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The Professor’s History

Claire Messud

‘The call of the muezzin reached his ears only as a muffled wail, the keeper of ritual and the passage of time.’

The Lady with the Laptop

Clive Sinclair

‘It is Friday, and I am at the airport waving a little flag, a one-man welcoming committee.’

Girls

Harold Pinter

‘What I want to know is quite simple. Was she spanked?’

Savage Winds

Bao Ninh

'The war was almost over. On the other side of the plain, the enemy artillery base lay silent; no reconnaissance plane had yet appeared on the horizon.'

Gnossienne

Julian Barnes

‘Let me make it clear that I never attend literary conferences. I know that they're held in art deco hotels close to legendary museums; that sessions on the future of the novel are conducted with camaraderie, brio and bonhomie.’

Never Saw Brazil

William Boyd

‘On one of the sunniest of bright May mornings, Senator Dom Liceu Maximiliano Lobo needlessly ran his comb through his neat goatee and ordered his chauffeur to pull into the side of the road.’

The Shore

Richard Ford

'Our relationship, in fact, hasn't seemed to need more attention to theme or direction but has proceeded or at least persisted on autopilot, like a small plane flying out over a peaceful ocean with no one exactly in command.'

The Hole

Romesh Gunesekera

'I let the tears roll down to the sides of my mouth, and licked them to harden my insides. I wanted to cry gushingly, but I couldn't.'

Creatures of the Earth

John McGahern

‘They alone among all the creatures of the earth would never have to go that way.’

Ghost Story

Seamus Deane

‘The children were never seen again.’

Author, Author

Martin Amis

‘Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing.’

The Up Escalator

Bret Easton Ellis

‘I'm standing on the balcony of Martin's apartment in Westwood, holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and Martin comes towards me, rushes at me, and with both hands pushes me off the balcony'.

Fiction by Bret Easton Ellis.

Buddy Carmody

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘No one was safe walking to church in the dark, but Buddy knew better than to beg not to go'.

Dick Contino’s Blues

James Ellroy

‘June 22, 1958. Dig, hepcats: it’s me, five minutes after the fuzz told me my mother had been murdered.’