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Solly and Lark

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘If he got inside me I would never get away.’

Something to Tell You

Hanif Kureishi

‘I’d have dumped her if it wouldn’t have caused more problems than it solved.’

Three Character Sketches

Mario Vargas Llosa

‘For Fataumata, and others like her, dying tragically is dying naturally.’

In-flight Entertainment

Helen Simpson

‘All you needed for the modern world was to know how to work a remote control.’

The Unknown Known

Martin Amis

A satire on fundamentalism in this extract from an unpublished manuscript.

Highlights

Alan Hollinghurst

‘Surely we’re not going to Rome for discos.’

To the City

Tash Aw

‘He knew he had to find this faraway city.’

The White Hole of Bombay

Nicholas Shakespeare

‘If you like people who hate each other, it’s paradise.’

Estonia, Out in the Country

Ingo Schulze

‘I didn’t believe my eyes, not even when I saw what was happening in front of them.’

Marriage Lines

Julian Barnes

‘Grief was in charge of him.’

May We Be Forgiven

A.M. Homes

‘Now I understand the meaning of — it just happened. Or — it was an accident.’

Broken Star

Jennifer Haigh

‘I’d never heard her say an unkind word about anybody.’

The Virgin of Esmeraldas

Nell Freudenberger

‘Everything was okay until Marisol accidentally broke a china cup with a rose on it that her stepmother had brought with her from DR.’

Which Reminded Her, Later

Jon McGregor

‘It's the desperate ones who come up with the best stories.’