut.’
The View from this End
Alexandra Fuller
‘It lay like a sodden comma, curled up against its mother, and no one realised it was dead.’
Lost Cat
Mary Gaitskill
‘Which deaths are tragic and which are not? Who decides what is big and what is little?’
