I was born in Oxford in 1973 and lived there for ten years. The memories of this time are fractured. I remember a party in the street for the Queen’s Jubilee: my father, Rick, dressed up as a ringmaster, my sister Emma on her horse, carnival lions in a home-made parade. I was always in the garden….
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘There was very little I could do in life except get dressed, smoke the correct cigarettes.’
An extract from Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery.
‘I used to be ashamed of it, though I’m not sure what exactly felt shameful.’
On training to be an opera singer.
‘Maud tries to understand how her role is being rewritten on the spot – who the woman might be.’
‘They learned that some people are born luckier than others and that things in this world do not always go as you plan.’
Paul Auster discusses his new novel ‘Invisible’, his writing process and the unsettling quality of narrative clarity.
