Explore fiction
The Seventh Man
Haruki Murakami
‘I looked up at the sky. A few grey cotton chunks of cloud hung there, motionless.’
Runs Girl | New Voices
Chinelo Okparanta
‘The year Mama fell sick was the year Njideka confessed to me that she was a runs girl.’
Remission
Adam Mars-Jones
‘There's an awkward interval, when you're ill but not yet conditioned by illness.’
The Dune
Stephen King
‘Being able to read obituaries in advance gives a man an extraordinary sense of power.’
Accident
Etgar Keret
’Thirty years I’m a cabbie,’ the small guy sitting behind the wheel tells me, ’thirty years and not one accident.’
The Bridge
David Mamet
‘Surely the world was going to end. And probably in fire - in nuclear destruction, by mistake, or at the hands of madmen.’
Crow Fair
Thomas McGuane
‘You’re in a different world when your own mother doesn’t recognize you, or thinks you’re the stranger who gave her a hickey.’
The Captain
Rattawut Lapcharoensap
‘I was with Dora. We were in love. Things were cheap and plentiful and the money from the insurance was going to last us forever.’
Mouth
Mario Vargas Llosa
‘I lost my left ear from a bite. . .Through the thin slit that remains I can hear the sounds of the world.’
Agnes of Iowa
Lorrie Moore
‘Her mother had given her the name Agnes, believing that a good-looking woman was even more striking when her name was a homely one.’
The Whale House
Sharon Millar
‘By morning the dreams are gone, flying through the tiny holes in the net in sudden starling movements.’
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.’
OIF
Phil Klay
‘A few months later I was strapped up, M4 in condition 1, surrounded by 03s, backpack full of cash, twitchiest guy in Iraq.’
Crossing Cut Creek | New Voices
Erin McMillan
‘Light rose over Mama’s tanned arms, Keller’s dirty hair. The air was thick with colour and swirling dust, and we were still, suspended in it.’
Notes for a Young Gentleman
Toby Litt
‘A gentleman should greet with genuine warmth only the following persons – his sister’s daughters, his maternal aunts and his mortal enemies.’
Moscow, Idaho
Chris Offutt
‘Tilden stopped digging and wiped his sleeve across his forehead, leaving a brown smear on his skin.’
Creatures of the Earth
John McGahern
‘They alone among all the creatures of the earth would never have to go that way.’
Slim
Adam Mars-Jones
‘My African family doesn't have the money for photographs. My African family may never even have seen a photograph.’
Drifting House
Krys Lee
‘Houses loomed like ghosts. The government’s face was everywhere: on the sides of a beached cart, above the lintel of the post office.’
Lily
Ian McEwan
‘He'll be ruthless with himself in his pursuit of boundless health to avoid his mother's fate: Mental death.’
Five Cats and Three Women
J. Robert Lennon
‘While he didn't mind (not much anyway) being responsible for the death of one cat, his cat, he did not feel good shouldering the death of four cats.’
The War Artist
Margaret Luongo
‘On the third day, the little rosebud teacups rattled in their saucers as the war artist poured the coffee.’
The Moon and the Batteries
Hiromi Kawakami
‘His full name was Mr Harutsuna Matsumoto, but I called him ‘Sensei’. Not ‘Mr’ or ‘Sir’, just ‘Sensei’.’
