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War Work

Frank Moorhouse

‘It was like the voice from a gramophone with a worn needle.’

Mate

Kate Grenville

‘He’d bought the Akubra and the elastic-sided boots but anyone could see he was a city bugger.’

Voyage South

Murray Bail

‘The decks are brick red, the colour of old Australian verandas, as are the metal steps, the rails gloss white.’

Hawk

Joy Williams

‘As regards to life it is much the best to think that the experiences we have are necessary for us.’

The Waiter’s Wife

Zadie Smith

‘Two plates smashed to the floor. She patted her stomach to indicate her unborn child and pointed to the pieces, “Hungry?”’

Telling Him

Edmund White

‘The worst thing about knowing he was positive was that now he was under an obligation to tell his partners. Not that he informed the man he picked up in the park or the guy he lured over on the phone chatline.’

On Observation Hill

Francis Spufford

‘Here I stand on Observation Hill. If the Devil made me an offer at this moment, I feel sure I would accept.’

Goal 666

Stacey Richter

‘I began to feel almost ill with a kind of unpleasant pleasure, like being tickled.’

Adults

Claire Messud

‘Those summer evenings were all alike.’

How Pinkie Killed a Man

Adewale Maja-Pearce

‘It was two years since I'd been in Zambia and I was looking forward to seeing Ronnie and his cousin, Pinkie’.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

Dale Peck

‘Love is like trash: it's not something you hoard, it's merely something you don't waste, like heat, or water, or paper’.

The Man in The Van

Lucretia Stewart

‘On Friday 20 March 1998 at ten-thirty in the morning I was lying in the bath, washing my hair’.

Cash is King

John Lanchester

Mr Phillips is lying face down on the floor of Barclays Bank.

The Umbrella

Hanif Kureishi

‘If there were a thousand umbrellas there I would not give you one.’