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The Lawyer’s Story
Paul Theroux
‘Bow tie, blue shirt, tight suit, cowboy boots—he was overdressed for Singapore.’
The Butcher of Bermondsey
Graham Swift
‘Then he led me out into the noise and the glare and the stink.’
Frozen Fish
William Leith
‘I remembered the freezer from when we were kids. It had been important to us then, the site of many shameful boyish deeds.’
Toffee
Agnes Owens
‘"Bloody well wake up!" Maureen's mother called to her -daughter, who slept in the kitchen bed recess.’
The Gourmet
John Lanchester
‘I have vivid memories of my one or two visits to my brother during his incarceration in various gulags.’
Bicycle Thieves
Blake Morrison
‘Late June, scorched grass and sprinklers, the sky as if scuffed and beaten. Too hot to work, too lazy to think.’
The Professor’s History
Claire Messud
‘The call of the muezzin reached his ears only as a muffled wail, the keeper of ritual and the passage of time.’
The Lady with the Laptop
Clive Sinclair
‘It is Friday, and I am at the airport waving a little flag, a one-man welcoming committee.’
Savage Winds
Bao Ninh
'The war was almost over. On the other side of the plain, the enemy artillery base lay silent; no reconnaissance plane had yet appeared on the horizon.'
Gnossienne
Julian Barnes
‘Let me make it clear that I never attend literary conferences. I know that they're held in art deco hotels close to legendary museums; that sessions on the future of the novel are conducted with camaraderie, brio and bonhomie.’
