Friendship is smoothing a ruffled feather

The Peanuts Guide to Friendship

Charles M. Schulz

David Eagleman at the School of Life

Legally, a big sister can throw out a younger brother because she’s bigger than he is, and he bugs her all the time and she can do it, and I did it!!! (And if you’re smart, you won’t get involved)

The Peanuts Guide to Brothers and Sisters

Charles M. Schulz

'It’s very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who’s learning to play the violin.’ That’s what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver

Revenge of the Lawn

Richard Brautigan

The bullets came fast, too fast to feel. That’s how it should be done, each shot coming quick after the last so you can’t even try to recover, which is when it hurts

Redeployment

Phil Klay

RECIPE FOR MURDER: Throw all the ingredients into a big pot and simmer slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon for a few years. Add the ducks, chillies and brandy towards the end and turn up the heat

Recipes for Love and Murder

Sally Andrew

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