Killing Bono by Neil McCormick (Pocket Books 2004)

I always knew I would be famous.

By the time I left school, at seventeen, my life was planned down to the finest detail. I would form a rock band, make a series of epoch-shifting albums, play technologically mind-blowing concerts in the biggest stadiums on the planet until I was universally acknowledged as the greatest superstar of my era. And I would indulge in all manner of diversions along the way: make films, write books, break hearts, befriend my idols . . . oh - and promote world peace, feed the poor and save the planet while I was at it.

You might think I was just another teenage airhead with fantasies of omnipotence. Indeed, there were plenty around me at the time who did their best to persuade me that this was the case. But I wasn't about to be put off by lesser mortals jealous of my talent. Because I knew, deep, deep in the very core of my being, that this wasn't just another empty dream. This was my destiny . . . 

So there I was, thirty-five years old, sitting in a shabby, unheated little excuse for an office above a bookie's in Piccadilly, watching the rain drizzle down my single, grimy window, wondering where it had all gone wrong. I'd wanted to be a rock star and wound up becoming a rock critic. To compound my torment, I was suffering from a bad case of writer's block with my newspaper deadline looming and the fucking telephone hadn't stopped ringing all morning with a succession of PRs pestering me about their shitty rock bands, all of whom I secretly resented for, I suppose, just being more famous than me. But at least talking on the phone gave me an excuse for not writing my column.

"It better be good," I snapped into the receiver.

"This is the voice of your conscience," announced my caller in a gravelly, wasted Dublin accent that reeked of smoke, late nights and fine wines.

"Bono," I said in recognition.

"You can run but you can't hide," he laughed.

"The way I feel right now, I don't think I could even run," I sighed.

It was, indeed, Bono: rock legend, international superstar, roving ambassador for world peace and (though it is unlikely to feature prominently on his CV) a schoolfriend of mine from Mount Temple Comprehensive.

True Grit by Charles Portis (The Overlook Press 1968)

I pointed the revolver at his belly and shot him down. The explosion kicked me backwards and caused me to lose my footing and the pistol jumped from my hand. I lost no time in recovering it and getting to my feet. The ball had struck Chaney's side and knocked him into a sitting position against a tree. I heard Rooster or LaBoeuf call out for me. "I am down here!" I replied. There was another shout from the hill above Chaney.

He was holding both hands down on his side. He said, "I did not think you would do it."

I said, "What do you think now?"

He said, "One of my short ribs is broken. It hurts every breath I take." I said, "You killed my father when he was trying to help you. I have one of the gold pieces you took from him. Now give me the other."

"I regret that shooting," said he. "Mr. Ross was decent to me but he ought not to have meddled in my business. I was drinking and I was mad through and through. Nothing has gone right for me."

There was more yelling from the hills.

I said, "No, you are just a piece of trash, that is all. They say you shot a senator in the state of Texas."

"That man threatened my life. I was justified. Everything is against me. Now I am shot by a child."

"Get up on your feet and come across that creek before I shoot you again. My father took you in when you were hungry."

"You will have to help me up."

"No, I will not help you. Get up yourself."

He made a quick move for a chunk of wood and I pulled the trigger and the hammer snapped on a bad percussion cap. I made haste to try another chamber but the hammer snapped dead again. I had not time for a third try. Chaney flung the heavy piece of wood and it caught me in the chest and laid me out backwards.

He came splashing across the creek and he jerked me up by my coat and commenced slapping me and cursing me and my father. That was his cur nature, to change from a whining baby to a vicious bully as circumstances permitted. He stuck my revolver in his belt and pulled me stumbling through the water. The horses were milling about and he managed to catch two of them by their halters while holding me with the other hand.

The Graduate by Charles Webb (The New American Library 1963)

"Come on in the living room a minute," Mr. Braddock said. "You'll get to bed right after a little food."

Benjamin slid back down the stairs, stood and followed his father slowly into the living room. He dropped down onto the sofa.

"Well now," Mr. Braddock said. "Let's have the report."

Benjamin's head fell back and he closed his eyes again.

"What about the money. Did you cash my check?"

"No."

"Well what happened. Did you get some work?"

"Yes."

"What kind of work was it."

"Dad?"

"Come on, Ben," he said. "I'm interested in this."

Benjamin took a deep breath. "I fought a fire," he said.

"That big fire up there?" his father said. "You fought it?"

"That's right."

"Well that's right up there by Shasta. You must have been right up there in the Shasta country. That's beautiful country."

Benjamin nodded.

"How much did they pay you on a deal like that," his father said.

"Five an hour."

"Five dollars an hour?"

"That's right."

"They give you the equipment and you go in and try to put out the flames."

Benjamin nodded.

"Well what about the Indians. I was reading they transported some Indians up there from a tribe in Arizona. Professional fire fighters. Did you see some of them?"

"I saw some Indians. Yes."

Mr. Braddock shook his head. "That is real exciting," he said. "What else happened."

Benjamin didn't answer.

"You didn't have any trouble getting rides."

"No."

"Well tell me where you stayed."

"Hotels."

Mr. Braddock nodded. "Maybe this trip wasn't such a bad idea after all," he said. "Did you have any other jobs besides the fire?"

"Yes."

"Well what were they."

"Dad, I washed dishes. I cleaned along the road. Now I am so tired I am going to be sick."

"Talk to a lot of interesting people, did you?"

"No."

"You didn't?"

"Dad, I talked to a lot of people. None of them were particularly interesting."

"Oh," his father said. "Did you talk to some of the Indians?"

"Yes Dad."

"They speak English, do they?"

"They try."

"Well what else did you-"

"Dad, the trip was a waste of time and I'd rather not talk about it."

"Oh?" his father said. "Why do you say that."

"It was a bore."

"Well it doesn't sound too boring if you were up there throwing water on that fire."

"It was a boring fire."

It was quiet for a few moments. "Can't you tell me a little more about it?"

"Dad-"

"Let's hear about some of the people you bumped into."

"You want to?"

"Sure," his father said. "What kind of people stopped to give you rides."

"Queers."

"What?"

"Queers usually stopped," he said. "I averaged about five queers a day. One queer I had to slug in the face and jump out of his car."

"Homosexuals?"

"Have you ever seen a queer Indian, Dad?"

"What?"

"Have you ever had a queer Indian approach you while you're trying to keep your clothes from burning up?"

Mr. Braddock sat frowning at him from the chair. "Did that happen?" he said.

"Dad, for what it was worth I did the whole tour. I talked to farmers, I talked to-"

"What would you talk to them about."

"The farmers?"

"Yes."

"Their crops. What else do they know how to talk about."

Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story by Cameron Crowe

In the summer of '79, I had just turned twenty-two. I discussed the idea for this book with my New York publisher. Go back to high school, he said, and find out what's really going on in there with the kids. I thought about it over a weekend, and took the project.

I had attended Ridgemont Senior High School in Redondo Beach, California, for a summer session seven years earlier, and those eight weeks had been sublime and forbidden days, even if it did mean going to school in the summer. I normally attended a rather strict Catholic school, and there were many of us who believed that all our problems would be solved, all our dreams within reach if we just went to Ridgemont public high school.

In the fall of '79 I walked into the office of Principal William Gray and told him the plan. I wanted to attend classes at Ridgemont High and remain an inconspicuous presence for the full length of the school year. The object, I told him, was to write a book about real, contemporary life in high school.

Principal Gray was a careful man with probing eyes. He was wary of the entire plan, and he wanted to know what I had written before. I explained that I had authored a number of magazine profiles of people in the public eye.

"Like who?" he asked.

I named a few. A president's son. A few rock stars. A few actors. My last article had been on the songwriter-actor Kris Kristofferson.

Principal Gray eased back in his chair. "You know Kris Kristofferson?"

"Sure. I spent a few weeks on tour with him."

"Hell," said the principal. "What's he like?"

"A great guy." I told him a few Kris stories.

"Well now," said Principal Gray, "I think I can trust you. Maybe this can be worked out."

Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi (Seven Stories Press 2000)

Grandad started scooping water onto the stones again, ignoring his sons' protestations that they were still made of traditional Finnish hardwood. Instead he declared that they had all become idle layabouts, that Tornedalen had been conquered by knapsut and ummikot and that what he regretted most of all was not smacking them more often when they were little. But it was too late now. Nobody understood any more the feeling of sitting in a sauna where you'd been born, where your father had been born and his father before him, where the family's corpses had been washed and shrouded, where kuppari, the medicine men, had bled the sick, where children had been conceived and where generation after generation of the family had cleansed themselves after a week's work.

His voice broke and, with tears in his eyes, he announced that life, my boys, is cold and pain and lies and rubbish. Take just one example: the revolution he'd been waiting for since the Pajala transport workers came out on strike for the first time in 1931, where the hell was it, had anybody seen any sign of it around here lately, well, had they? Only once had a spark of hope been lit, one day when he'd gone to Kolari to buy some provisions, and among the crowd of customers in Valinta Firberg's he'd caught a glimpse of Josef Stalin with a cart full of meat. But Uncle Joe had obviously decided it was a waste of time coming to Pajala.

A bottle was handed to Grandad as a crumb of comfort amidst all the heat, and he splashed a drop on the stones as well. A whiff of fusel oil drifted towards us. Grandad passed on the bottle, wiped his nose on his arm and said that life was a load of shit anyway and death wasn't far away. But he was still a Communist, he wanted to make that clear once and for all, and if on his deathbed he started rambling about seeking forgiveness for his sins and asking for Jesus, it would be no more than confusion and senility and they should stick a plaster over his cakehole. He wanted everybody to promise they'd do that, here and now, in the presence of his family and other witnesses. The fear of death was nothing compared to the fear of going gaga and talking twaddle at Pajala Cottage Hospital for anybody to hear. 

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne (Random House 2008)

"Ah ha," Chips says, finding a page upon which he cameos. He adopts a whiny voice that is a bad impression of Zoe: "Jean who works breakfasts understands. She says that I am very mature for my age. She says that she has had a fluctuating waistline all her life and it's never done her any harm. She says that kids can be cruel. I told her I felt like crying in Geography when Chips said: 'I bet you eat your dinner off a tectonic plate.'" Chips looks up.

"I forgot I said that."

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White (Rosetta Books 1936)

To his surprise Iris changed the subject.

"What sort of brain have you?" she asked.

"Fair to middling, when it's lubricated. It works best on beer."

Could you write a detective thriller?"

"No. Can't spell."

"But could you solve one?"

"Every time."

"Then suppose you give me a demonstration. You've been very clever in proving Miss Froy could not exist. But - if she did - could you find out what might have happened to her? Or is it too difficult?"

Hare burst out laughing.

"I used to think," he said, "that if ever I liked a girl, I'd be cut out by some beautiful band conductor with waved hair. I'm hanged if I thought I'd have to play second fiddle to an ancient governess. Time's revenge, I suppose. Long ago, I bit one. And she was a good governess . . . . Well, here goes."

Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (W.W. Norton & Company 1959)

The breakfast ceremony at Hillcrest had never been my idea of fun. I had made one disastrous attempt to break the monotony of it, entering the room one day with my eyes shut and my arms outstretched like a sleep-walker, announcing in a shaky, echo-chamber voice: 'Ay York-shire breakfast scene. Ay polished table, one leaf out, covahed diagonally by ay white tablecloth, damask, with grrreen stripe bordah. Sauce-stain to the right, blackberry stain to the centre. Kellogg's corn flakes, Pyrex dishes, plate of fried bread. Around the table, the following personnel: fathah, mothah, grandmothah, one vacant place.' None of this had gone down well. I entered discreetly now, almost shiftily, taking in with a dull eye the old man's pint mug disfigured by a crack that was no longer mistaken for a hair, and the radio warming up for Yesterday in Parliament. It was a choice example of the hygienic family circle, but to me it had taken on the glazed familiarity of some old print such as When Did You Last See Your Father. I was greeted by the usual breathing noises.

'You decided to get up, then,' my mother said, slipping easily into the second series of conversations of the day. My stock replies were 'Yes,' 'No, I'm still in bed' and a snarled 'What does it look like?' according to mood. Today I chose 'Yes' and sat down to my boiled egg, stone cold as threatened. This made it a quarter to nine.

Miami Blues by Charles Willeford (Ballantine Books 1984)

A Hare Krishna, badly disguised in jeans, a sports shirt, and a powder blue sports jacket, his head covered with an ill-fitting brown wig, stepped up to Freddy and pinned a red-and-white-striped piece of stick candy to Freddy's gray suede sports jacket. As the pin went into the lapel of the $287 jacket, charged the day before to a Claude L. Bytell at Macy's in San Francisco, Freddy was seized with a sudden rage. He could take the pin out, of course, but he knew that the tiny pinhole would be there forever because of this asshole's carelessness.
"I want to be your friend," the Hare Krishna said, "and _"
Freddy grasped the Hare Krishna's middle finger and bent it back sharply. The Krishna yelped. Freddy applied sharper pressure and jerked the finger backward, breaking it. The Krishna screamed, a high-pitched gargling sound, and collapsed onto his knees. Freddy let go of the dangling finger, and as the Krishna bent over, screaming, his wig fell off, exposing his shaved head.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage Crime 2005)

"A left-wing magazine."

"That depends on how you define the concept 'left-wing.' Millenium is generally viewed as critical of society, but I'm guessing the anarchists think it's a wimpy bourgeois crap magazine along the lines of Arena or Ordfront, while the Moderate Students Association probably thinks that the editors are all Bolsheviks. There is nothing to indicate that Blomkvist has ever been active politically, even during the left-wing wave when he was going to prep school. VVhile he was plugging away at the School of Iournalism he was living with a girl who at the time was active in the Syndicalists and today sits in Parliament as a representative of the Left party. He seems to have been given the left-wing stamp primarily because as a financial journalist he specialises in investigative reporting about corruption and shady transactions in the corporate world. He has done some devastating individual portraits of captains of industry and politicians-which were most likely well deserved-and caused a number of resignations and legal repercussions. The most well-known was the Arboga affair, which resulted in the forced resignation of a Conservative politician and the sentencing of a former councillor to a year in prison for embezzlement. Calling attention to crimes can hardly be considered an indication that someone is left-wing.”

Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie (Vintage Contemporaries 1976)

Her hair always crackles with electricity. She puts hair spray on the brush, hoping this will cure it. George Harrison is her favorite Beatle. She never had to wear braces. She likes expensive, delicately scented soaps. Her hair is long and wavy. She was so thrilled when she got her own car, even if it was an old car. She got Bs in college. The first drink she ever tasted was at eighteen, a rum collins. Now she drinks scotch. She feels sorry for giraffes. She doesn't care what's on her pizza, as long as it isn't anchovies. She loves Caesar salad, however, and was surprised to find out that crushed anchovies were in it. She likes Jules and Jim. She thought about being a filmmaker. She saw Otto Preminger on the street. Of course she was sure. She stirred tiny slivers of meat, almonds, and vegetables in her wok, grew violets the same colors as her round, pastel bars of soap, showered in water too hot for him. She asked, once, why May Day was celebrated. She does not remember names or dates well and is not apologetic about it. She has big feet. Big, narrow feet. Butchers are kind to her, men in gas stations clean her windshield.

Starter For Ten By David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton 2003)

Walking back along the High Street after the tutorial, I see Rebecca whats-her-name and a couple of the fuckingangryactuallys that she's always hanging around with. They're thrusting leaflets into the hands of indifferent shoppers and for a moment I contemplate crossing the road. I'm a bit wary of her to be honest, especially after our last conversatron, but I've made a promise to myself to make as many new friends as possible at university, even if they glve every indication of not actually liking me very much.

'Hiya,' I say

'It's the Dancing Queen! How you doing?' she says, and hands me a leaflet, urging me to boycott Barclays.

Actually my grant money's with one of the other caring humanitarian multinational banking organisations!' I say, with an incisive wry, satirical glint in my eye, but she's not really looking and has gone back to handing out leaflets and shouting 'Fight apartheid! Support the boycott. Don't buy South African goods! Say no to apartheid! . . .' I start to feel a bit boycotted too, so start to walk away when she says, in a marginally softer voice, 'So, how ya' settling in, then?'

'Oh, alright. I'm sharing my house with a rlght pair of bloody Ruperts. But apart from that it's not too bad . . . ' I had thrown in the hint of class war for her benefit really but I don't think she gets lt, because she looks at me confused.

'They're both called Rupert?'

'No, they're called Marcus and Josh.'

'So who are the Ruperts?'

'They are, they're, you know - Ruperts', but the remark is starting to lose some of its cutting edge and I wonder if I should offer to hand out leaflets instead. After all, it is a cause I'm passionate about, and I have a strict policy of not eating South Afrrcan fruit that's almost as strict as my policy of not eating fruit. But now Rebecca's folding up the remaining leaflets and handing them to her colleagues.

'Right, that's me done for today. See you later, Toby, see you Rupert . . . ' and suddenly I find myself walking down the street side by side with her, without quite knowing whose idea it was. 'So, where're we off to now, then?' she asks, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her black vinyl coat.

The Damned Utd by David Peace (Faber and Faber 2006)

I get on the coach last and make Allan Clarke shift so I can sit next to Billy Bremner again. I try and make chit-chat. To break the ice. But Billy Bremner doesn't give a fuck about President Nixon or George Best. He's not interested in Frank Sinatra or Muhammad Ali. He doesn't want to talk about the World Cup, about playing against Brazil. Doesn't want to talk about his holidays. His family full stop. Bremner just looks out of the window and smokes the whole way down to Birmingham. Then, as the coach pulls into Villa Park, he turns to me and he says, 'If you're looking for a pal, Mr Clough, you can count me out.'

Warriors by Sol Yurick (Grove Press 1965)

Dewey did a cartwheel, the pin in his hat glittering in a circle. The Junior tried it and the war cigarette fell out of his hat. He picked it up and was about to stick it back into the band of his hat when he had an idea. He turned and ran to Hinton, kneeled, and gave it to him. Hinton took it, held it for a second, and put it into his mouth. The Junior lit it for him. Hinton puffed it once, twice, hard and cool, and then let the smoke dribble out of his mouth and nose to be caught, whipped away, and feathered into nothing by the sea wind. He pinched out the cigarette and stuck it back into The Junior's hatband. Dewey looked on and nodded. Then Dewey and The Junior took out the war cigarettes from their hatbands and gave them to Hinton who put them into a half-empty pack of his own. The war party was over. Hinton turned and began to walk to the Boardwalk. The others followed. It was understood. Hinton was now Father.