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October, 1948
Kazuo Ishiguro
‘I remember looking around me with approval that first night, and today, for all the changes which have transformed the world around it, Mrs Kawakamu's remains as pleasing as ever.’
A Queer Streak Part One: Anonymous Letters
Alice Munro
‘She would never know why she had done it. She was sleepless and strung-up and her better judgement had deserted her.’
Fiction by Alice Munro.
Herself in Love
Marianne Wiggins
‘She thought, Love is a Revelation, like a religion, some religions; like Islam.’
The Loves of The Tortoises
Italo Calvino
‘There are two tortoises on the patio: a male and a female. Zlak! Zlak! their shells strike each other. It is the season of their love-making.’
Italo Calvino on animal drive and communication.
Self-Control
Primo Levi
‘He'd have to keep an eye on his liver now, the way you do with cars, if you want them to last: regular washing and greasing, an eye cast over the electrics, the injectors, all the pumps, the battery and the brakes.’
Quantum Jumps
Tim O'Brien
‘Where on earth is the happy ending? Kansas is burning. All things are finite. ‘Love,’ I say feebly. The hole finds this amusing.’
The Imagination of Disaster
Mary Gordon
‘We live knowing not only that we will die, that we may suffer, but that all that we hold dear will finish; that there will be no more familiar.’
The Bridge
David Mamet
‘Surely the world was going to end. And probably in fire - in nuclear destruction, by mistake, or at the hands of madmen.’
Desert Island Discs
George Steiner
‘His requests did stretch the resources, almost all-encompassing, of the sound-archive. But that is part of the game.’
The Accordion Player
John Berger
‘He played it as loud as he could, as though he hoped the music would remind the hay in the barn above of green grass and blue cornflowers.’
What Were You Dreaming?
Nadine Gordimer
‘And I'm careful what I say, I tell them about the blacks, how too many people spoil it for us, they robbing and killing, you can't blame white people.’
A Queer Streak Part Two: Possession
Alice Munro
‘He thinks he remembers Violet coming for supper, as she sometimes did, bringing with her a pudding which she set outside in the snow, to keep it cool.’
Fiction by Alice Munro.
