28.4.11

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

By Helen Simonson

"To tell Mortimer that he had never begrudged Bertie the gun had been a damn lie. Sitting on the seafront, his back pressed against the wooden slats of a park bench, the Major turned his face up to the sun. The sweater absorbed heat as efficiently as a black plastic bin liner, and it was pleasant to sit tucked away in the lee of the fisherman's black-tarred net-drying sheds, listening to the waves breaking themselves to pieces on the shingle."

21.4.11

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skloot

"I told her I was hoping to talk to David, and she asked who was calling. Rebecca, I said, afraid she'd hang up if I said anything more."

14.4.11

Just Kids

By Patti Smith

"I needed to get another job. My friend Janet Hamill had been hired at Scribner's Bookstore, and once again, as she had done in college, she found a way of giving me a helping hand by sharing her good fortune. She spoke to here superiors, and the offered me a position. It seemed like a dream job, working in the retail store of the prestigious publisher, home to writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and their books, where paintings by Maxfield Parrish hung in the stairwell."