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The Last of The Smokers

Jackie Kay

‘Smoking is my first erotic memory.’

Agamemnon’s Truth

Javier Cercas

‘My name is Javier Cercas, just like you.’

Hunter’s Moon

Thomas Lynch

‘She had left him for a woman.’

The King is Always Above the People

Daniel Alarcón

‘It was the year I left my parents, a few useless friends, and a girl who liked to tell everyone we were married, and moved two hundred kilometres downstream to the capital.’

Parakeets

Kevin Brockmeier

‘The birds studied the mute as though he were a puzzle.’

The Complaint

Judy Budnitz

‘The first few apartments Claude inspects have the air of people who haven't budged in years.’

That First Time

Christopher Coake

‘Everything, even the ground under his feet, felt impermanent.’

Procreate, Generate

Anthony Doerr

‘Nothingness is the rule. Life is the exception.’

Room After Room

Jonathan Safran Foer

‘Her heart is kept in a room with a very expensive security system.’

Where East Meets West

Nell Freudenberger

‘How can we presume to know what other people's experiences are like?’

Exile

Olga Grushin

‘For one instant, while all this seemed possible, he listened to the violent unfolding of his heart.’

Passover in New Orleans

Dara Horn

‘The moon was bright and round, as it always is on Passover, like a coin resting on the moist black velvet of the spring night sky.’

Hard Core

Gabe Hudson

‘My buddy Meat’s the one who showed me the true joy of handling the M203.’

Gabe Hudson in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2.

Dance Cadaverous

Uzodinma Iweala

‘It just seemed like the right thing to want, the right thing to do.’