English literature

Earthly Powers

“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” Chapters […]

English literature

A Clockwork Orange

“What’s it going to be then, eh?” Part 1: Alex’s World The novel opens with Alex, a 15-year-old delinquent, and his gang of “droogs” (Pete, Georgie, and Dim) […]

English literature

The Acid House

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” — Robert Burns (epigraph often associated with Irvine Welsh’s themes) The Granton Star Cause The first story […]

English literature

Filth

“The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The same routine. The […]

English literature

Trainspotting

“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television…” — Trainspotting Part One: The Skag Boys The novel opens with a […]

English literature

Smiley’s People

“The secret services are the only real measure of a nation’s political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.” Chapter 1: The Call An elderly Russian émigré, […]

English literature

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

“The secret services are the only real measure of a nation’s political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.” Chapter 1 George Smiley, a recently retired British […]

English literature

The Magus

“I was born in 1927, the only child of middle-class parents, both English, and themselves born in the grotesquely elongated shadow, which they never rose sufficiently above history […]