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Party, Party

Belinda McKeon

‘Arlo’s matinee sleekness was so difficult to bear’

Smile

Roddy Doyle

‘Then he said it. — Victor Forde, I can never resist your smile.’

The Beacon & The Bane

Malerie Willens

‘In spite of my pining and missing, neither man seemed fully formed and I felt a little lonely in the presence of both.’

Lucia Series

Jesse Ball

‘People love to say it to you like it counts: Oh, Lucia, she will live on in your memory.’

Ladivine

Marie NDiaye

‘We were hoping for a communion, and that communion never came.’

The Conveyor Belt

Louise Stern

‘Tall men that looked like insects crept out of cracks in the stones.’

Base Life

George Makana Clark

‘This is why he will survive this war to return to his wife and daughter, barring a blind bullet, an errant piece of shrapnel, some careless act of destiny.’

The Ferryman

Azam Ahmed

‘I do not do this work for the government, or the Taliban, or even the men who I collect from the battlefield and return to their loved ones. All these years I have done this for God.’

A Play on Mothering

David Rakoff

‘His hands are a jewel box and I lean forward and peer in.’

Reading Comprehension: Text No. 2

Alejandro Zambra

‘Which of the following famous phrases best reflects the meaning of the text?’

Last Day on Earth

Eric Puchner

‘Despite my efforts at denial the new reality of our lives was beginning to sink in.’

The Way of the Apple Worm

Herta Müller

‘The mother of the needle is the place that bleeds.’

Dynamics in the Storm

Greg Jackson

‘You only have time to live your own life, and mine was falling apart.’

The Disappearing

Fatima Bhutto

‘I have gone to the forest to lie among the moss and sleep under a canopy of trees. I have gone to the forest to root among the soil and listen to the birds.’