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The Architect of Unrest

Jeanette Winterson

‘Buildings keep inside them what we love.’

The Man with the Dagger

Russell Hoban

‘I thought the story would be the most likely place to look for Dahlmann, so I went there.’

Jimmy

Jay McInerney

‘Suddenly Jared wondered if he could pick Jimmy out of a police line-up.’

The Lens Factory

John Updike

‘It made him feel lopsided, this sense of being plucked at by nervousness and dread.’

Thursday Night in Tokyo

Peregrine Hodson

‘The spotlight grew brighter, there was a movement behind the curtain, and a dwarf with a painted clown’s face stepped into the circle of light.’

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.’

Skinned Alive

Edmund White

‘Once in a very great while he referred to me playfully as his ‘husband’, despite his revulsion against camp.’

Old Man Potchikoo

Louise Erdrich

‘But Potchikoo claims that his father is the sun in heaven that shines down on us all.’

The Murderee

Martin Amis

‘This is a true story, but I can’t believe it’s really happening. It’s a murder story, too. I can't believe my luck.’

Drinking Men

Todd McEwen

‘Consider a long and famous river; it teems with salmon and story, winds majestic through the most various of Scotland's shires.’

’Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Angela Carter

‘Silence and space and an unimaginable freedom which they dare not imagine.’

The Ivory Acrobat

Don DeLillo

‘She lay in a kind of timeless drift, a mindwork spiral, carried on half-formed thoughts. She passed into a false sleep and then was listening again. She opened her eyes.’

The Apprentice

E. L. Doctorow

‘And there was no resistance, I saw a movement of black bulk, that was all, and all I heard was maybe the sound someone makes who is frightened and has a hand not his own over his mouth, the doors slammed and the car was humming and gone and the boat was already opening up water between itself and the slip before a thin minute had passed.’

Victory Mills

Mona Simpson

‘I have driven a car on acid, carried my mother drunk upstairs and slept with numerous men and one woman to no consequence.’