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Stay Up Late

Jim Lewis

‘She wanted to enjoy herself, she wanted to try, but she didn't know where to begin.’

Down in Front

Colson Whitehead

‘This is the part where we find our seats. Step on toes, suck in gut, make yourself flat as a movie screen.’

Midsummer in April

Maarten ’t Hart

‘A premonition of approaching calamity deepened in the course of March to an unease that drove me almost crazy.’

The First Punch

Jon McGregor

‘I’m on the ground, and he is standing over me. Everything is muffled. I’m aware of the sound of running water somewhere.’

Anubis

Paul Murray

‘Here in space you don't often get the chance to meet women.’

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.’