17 Orchard Lane is the home of the Radleys and, despite their very best efforts, they are anything but normal

The Radleys

Matt Haig

Was this the beginning, was this the true moment of conception? Was this the distant early meeting place that had engendered the pure gold baby?

The Pure Gold Baby

Margaret Drabble

She was like those girls who learned to dance with other girls, taking turns to be the man. They never got the hang of following, once they knew what it was like to lead

One Life

Kate Grenville

Hello and welcome to the new, handy, easy-to-wield Pocket Book of Boosh

The Pocket Book of Boosh

Julian Barratt & Noel Fielding

Simon’s Cat in ‘cat man do’

Simon Tofield walks us through how to draw the famous cat

having been born into this strange life we must accept the wasted gamble of our days and take some satisfaction in the pleasure of leaving it all behind

The Pleasures of the Damned

Charles Bukowski

Everything was beautiful. The merchandise was moving like crazy. I was sure that when I got back home for the summer I would have enough scratch to turn everybody green with envy

Pimp: The Story Of My Life

Iceberg Slim

It was the twenty-fifth of July Nineteenth Hundred and Thirty-Eight, and Lisbon was glittering in the azure purity of an Atlantic breeze, Pereira maintains

Pereira Maintains

Antonio Tabucchi

If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live ten times longer than if you have ten. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever

On Cats

Charles Bukowski

The point is that there is no meantime. There was just that moment and now there is this moment with nothing in between, just the accordion collapsing and expanding, the tune unchanging

The Ongoing Moment

Geoff Dyer

One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die

On The Origin Of Species

Charles Darwin

Human beings do terrible things to each other and the tragic thing about it all is the way the remembrance of past hurt can rob us of our future and become the narrative of our lives

On Forgiveness

Richard Holloway

A good book, read at the right moment, should leave you uplifted, inspired, energized and eager for more. With so many books to choose from, what’s the point of reading even one more that leaves you cold?

The Novel Cure

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can’t see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees

No One Belongs Here More Than You

Miranda July

We’d been running ragged for months and were in the homestretch. With any luck, Timmy and I were about to become full-patch Hells Angels, and JJ was about to become a real-life HA old lady

No Angel

Jay Dobyns

I still don't know if things fit together, or if everything will be all right in the end. But I believe that something means something. I believe in cleansing the soul through fun and games. I also believe in love

Naïve. Super

Erlend Loe

Perhaps, in the end, where your anger comes from is less important than what you do with it

My Song

Harry Belafonte & Michael Shnayerson

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.

My First Summer In The Sierra

John Muir

I have an imagination. It is my most precious possession

A Notable Woman

Jean Lucey Pratt

All around me I felt the ghosts of an immense past, I heard their whispers and I smiled when they walked by my side through the fields and woods. I relished the companionship of the dead

The Hidden Ways

Alistair Moffat