“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Read more

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” The Go-Between L.P. Hartley Read more

“…and the government of the United States of America is herewith suspended, except in the District of Columbia, as of the emergency.” Earth Abides George R. Stewart Read more

“It was the summer of 1923, the summer I came down from Cambridge, when despite my aunt’s wishes that I return to Shropshire, I decided that my future lay in the capital and took up a small flat at Number 14b Bedford Gardens in Kensington.” When We Were Orphans Kazuo Ishiguro Read more

“Acid flowed at the table more often than wine and had long since ceased to cause Lily alarm; her attention remained on the soup even as Father asked, ‘Does the thought of me still pain your head, love?’” Sea Change S.M. Wheeler Read more

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald Read more

“I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.” The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon Read more

First words… “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again.” Rebecca Daphne DuMaurier Read more

“‘Do your neighbors burn one another alive?’ was how Fraa Orolo began his conversation with Artisan Flec.” Anathem Neal Stephenson   Read more

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides Read more