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Envy

Kathryn Chetkovich

‘Why does it hurt only to read good work by the living?’

Five Cats and Three Women

J. Robert Lennon

‘While he didn't mind (not much anyway) being responsible for the death of one cat, his cat, he did not feel good shouldering the death of four cats.’

Termite’s Birthday, 1959

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘It's like by the time he was born there was too much to know.’

The Tutor

Nell Freudenberger

‘He hated the idea of learning words from a list; it was like taking vitamin supplements in place of eating.’

The Kite Trick

Bill Gaston

‘He hated it when people said ying-yang.’

Helen and Julia

Sarah Waters

‘She felt exhausted, emptied out; she thought of the day that had passed—it was astonishing to her, that a single set of hours could contain so many separate states of violent feeling.’

Dinner with Dr Azad

Monica Ali

‘Six months now since she'd been sent away to London. Every morning before she opened her eyes she thought, if I were the wishing type, I know what I would wish.’

Gas, Boys, Gas

Andrew O’Hagan

‘The men were quiet. They said nothing for a minute and the sea at my back was calm and almost imaginary, but you could hear the waves coming to wash the chalk cliffs from under us.’

At The Villa Cockroft

Dan Rhodes

‘In Bosnia, it seemed, a deal was a deal and the Bosnian was ready to pay his rent.’

Field Study

Rachel Seiffert

‘The bushes grow dense across the top of the drop, but Martin can just see through the leaves: young mother and son, swimming in the pool hollowed out by the waterfall.’

The Hare

Toby Litt

‘For some little while now I have been chasing a hare—buck or doe, I do not know.’

After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac

Rachel Cusk

‘It was right after he was born that I started looking at paintings.’

The Costa Pool Bums

Alan Warner

‘We were a helpless community put in motion together.’

The Balance

Nicola Barker

‘There were five of them remaining and it was all in the balance.’