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The Penitenitary

Tim Willocks

‘A million man-years of confinement had burnished the surface of the granite flags to a greasy smoothness ingrained deeply with filth and despair.’

Local Man has Sex with Corpse

Allan Gurganus

‘RALEIGH–A former funeral home employee charged with having sex with a body he was transporting pleaded guilty Wednesday after a psychiatrist testified that the man had sexual problems and that the incident probably was an isolated one.’

Dizzy

Paul Auster

‘The method’s not important. The only thing that counts is that you go along with it – and that you understand why it has to be done.’

Fiction by Paul Auster.

The Getaway Lunch

Tibor Fischer

‘I found a seedy hotel not far from the station, where you would expect to find one.’

The Black Sheep

Italo Calvino

‘And then one day–nobody knows how–an honest man appeared.’

Batorsag and Szerelem

Ethan Canin

‘In January of 1973, the year everything changed in our family, my older brother Clive competed for the mathematics championship of William Howard Taft High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio.’

Fourteen and After

Nick Hornby

‘We were fourteen and had recently discovered irony.’

The Last Place on Earth

Tracy Kidder

‘The living-room windows begin to reflect the lights on the plastic Christmas tree, and the view through those windows is fading, the woods growing thicker, the birches glowing in the dusk.’

Little America

T. Coraghessan Boyle

‘All he wanted was a quarter, fifty cents, a dollar maybe. The guy was a soft touch, absolutely–the softest.’

L,U,C,I,E

Nadine Gordimer

‘I correct the spelling because I’m a lawyer and I’m accustomed to precision in language; in legal documents the displacement of a comma can change the intention expressed in a sentence and lead to new litigation.’

Memorial

Tobias Wolff

‘B.D. carried certain objects.’

Under Ice

Iain Banks

‘Andy runs out across the ice.‘

The Brass Bar

Louis de Bernières

‘In the late seventies I was desperately attempting to avoid having a career by doing what I supposed were 'real' jobs.‘

Born Again

Anne Billson

‘I had no time for vices.‘